From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 10:23:17 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Response to Perrygram
In-Reply-To: <ad46777212021004135e@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <199602140212.VAA22242@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



I'll post a bit more on this because trying to lower the noise levels
around here is a matter of community importance. If you are sick of
this, kill it now, and I apologize in advance for it.

Timothy C. May writes:
> I also note that for several years Perry was clearly spending a whole lot
> more time than even I am now on the Net, making the "Top Ten Usenet
> Posters," or somesuch.

Actually, I made #19, for one month. I was between jobs at the
time. It was 1990. I was not starting my new job for several weeks and
had nothing better to in the meantime. I always posted to the right
groups, or tried to.

As I keep emphasizing, the problem is not volume. It is selection. It
is very easy for me to select only those channels of information I
want to read provided that people keep the information going into the
proper channels. This is an effort that everyone across the net has to
work on. Nothing wrong with posting PROVIDED IT IS TO THE RIGHT PLACE.

> Likewise today. No one is forced to read my posts, Perry's posts, or anyone
> else's posts. This is what filters are for. As it happens, I do *not* read
> all of the posts here. In fact, I delete about 90% of them after scanning
> the first paragraph, the subject, and the author. Takes me about 15
> seconds, tops, to do this, and sometimes I'm even faster

Kill files help a bit, but ultimately they are not a substitute for
human filters. I *do* in fact just "d" messages I don't want to read
very fast -- within seconds -- but there are still limits to how many
messages one person can process. Between this and other lists I have
to spend several seconds each on hundreds of messages a day. That adds
up fast. 300*15=75 minutes of my day. I actually do better than this,
but I figure about one hour of my life, day after day, is spent
deleting garbage. Unfortunately, there are nuggets of gold inside, but
they are becoming harder and harder to find.

As I said, if its fine to put everything everywhere, then why not have
one single newsgroup and post everything there instead of thousands of
newsgroups and mailing lists?

The reason people are upset to read about Joe's Wash and Toast on
comp.lang.c isn't that there isn't a reasonable place to read about
that, but because the content is inappropriate for the particular
place. The problem with spamming is entirely that it forces people to
waste time looking at inappropriate junk. Its fine to read about the
green-card lawyers on a newsgroup dedicated to visas (and they will
probably be flamed there for charging for something free, but thats
another story), but its a public nuisance similar to dog poop on every
square of sidewalk when you have to read about it in every other
newsgroup. Inappropriate posts are exactly like dog crap on the
sidewalk. They don't kill you, and you can just "walk around",
but after a while you get sick of dealing with it hour after hour, day
after day.

Keeping appropriate postings in appropriate places is much like trying
not to park in such a way as to take up two spaces, trying not to
track mud into your apartment building, or other forms of good
citizensship. It isn't required, no law forces you to do it, but
everyone who isn't an asshole tries to follow the social conventions
because it makes life for everyone. Yes, its your right to park such
that no one can fit in behind or ahead of you, but is it something you
really should be doing?

> I write because setting down my thoughts and exploring ideas is far more
> important to me than just about anything else I can imagine doing,
> including writing C programs. If you don't like this, learn how to use
> filters and filter me out, or leave the Cypherpunks list. Seems simple
> enough to me.

Thats fine -- you not only have the right to write everything you like
but as a good writer you should. However, not all thoughts belong
everywhere. Do you randomize your public library, or do you try to
sort it? If you have ideas about whether Uri Geller is a fraud or not,
why not post them to sci.sceptic instead of here? Why try to post
everything everywhere?


Perry