Hi Zack, I have heard the call for separate lists for the last 4 years. This is not a new request. I will put forward that the success of this global community is for the exact reason of NOT doing that.
But let's put that a side for a moment. Here has been my long time beef with separated discussions ... *Fragmentation* & *Redundancy* Is the needs of Mobile that much different than the needs of web? from an IxD perspective? If we are indeed about Interaction Design, doesn't it generalize across mediums more significantly than it specializes? How do we connect among different threads in such a way that doesn't re-burden the site, and how does that just not lead to a single list again? It all sounds nice to say separate lists, but when you start modeling it across different user types, it really begins to fail for more people than the current model does with specific caveats. The current web site + RSS model is not fully baked yet. There is a bigger vision that is being explored and will need time, resources (human & machine) & money to make happen. If people want to ONLY follow mobile, then heck, do that. Content can be tagged "mobile" and anyone who only wants to follow mobile can create an RSS feed that follows only that tag. For the person who wants everything, it is completely unaffected. The issue is how does the tagging occur. I would put out there that our primary tags are fairly predictable and there is auto-tagging technology out there that could easily with pretty good success tag our content on the list pretty well. Personally, I find the multi/single list aspect of our problems to be the least significant. To me, how do we have a system that encodes knowledge as separate from the conversation? How do we get to the nuggets without the "me toos" and the "flame bait" that gets in the way. If we did this, search and auto-tagging would be that much more valuable. I'm all for the conversation. it is an important if not vital part of the community, but only in real time. It is valueless after that moment of being spoken and heard. It's value is one of bridging and relating, but not part of the need of knowledge explicitly. When it comes to separate lists, the other major need is multi-lingual and multi-local. How do we learn from each other (1 of the most valuable parts of this list/community) if we are holding separate conversations, and these conversations are in different languages? Is there a need for us to have a code of moderation where people on different local/lingual lists are responsible for feeding back to global and taking from global? How does global feed the other direction more actively? I would say that there are some easy separations: Announcements (we have that already) Jobs (we probably should do this, but I have to say that a large number of people find value in these job postings, and said they wouldn't subscribe to a separate list for them though.) Things that are more content/practice/discipline related I have a harder time with personally. For the time being though, I suggest that anyone who feels that things should change and they have a strong vision of what they want to happen should create 5-10 wireframes that communicate their vision (modeling is key) and 5 slide deck explaining why their idea is better than what we got and won't create more problems and has a plan for how to achieve that vision. Feedback is great ... initiative gets things done. -- dave -- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
