Re: upcoming internet legislation/USA

Nick Rothwell (nick@cassiel.com)
28 Mar 1999 18:35:56 -0000

> Sorry Nick, but most people seem to disagree with you on this one.

Did I miss the vote?

> Of course we don't want the list deluged with political and other
> local material, BUT it's very useful to keep our global perspective.
> If nothing else, this helps to give us all a sense of changing and
> emerging cultures within the countries and worlds of others.

I didn't think that this list was intended to cater to those too lazy,
too parochial or too stupid to watch the CNN or BBC News or subscribe
to National Geographic. Just because something's important doesn't
mean it's relevant.

I've seen a lot of mailing lists come and go in 20 odd years of being
on the ARPAnet/Internet, and every list goes through a phase where
circumstances (usually a quickly-increasing readership, or lack of
impetus from key members or moderators) bring about a marked dilution
in relevance, topicality and quality of articles. When this stage is
reached, one of two things happens: either the moderator steps in and
tightens up the mandate of the list; or the list dies as key people
leave.

> ...and you can always just hit that delete button...

The refrain of the spammer, I believe. The other thing I could do, and
will do if the situation gets worse, is just unsubscribe. Or I could
arrange for a PA newsfeed of important news (such as, say, the Kosovo
crisis) to be piped directly to the list. After all, we need to keep
our global perspective, and you can always hit delete.

Would you like this?

-- 

Nick Rothwell Cassiel.com Limited nick@cassiel.com www.cassiel.com software - electronic sound media - performance