X-Message-Number: 1286 Date: 09 Oct 92 00:07:22 EDT From: Charles Platt <> Subject: CRYONICS Re long messages: More than one person has suggested that if I (and other Compuserve users) don't like paying to read long messages from Internet users, I (and my ilk) should log onto a BBS which provides flat-rate or free Internet access. This answers the first point of my original message. But it does not answer the second point, which was that even if access is free, it takes a significant amount of time to download, read, evaluate, edit, and/or discard sections of very long postings. I don't like the idea of imposing any kind of limit on anything. I suggested a limit of 10 KB per day ONLY if all else failed. As I said originally, it would be much easier if people could exercise a little judgment or self-restraint. In the case of very long postings of minority interest, why not upload just a summary and invite interested readers to access the full text directly from the source? Just for the record, I did not find Edgar's multiple long postings dull or boring. But this isn't really the point. There could be many pieces of text that I might find interesting, such as excerpts from science magazines (tangentially relating to cryonics), cryonics history, news of life-extension drugs, and so on. But because of time constraints, I would like to be given the OPTION of reading this kind of material, rather than find myself FORCED to browse through it in order to locate the usual cryonet material that I do want to read. Getting back to the suggestion that I should subscribe to a cheaper service: without boring you with the details, the alternatives in my area-code are unsatisfactory for various reasons. In any case, as all libertarians are well aware, when a resource is "free," it becomes subject to various forms of abuse. Rather than have me subscribe to a free- access service, how about if everyone else subscribed to pay- per-kilobyte services? If that happened, I'm sure that the "prolix problem" would quickly take care of itself. I'm being facetious, of course. But only somewhat. --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1286