From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 14:20:05 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: ratings
In-Reply-To: <9402222202.AA29995@toad.com>
Message-ID: <9402222218.AA15490@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Robert Hayden said:
>>Forgive my ignorance, but isn't this a lot of overkill?  I mean, one
>>could simply set up a filter for subjects/people you don't want to see
>>or press the 'D' key.

You have to decide who that author is and what the subject is, first.
Therefore, as somebody said:

>Of course, the
>anonymous remailing services would prevent you from figuring out the
>true author, so you can't filter for people in the manner you
>describe.

Likewise the true subject may not be apparent either.

Ratings are a means for a group in discourse to engage in a
meta-discourse about what they wish to speak and to hear.  Some form
of this is going to be necessary to support anonymity and
pseudonymity, which breaks the current social structures which hold
together the existing meta-discourse (facial expressions, body
positions, mere presence).

Eric