From: cactus@bb.hks.net (L. Todd Masco)
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 94 12:36:47 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: We are ALL guests (except Eric)
In-Reply-To: <199411301931.LAA02490@netcom8.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <3bio0m$ojh@bb.hks.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In article <199411301931.LAA02490@netcom8.netcom.com>,
James A. Donald <jamesd@netcom.com> wrote:
>*Relevant* precedent and custom indicate that the list is Erics
>private property, and he may do as he pleases, wisely or unwisely.

Not true.  The more "social" a list is, the less it is considered
any individual's property.  Don't confuse ownership of the resources
with authority over other people's actions.  In a social list, it
is presumed that the maintainer gets paid in enhancement to reputation
and whatever personal good feelings she gets for serving peers.  A
purely technological list, such as bind or firewalls, is closer to
what you suggest: the maintainer is providing a service and may do
whatever he wishes.  The former involves questions like peer respect and
how one treats one's friends.

In practice, trying to force social peers to do something against their
will generates ill will.  Trying to attribute ownership of a list of
people and addresses is absurd -- let's talk about real actions and
their consequences.

Lists that come to mind are elbows, void, kabuki-west, any of -kin lists,
etc.  On at least 3 of those lists, a list maintainer tried to take
some arbitrary unilateral action and had to later back down because
nobody was willing to put up with such shit.  Most recently it was
where a maintainer decided to drop followups (messages with "Re: " in
the subject or "References:" headers)... some people are still annoyed
at the person who tried it.

It's a little more difficult in the case of c'punks where traffic includes
social, technological interest, and sociological discussions.  It
is certainly not a clear case in my mind:  Eric might be able to
pull it off without pissing too many people off, he might not.  This
discussion is part of what will determine that.

I'll make a prediction: requiring digital signatures will annoy most 
those people who are independant and don't care to be told that they
should at least ostensibly provide a strong identity/posting mapping.  I
thought that this was one of the common assumptions of this list: that
anonymity as well as pseudonymity was a goal worth achieving.  Requiring
signatures seems several steps backwards.

Of course, in the end people will vote with their feet.  Since the
list membership is available with a mere "who cypherpunks," it's
trivial to set up a "cypherpunks@netcom.com" address, for example,
that has the same membership and no signature policy.  Similarly,
as I suggested last night, such a list address could be set to
automatically sign all posts and people could be encouraged to use
that address since "otherwise their mail will be delayed."  No
mention of digital signatures need be made.
-- 
Todd Masco     | "Roam home to a dome, Where Georgian and Gothic once stood
cactus@hks.net |  Now chemical bonds alone guard our blond(e)s,
cactus@bb.com  |  And even the plumbing looks good."  - B Fuller