From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 07:15:53 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
In-Reply-To: <199702111154.DAA16237@toad.com>
Message-ID: <33008CCE.28E0@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


John Gilmore wrote:
> Sandy hit a pothole in the moderation experiment when Mr. Nemesis
> submitted a posting containing nothing but libelous statements about
> Sandy's employer.  He never anticipated that he wouldn't be able to
> follow his announced "post it to one list or the other" policy because
> to do so would make him legally liable (in his opinion; he's a lawyer,
> I'm not).  His gears jammed, and the whole machine came to a halt for
> a few days.

Naturally he hit a pothole.  Censorship has its price, and you
folks just discovered it.  But censors never give up, do they?
Especially when there are hidden agendas.

> Sandy has agreed to continue moderation through the end of the
> original 1-month experiment (through Feb 19).  And it's a good thing,
> too, because the "cypherpunks community" had better get off its
> whining butt in the next ten days, or it will no longer exist.

John Gilmore is so disrespectful of the human beings on this list
that he whines and complains about their "attitudes", as though
he had a right to control them.  What a jerk.

> I've come to the conclusion that I'm not willing to host the
> cypherpunks list any more.  It's not the true assholes that brought me
> to this decision; it's the reaction from the bulk of people on the
> list: suspicion, flamage, and criticism with every attempt to improve
> things.  I noticed few people volunteering some of their own time,
> money, or machines to help out.  Almost all the suggestions were
> advice for *other* people to implement:

Not willing because of some additional burden?  No.  It's because you
were outed as a censor and a jerk, and you can't get back the respect
you previously had.  The sour grapes you're displaying here are worthy
of a little child, not an adult.

> Now each of these posters will get their chance to do it "right" --
> on their own time and with their own resources.

Read: I'm gonna take my bat and ball and go home...

> A large fraction of the list seems to think that "freedom of speech"
> means that everyone is required to listen to everyone else at all
> times.  That there can't be focused, topical conversations in a
> society that has freedom of speech.  I would say the opposite; part of
> freedom of speech is the freedom to choose to whom we speak and to
> whom we listen.  This is part of what cryptography does: lets us
> control who can receive our speech, and lets recievers determine who
> the speaker is.

Everything was fine until you decided to screw it up.  Then your
emotional, denying little brain trys to blame it on everyone else.

> There also seems to be a misunderstanding that freedom of speech
> requires that people who want to speak already have a place, set up
> and maintained by someone else, for them to speak in.

There are places to speak, and people try to speak in those places.
When they are cut off, then they complain.  Nobody complained before
you had an open forum that you weren't providing same.  That's your
denial kicking up, not mine.

> If someone
> who's set up a speech-place decides it isn't being used for its
> intended purpose, then they are a censor, stopping all possibility of
> conversations.  Did you forget that there are millions of other places
> to speak in cyberspace, millions more in realspace, and that you can
> personally create more if you don't like any of the ones you know about?

Intended purpose?  Did you really believe that setting up an open
forum gave you the right (or any option) to control the content?
Are you so immature that you can't handle complaints?

> To paraphrase Zappa, you wouldn't know censorship if it bit you on the
> ass.  You think you're being censored when you're just being excluded
> from a forum because what you're saying isn't interesting to that forum.

I know a lot of things, especially after they've bit be in the ass.
Especially about censors and CIA-related trolls like yourself, who
set up forums to collect info on unsuspecting American citizens.
Made any "yeti" expeditions lately?

> So anyway, I'm tired of it all.  I'd much rather focus on getting my
> crypto work done than babysitting majordomo, tracking down attempts to
> subscribe the entire US Congress to the list, and debating the seventy
> or eighty "obvious right ways" to handle the list.

Read: I need to find a new troll that's not being sabotaged by
alert citizens.

> This is a "put up or shut up" to the cypherpunks community.
> Either you list denizens will, among yourselves, put in the energy to
> build a new home for the list (and run it in whatever way your
> volunteers want) by Feb 20, or the list will cease to exist on Feb 20.

Jeez, do you have an ego or what?  Who died and made you the king?
Your only claim to fame is your equipment that's hosting the list.
Your reputation is in the toilet.  You're nobody.  In fact, you're
less than nobody.  Your best bet would be to crawl into a hole and
pull the dirt in over you.

> The next ten days of moderated discussion, through the end of the
> original experiment, will give the community a chance to discuss
> whether and where it plans to host the list after the experiment is
> over.  My feeling is that the stalkers who have been trying to shut it
> down (Dimitri, etc) will be out in full force, trying to disrupt the
> process of finding a new home.  It would be very hard to make progress
> along that line in an unmoderated list.  Cypherpunks-unedited readers
> are welcome to try.

Yet another accusation that Dimitri's purpose is to "shut it down".
The very fact that it's you who have the com puts the lie to that.

> Sandy reports that he's changing his criteria for moderation for the
> remainder of the experiment.  It was his idea, and I approve.  The
> criteria now are:

Another experiment run by the same incompetent bozo who screwed up
the first experiment.  Don't you clowns ever get it?  You do, but
then again, you have a hidden agenda.

>         *  The topics of the list are:
>                 cryptography
>                 setting up replacements for cypherpunks@toad.com
>         *  On-topic, legal, posts will go to the list.
>         *  Postings with any hint of legal liability (in Sandy's opinion)
>            will be silently ignored.
>         *  Legal but off-topic posts will go to cypherpunks-flames.
> 
> Sandy will apply these criteria retroactively to the backlog (of about
> 140 messages), which means that most recent criticisms of the
> moderation (which don't invove someone volunteering to do things for
> the list) will go straight to the flames list.  If you don't like it,
> I recommend that you start your own list.  Soon.
> 
> For me it's a sad thing that the community's willingness to pull
> together has degenerated to the point where I feel better off
> separating from the list.  I hope that others in the community will
> create one or several alternatives that work better.

So you think you've fulfilled your obligation?  There's only one
thing that will ever save you.  Get down on your knees and confess,
saying to God and the list subscribers what a pathetic sinner you
are, and beg for their forgiveness.  Then get to work for the people,
and give up trolling for the feds.