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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11889