[extropy-chat] Politics

Mike Hayes l4point at gmail.com
Tue Dec 27 22:37:18 UTC 2005


http://foucault.info/foucault/interview.html

i quote-

'Perhaps, someday, a long history will have to be written of polemics,
polemics as a parasitic figure on discussion and an obstacle to the search
for the truth.'

mike hayes

On 12/27/05, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
> I don't personally believe that any of these things are needed.  The
> list is coming to a consensus slowly and organically about what types
> of political discussions have value.  I think that is a better
> overall and much more realistic solution.
>
> That said I think prefixes are very useful for sorting messages.  I
> do not favor multiple lists at all.  I have seen topics purged to
> other lists only to have some topics and discussions silenced.  It
> was not at all helpful to the community.
>
> - samantha
>
> On Dec 27, 2005, at 8:18 AM, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> >
> > On Dec 27, 2005, at 9:43 AM, Natasha Vita-More wrote:
> >> First let me state that politics is not banned on this list.
> >
> > Thanks.  This is important.  As I read back through the archives to
> > see what I missed, I see that some people have misunderstood me to
> > be calling for censorship.  I want to make it clear that I do not
> > condone censorship.  Nor, do I think anybody on this list has done
> > so.  I think everyone wants to maximize the utility of this list.
> > Unfortunately, we differ on which topics are interesting.  There
> > must be a win-win scenario that allows everyone to discuss extropy-
> > related topics without destroying anybody else's discussions.
> >
> > That is the problem.  Surely we can come up with a solution.
> >
> > Some have proposed just hitting the delete key on posts we don't
> > like.  This takes a lot of time and effort to sort through many
> > messages to delete them to find the ones we want.  Depending on
> > one's interests, the work of reading and deleting unwanted posts
> > could quickly override the value of the interesting posts.  Some
> > people also have limited time to devote to this list.  Any time
> > detracted from the interesting articles diminishes the value of the
> > list for them.
> >
> > Some have proposed using prefixes on postings.  These prefixes
> > would categorize posts with "POLITICS:", "HUMOR:", "TECH:", etc.
> > This sorts the subjects and makes it easy for people to skip the
> > categories they don't want.  Unfortunately, many people either
> > forget or refuse to do this.  Thus, the system breaks down because
> > it is not enforced or used.  So even if this system "would" work,
> > it hasn't been put in place, so it "isn't" working.
> >
> > Some have proposed filtering messages on the receiving end.  This
> > is simply not possible for many clients in many situations.  In
> > those cases where filtering is possible, it is not easy to develop
> > filters that consistently block the unwanted material while never
> > blocking the desired material.  Different people have different
> > threshholds for losing valuable messages.  I, for one, cannot
> > accept any level of false filtering.  If a filter blocks a
> > legitimate message, it is unacceptable to me.  Most of the spam
> > filters and content filters I have reviewed have a high error
> > rate.  I process over a thousand messages per day.  An error rate
> > of even 1/10th of one percent causes me to lose real mail every
> > day.  This is not acceptable to me or my business needs.  If anyone
> > has discovered filtering technology or definitions that actually
> > identify topic based on content without making mistakes, I would
> > love to hear about it.
> >
> > My favorite method for categorizing posts is to have the divided by
> > topic.  A group could have multiple lists with each list devoted to
> > a specific topic.  Continued discussion and replies automatically
> > go to the same list. People could subscribe to only those topics
> > they desire.  I do not understand what is wrong with this method.
> > However, others have objected that they feel demeaned if their
> > message is not "on-topic" for the most popular or main list.  They
> > don't want their favorite topic relegated to a 'side" list.  There
> > is also a fear that we don't have enough people or topics to
> > subdivide the list, as if the list would dwindle away to nothing if
> > we only talked about our favorite topics, and we needed to include
> > uninteresting topics to prop up the volume.  There also seems to be
> > an element of proselytizing to the audience in political or
> > religious arguments.  The promoters seem to want to deliberately
> > spread their message far and wide, even to people who don't want to
> > see it.  Such people will resist any method to categorize their
> > posts so that people can avoid them.  They insist that their posts
> > are "on-topic" and the most important topic of discussion.  They
> > sometimes even insist this to the point of disrupting other threads
> > or conversations to convert them to their more important topic.
> >
> > Does anybody have any other proposed solutions or objections to
> > proposed solutions to add to this list?
> >
> > --
> > Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
> > CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP
> >
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> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>
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