From: Mike Markley <mmarkley@microsoft.com>
Date: Thu, 12 May 94 10:32:23 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Cypherpunks Goals: Bad debate drives out good debate
Message-ID: <9405121633.AA10150@netmail2.microsoft.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


|
| How about auto-moderation?  I came up with this idea a while back for
| automatically moderating mailing lists.  Here's how it works:
|
| A newsgroup is set up as moderated, and the posts are emailed to the
| moderator (as usual).  The "moderator" is a mail-to-news gateway that
| posts the articles if the author isn't on the disapproved list, and
| also automatically cancels articles that don't have the right "approved"
| header and aren't digitally signed by the moderator.
|
| If a person becomes a nuisance, people send their votes in to the
| moderator-robot, and it tallies the votes. If within XXX days more thumbs
| down votes are received than thumbs up votes, the person is placed on the
| disapproved list.
|
| The main advantage is, it's fast and easy to set up.  Comments?

Sounds like a very easy scheme to break. Say I suddenly decide that I 
don't like your posts or Tim Mays posts. I can get you kicked off by 
using anonymous accounts to say that you're a nuisance. It seems to me 
that leaving the list open is better than trying to control it. An 
example of the danger of automation has already been shown on this 
list. Last week someone unsubscribed everybody using the automatic 
features of the remailer. I'd rather have access to all of the posts 
and make my own decisions about the contents rather than have a 
potential for one aggrevated individual take out some meaningful 
content because of a personal vendetta.

Mike
|
| Ed Carp, N7EKG/VE3		ecarp@netcom.com		519/824-3307
| Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.3a public key		an88744@anon.penet.fi
| If you want magic, let go of your armor.  Magic is so much stronger than
| steel!        -- Richard Bach, "The Bridge Across Forever"
|
|

=====================================================

Mike Markley <mmarkley@microsoft.com>

I'm not a Microsoft spokesperson. All opinions expressed
here are mine.
=====================================================
|