I don't think that the real potential of subject line based filtering has been seen by all participants. There is no need to change the existing backbone because the process can be implemented purely by local action. Each user who didn't want to see spam or clueless posts (at least clueless posts from newbies) would filter their own email feed. On many systems this can be achieved by a simple procmail recipe; on some it might be directly supplied by email user agents (on usenet trn will do the trick, for example). All that is required is that a critical mass of particpants voluntarily decide to follow the convention. Of course if operators wish to extend the backbone with options for a pre-filtered feed, there is no objection to that in principle. > Without effecting the backbone or implimenting some sort of regular > communications channel between operators (both against the intial charter) > then all the current proposals are simply bogus. > > If the basic backbone is altered from its current status then the spammers > and those opposed to the Cypherpunk credo (and democratic thought as well) > will have won. It is a an overt admission that speech must be moderated > and that poeple in general, and technology in particular, has no solution. >
