Re: Protected archive Re: [SPAM] Re: Surfree

Mike Masnick (mdm8@cornell.edu)
Wed, 03 Jun 1998 13:04:34 -0400


At 08:36 AM 6/3/98 -0700, Dr. Ernest N. Prabhakar wrote:
>Ah, but you forget that FoRK's primary method of reproduction nowadays is
from people hitting the archive and being sucked in by one tidbit or other.
And that one of the reasons for the list's existence is to explore the
evolution of a electronic community in the fishbowl of a public archive.
>
>Protecting the archive 'a priori' is equivalent to putting up a 'no new
members' sign. We'd only get people who already know someone else, which
is hardly any fun at all.
>
>Viva the new blood!
>
>-- Ernie P.

Yeah, but when it gets to the point that having the list continue in that
manner is more of a pain than not, is it really worth it? Is this really
just an experiment or is it also something useful? I find it's more
important for FoRK to be useful than a voyeuristic fish bowl. However, I'm
not in charge, so that's a decision that needs to be made by others.

The list that I'm on that works in the manner I discussed earlier has been
happily in existence for about as long as FoRK. It's grown without much of
a problem, mostly through word of mouth. Plus, I think (with the possible
exception of Rohit's posts) that people on that list tend to be more open,
since they're not worried about some random person coming back to haunt
them with the words they've posted.

The other option, by the way, is to password protect the xent archive, and
leave the findmail archive wide open. The findmail archive does an
excellent job of hiding the email address of fork as well as all the
individuals' email addresses.

-Mike