From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 09:03:17 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: cypherpunk listserve usefulness
Message-ID: <ae656d5f0f021004f264@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 2:33 PM 9/18/96, Chip Mefford wrote:
>As much as it shames me, I have recently discovered that by filtering
>messages from only 2 participants and setting body filters on 3 keywords
>have remarkably improved the usefulness of this listserve.
>
>As much as I do enjoy some of the filtered subject matter, I really feel it
>is very off subject and makes this listserver useless for the intended task.
>
>I guess that makes me a censor and it has me reexamining some things.

No, it certainly does not make you a "censor." It makes you more
_discriminating_, but this is often a good thing.

A _censor_, by all standard definitions one can find, is one who restricts
what _others_ may read. The form that concerns many of us the most is when
a government uses its monopoly on force to censor. (But the term can also
apply to when churches or corporations act as censors of what
worshipper-units or employee-units may read or view.)

I hope by "has me reexamining things" you do not mean that your experience
with filters means support for government telling us all which filters we
must use.

Certainly the CP list is undergoing one of its periodic "sunspot cycles,"
where spambots and loonies are attempting to trash it, and where the
discussions of meaty issues are being affected. We've survived half a dozen
or so such periods, and will survive this. The best way to increase the S/N
ratio is to post more signal.

--Tim May


We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."