G. Levy, now ex-pen-l, complains about the number of posts on pen-l, especially from non-economists. I don't think the relevant distinction is between economists and non-economists. After all, if Robert Barro (a superstar among economists) were on pen-l, everyone would want to shun him. And there are progressive economists, who will remain anonymous, who are obnoxious on-line. The distinction is between people who have interesting and usually-valid things to say about political economy (and related issues) and those who don't. Some non-economists fit here; some economists don't. Of course, it's very hard, if not impossible, to set up some objective standard about who is -- or is not -- saying interesting and valid things. The solution is to have one's own _personal_ "hit list" of people whose messages automatically get sent to the trash bin. Eudora does this. (Don't most e-mail programs do it?) I think having a personal hit list is much better than striking out against the obnoxious ones on-line, in public. This tactic also helps deal with the large volume of messages, except when the megaposters are also interesting. (I know that Herb Gintis championed the hit list idea in the past. However, unlike him, I'm not going to make my list so long that I'm the only one not on it.) I don't like the idea of kicking people off the list (as with Gerry, who has been obnoxious in his recent interventions on pen-l). I prefer having people simply ignore the messages of obnoxious people. If enough people ignore those messages, the obnoxious ones usually go away. It's worked in the past. I know that this is Michael Perelman's living room we're having a discussion in and that he has a right to kick out obnoxious folks from it. But I wish he'd hold back a bit. In the case of Gerry, holding back wouldn't have hurt much since (1) Louis and Doug were very good at deflecting his efforts to create a flame-war and (2) others on pen-l were responding appropriately. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
