Hi Andy
I would defer to the software experts on this list- I know there are a number of open source asynchronous systems out there.
Blogs or weblogs started out as personal journals or musings of individuals. Some have grown a number of similar features to the ones I have suggested and which have evolved over time. I am interested in functionality more than trying to differentiate by "type". In reality many of these ideas are now merging and we are only a few baby steps away from an open source 3D conference space such as Croquet where even more flexibility will be available, including avatars.
If you can define functionality and those here can agree as to what might be desired, we can see what is available with both functionality and flexibility.
thoughts?
Andy Carvin wrote:
Hi Tom,
Are any of these tools free or open source? What would you see as the pros and cons of these tools versus having a blog capture DDN list messages?
thanks, ac
Tom Abeles wrote:
Hi Andy
Actually, this is done currently in asynchronous conferencing systems where there are a number of options. The system can notify a participant that a post has been made and you can "go to" to read and respond, sometimes the post is sent and the system can select how you can respond, either from your email or by going to the site. Each has trade-offs. These have been around. I have suggested a long time ago in a past far-far away that such a system is better than listservs because it keeps topics threaded and lets folks track only the threads of interest, while being alerted of new threads. Some asynchonous systems allow internal cross listings/linkings and other user driven features. These are over 20 years old- ancient by web time.
One of the problems with listservs with floating communities such as DDN is that few threads have a long life- short attention spans and other pressing issues tend to lead most discussions into quick, terminal, illnesses. One of the problems is that a general list often leads to ideas that go off-list on a person-to-person exchange when specifics seem better conducted in private. This says that the lists serve a number of purposes much like breaks and receptions at a conference. The social dynamics of lists are often not a subject of discussion and I am not sure if they have been or need to be studied other than for an academic.
thoughts?
tom abeles
Andy Carvin wrote:
Hi Taran,
Actually, this is something I've contemplated on and off for the last couple of years. While the current version of the DDN website doesn't allow category tagging in its blogs, we could always use Movable Type, which we have installed on the CMC website (http://cmc.edc.org). Were you envisioning that this would be done automatically, or would you expect to have a person or persons posting and categorizing each message? I imagine this would take some editorial judgment, and thus be done manually.
Anyway, it's an interesting idea; I'll talk it over with my EDC colleagues.
ac
The new DigitalDivide website is a definite step in the right direction.
It's bridging a cultural divide between email, RSS and content
management systems in a good way. There's a few things I have ideas on,
like creating a 'Digital Divide weblog' off of the list which handles
each new topic as an entry, and anything with 'Re:' in it as a response
to the entry. Why is that important? One of the main problem of
listservs is that people have to know about them. Another aspect is that
someone who is busy may not participate on the list, but they might post
a comment to a weblog entry. Accessibility.
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