X-Message-Number: 11889
Subject: List splitting
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>
Date: 04 Jun 1999 13:32:33 -0400

Perhaps I haven't been clear enough.

For a very long time, a group of individuals who very much enjoy
debating on a topic not directly related to cryonics have been posting 
message after message after message. 

I will not argue about the merits of their discussion -- I'm sure they
all believe their comments to have been pearls of great wisdom.

However, for many of us, trying to slog through the muck to find
messages about *CRYONICS*, the supposed topic of this forum, has
become nearly impossible.

This will not be solved by special headers, imaginary client side
software, or anything simpler. The best solutions to such problems are
usually low tech, and the simplest and easiest solution in my opinion
is not moderation of the list or anything else, but simply to provide
a forum for off topic discussions where those who are interested can
chat with each other to their hearts content without bothering the
rest of us. 

Frankly, however, I don't care what mechanism is used. I just want to
see those messages gone.

I've been unable to read Cryonics for literally years now because of
the inexhaustible arguments going on. I've decided that if the list is
not divided, I will leave. Period. I only saw Mike Darwin's rather
significant recent message by accident -- lord knows what valuable
information I've missed amidst the drek -- and when things are that
bad, its time to go.

Those of you who scream to keep things as they are, well, you'll get
to have them as they are *without me*. I'm sure none of you care, but
I'll point out that I'm pretty much the exact opposite of a canary in
a coalmine -- I'm likely one of the last people to get out of a
mailing list because of volume and content. I get literally something
like two thousand mail messages a day. If I'm going because of noise,
it means anyone sane left a long time ago.

By now, the ability of the Cryonics mailing list to serve as a useful
forum for dissemination of information and news about cryonics has
been long dead. Certainly the ability of the list to convince
newcomers to get interested in cryonics is long dead.

If anyone wants to see these functions return -- if anyone would like
a list about CRYONICS -- then the list has to change. If it doesn't
change, I'm going.

That's my last word on the topic.


Perry

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