From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 11:10:46 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: coderpunks not elite
Message-ID: <199604251714.KAA22305@jobe.shell.portal.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
> Well, I was not invited to join the elite and secret coderpunks list, but I
> still have some thoughts on coding and, especially, on the opportunities
> offered by Java.

As far as I know, the coderpunks list is neither secret nor elite.  I
joined it about a month ago, andd there wasn't any problem.  Just send
mail to majordomo@toad.com saying "subscribe coderpunks".  It's just as
easy as cypherpunks.

According to majordomo, coderpunks has 355 subscribers, compared to 1284
for cypherpunks.  These numbers are hardly representative of an elite
list.

The biggest difference between the lists is volume.  Some days coderpunks
gets a dozen or more messages, but for the last two or three days for
example there haven't been any at all.

The other difference of course is that coderpunks is for technical
discussions.  Where philosophy comes up it is more in terms of issues of
security and reliability than politics.

I do share Tim's concern about the political views of coderpunks
subscribers.  Despite the "punks" in the name it seems to be somewhat
more of a mainstream group.  Nevertheless I am determined to act as
though the group favors unlimited access to privacy tools by individuals
and to post under that assumption.  If it comes to the point that someone
complains there may have to be some air clearing but I don't think it's
likely to come up.

If the archives at hks.net ever come back people could take a look and
see if they would be interested in subscribing.  Mostly the discussions
are pretty dry.  A lot of them are on specific issues that are of
interest probably to only a few people.  It remains to be seen really
whether the list can sustain itself.  This has been the problem in the
past with offspring lists.

Cypherpunks continues to have a lot of vitality.  What I object to most
is the back and forth arguments people get into.  I don't mind reading
one message off-topic, but to have the thread drag on for days, with
dozens of messages, is wasteful.  People should just make their points
and let them stand.  They shouldn't feel they have to keep coming back
and refuting the other guy.

Hal