The clue-cows manifesto

• Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 14:13:30 PST
• From:
  Jay Carlson <nop@ccs.neu.edu>

I guess I haven't mailed this out for some time.  Aside from CCS
totally breaking python for a week and me going to conferences that
last 5 days, clue-cows has run smoothly for, what, at least a year
now.

Except for me just forwarding that message from boston-raves.  Oops.

The clue-cows manifesto
=======================

A number of my friends have unsubscribed from moo-cows due to either
high volume, or low signal-to-noise ratio.  I started clue-cows
because I realized I was forwarding messages for them.

What clue-cows is
-----------------

Clue-cows is a forwarding service I provide for selected moo-cows
articles.  I forward the messages I consider interesting to its list
of subscribers.

Clue-cows is effectively a low-tech filtering mechanism.  See below.

What clue-cows is not
---------------------

Clue-cows is not a mailing list.  That is, you can't send mail to it.
The only things sent on it are messages that have already appeared on
moo-cows.

This implies that you don't need to be subscribed to both.

Clue-cows is not a Power Elite plot.

What I forward
--------------

I'm not very objective.  I have a strong bias towards people who are
very well known in the MOO community.  I like answers more than
questions.  I like technical issues more than social issues on one
particular MUD.  I tend not to look at messages that aren't formatted
and spelled nicely.

Your recourse
-------------

If you're a subscriber and you think I'm not doing a good job, you
have (I think) three choices.

1) You could whine at me.  Not likely to be effective.

2) You could unsubscribe to clue-cows and resubscribe to moo-cows;
after all, you won't miss anything.

3) You could start your own forwarding service.  Yes, this means that
you'd have to subscribe to moo-cows again, but you'd be doing *your*
friends a favor.

Option 3) is why I claim this isn't a Power Elite plot.  My influence
is exactly equal to how much people respect my opinion of what's
important.

Technical issues
----------------

Clue-cows is currently implemented by an amazing pile of software
written in python, perl4, mh, and elisp.  Forwarded messages will
still appear to be To: moo-cows@parc.xerox.com; the only indication
that a message is from me are "Resent-From: clue-cows" and
"Resent-Date:" headers.  If you're filtering moo-cows with slocal or
zinc, you probably don't need to change a thing.

This is a primitive filtering system.  Of course, what I'd really like
is a Seals Of Approval (SOAP) implementation for mailing lists, but if
you know of any better solution than I have now, please let me know.

How to subscribe
----------------

Send mail to `nop@nop.com'.  Yes, there's a human at that address.  If
you'd like the rather sporadic digest version, mention that.
-- 
Jay Carlson    nop@nop.com    nop@kagoona.mitre.org

Flat text is just *never* what you want.   ---stephen p spackman

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