Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[mdthomas AT mindspring.com]

>How would they be anonymous, and what 
>would they be encouraging or discouraging? 

A voting mechanism at a per-message level...
Basically, lyris would catch the "vote" and
tabulate it. Enough votes would result in
an email that communicates these votes.

>I have this weird vision of posting a 
>dissenting opinion to the list and, three or 
>four days later, getting a note telling me 
>that three out of five readers discourage me. 
>And what would my response be then? 

Well, the other two out of five readers could
encourage you. That would just mean that you
were able to provoke a reaction out of everyone,
which I'd judge as commendable. How you would
react to that would be up to you, but it kinda
assumes that people would rather be encouraged
than discouraged.

...In short, it's a feedback mechanism. When
I'm talking to someone, I can get a good feeling
about whether or not they like what I'm saying.
In email it's not so easy... Something like
this may or may not help, but it *is* a context-
free way of addressing the "what's the list
for" problem.

>I get to be homecoming queen? ... actually, I 
>kinda like that idea. I've always wanted a 
>tiara. Laaa!

Hmmm. we don't have a homecoming queen for the
next gathering... :-)

An appropriately encouraged post could be saved
off to the web site, like Ragingbull does. Also,
the mechanism can work with only encourages (or
only discourages, for that matter, but I don't
think that would be any fun.)

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