A Simple Solution For Wanna-Be Censors

Mon Oct 27 07:09:19 PST 2003

It's not that hard to stop "unsolicited" posts to BayLISA.

It's really simple.

Paid subscriptions.

If you want to subscribe to BayLISA, you need to give BayLISA money, on 
a yearly basis.

This would easily filter out all the spam, so that one did not need to 
put any filtering mechanisms in place.

It would also filter out all the undesirables ... at least, until they 
showed up and coughed up some cash, putting the organization's officers 
in the uncomfortable position of rejecting membership of certain 
applicants, based upon ... what? Political affiliation? Lack of 
political affiliation? Eye color? I'm sure something can be devised; 
although I don't know if it would stand up in court, or if it would 
result in the organization being disbanded, for inability to follow 
California laws.

Of course, there are some dangers associated with this plan.

One possible outcome is that everyone will agree that it's not worth the 
money being demanded by BayLISA's keepers, to subscribe; there is no 
real value here, just gossip and back-slapping and the like.

A second possible outcome is that everyone will pony up the cash and 
nothing will change, except that there will be no basis for excluding 
anyone, as everyone is a paying guest. Boy, wouldn't -that- be annoying.

A third possibility is that this #1 possibility has already happened, 
and the result was so disappointing that the organization reverted to 
its original, so-called 'free' posture (where 'free' is redefined, as 
needed) ... and this is why no one has suggested it as a solution ... 
because they tried that five years ago, and it failed miserably.

Regards,

Richard Childers / Senior Engineer
Daemonized Networking Services
https://www.daemonized.com
(415) 759-5571