Re: Hacktivism List Proposal 2.0

From Stefan Wray <swray@io.com>
Date Sat, 30 Oct 1999 03:19:49 -0500
In-reply-to <3819D6C6.CA020080@tao.ca>


[: hacktivism :]

Greetings.

I read through the entire proposal.
Then I read it again.
Couldn't find anything problematic.

Implement at will...

I do have one idea.
I'm not too attached to it.
But maybe it is worth mulling over.

Maybe there could be a dump or graveyard
for unposted messages

Net archaelogists or digital dumpster divers
might be intrigued by looking through 
this hacktivist debris and detritus.

Maybe some net.artist will cull fragments
for a collage of some sort.

On a serious note, it would be a way to have
a system of checks and balances.

Others could root around in the hacktivist trash
to see if moderators perhaps overlooked a jewel. 

Who knows? The trash could even spawn its own
culture of trash pickers and recyclers.

Here is a scenaro. 

Say someone trys to post lines of code to the list.
Well according to the rules, lines of code would 
probably be trashed.

But maybe some trash picker comes along and finds
the discarded code in the hacktivist graveyard,
and voila! It becomes the seed of thought
for something incredible and completely unexpected.

Or another scenario. 

Say someone writes things that
are clearly illegal and pointing down the road to peril.
Well, that message wouldn't get posted to the list.
But if the message ended up in the dump, some rogue
warrior scavenging through piles of "me toos" and 
newbie interrogations might find it and get 
a brain fart for a new scheme.

By putting things in the dump, list moderators
would be making sure they stayed within policy
and especially not jeopradizing the security of TAO.
But at the same time, such unwanted information
would be thrown somewhere for posterity.

The dump could merely be a web-based list
{obviously nothing that would be send by email} 
or even an old-style ftp site.

Anyway, I've often found very interesting things
in the trash, things that no one else wanted 
anymore, but I found a use for.

In our effort to harness a more rigorous 
list culture
let's not forgot our trash culture

So in addition to not being ageist, ableist, racist, etc,
let's not be trashist.

Just throw it in its proper place:
The permanent digital dustpin of hacktivist history.

That's all.


- Stefan

PS. I've not been smoking.

PPS. I guess I'm arguing for some transparency.
>From time to time, I'd like to look at what gets tossed out.


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