From: T. William Wells <bill@twwells.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 93 16:40:43 PDT
To: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: my aps
In-Reply-To: <9308182123.AA18807@netcom5.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9308181846.AA01552@twwells.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Timothy C. May writes:
: I can readily see why Bill would like to have some limits (imposed by
: _him_...a pure marketplace decision!) on anonymity. After all, some
: sickos might literally post "Jump!" messages to those on the verge of
: suicide. (I am not being facetious or sarcastic here...I mean this
: quite seriously.)

They have. That, unfortunately, is outside of what I can do, since
that would require continuous monitoring and would simply be
impracticable. Yesterday's e-mail flow, for example, containe 161
messages and came to 433283 bytes. Even allowing for 1K for each
header, that's 272K of data. We're talking a small novel here!
And it would slow things down tremendously; I have to sleep some
time!

Some examples of what I do: One woman posted a message saying
that she was afraid that she might be killed by her step-father.
At that time, I grabbed her e-mail address from the database and
put it elsewhere so that if she disappeared without saying
farewell, I could initiate inquiries (thankfully, she didn't).

More recently, someone posted a very strange message that either
came from an abuser or from someone in a very scary and confused
place. I checked out the e-mail address and discovered that it
was the latter (that person also using a different id on my
service). Then, I added a trap into the service to see if anyone
would send e-mail to the new id because, almost certainly, anyone
responding to that message in e-mail would have to be an abuser.
(No one did.)

More ambiguously, I know of one person who is playing some
serious mind games with the group. That's the sort of thing
that's a real test because it's next to impossible to say what
the motive is behind the games. He might be an abuser or he might
be just making a play for sympathy. So far, the only action I've
taken has been to explain some of the facts to a couple of others
and ask them whether I should begin monitoring this person. (So
far, they've said no.)

: Other services should be free, of course, to have different policies.
: Those who want anonymity in anything they may say, including "Jump!,"
: are free to patronize such services.

Yup. I'm actually glad that there are other services. I can tell
people where the limits are and not feel like I'm excluding them
thereby.

: An excellent example of why and how specialized cyberspace services
: (like remailers) will develop various strategies. In a sense, Bill is
: acting as a filter, or a paternal figure (not meant pejoratively), for
: his clients.

Sorta. I can't guarantee safety but I can be a lot more
sympathetic to the needs of this specific community.

: > automatically. Shortly, people will be able to specify by id who
: > they do or do not get e-mail from.
:
: This is exciting! Specialized "agents," the wave of the future.

I guess so, though I don't think of it that way. What I do is
listen to the needs of the community and respond to them when I
can. What I described is something people have been wanting to do
for a long time.

: > As to my thoughts on the relevant principles. As I mentioned, I
: > am an Objectivist. That may clue you as to where I'm coming from.
: > But in case not, the primary fact is that I'm offering a
: > *private* service. I run it out of my home, using my phone lines,
: > and paid for with my money. While I offer it to all on the
:
: Many of us were strongly influenced by Rand (and even those who hate
: Rand, including some of my closest friends and Cypherpunks colleagues,
: understand the importance of freedom in market dealings).

Those who have been turned off by Rand and the Randroids may want
to check out the Bitnet Ayn Rand list. It's polite, arguments
from authority are not allowed, serious disagreement with
Objectivist dogma occurs, and there are a number of professional
philosophers, not to mention a new member, Dr. Branden (yes, that
one), to make life interesting.

:                                     And if I was running one of these
: abuse-related remailers (something about "ASAR," I recall), I suspect
: I'd have the same policy you have.

The group my server for is ASAR, for alt.sexual.abuse.recovery.

: Anonymity should not be forbidden by law, but it can (and sometimes
: should be) filtered by agents of the subscribers. If they don't like
: the way the filtering is done, they can try another service.

Exactly. And I have two competitors to keep me honest already,
not to mention any number of potential competitors.

: I hope you continue to contribute your ideas to our list.

Well, I didn't know the list existed until someone cc'd a message
to me into the list. What is this list and why would I want to
subscribe?