Dear Doma, Felix, and Ted
I am confused by your recurring argument that the problem with Nettime is
fundamentally technical in nature, or indeed that there is a problem with
Nettime at all. Speaking personally, Nettime works well for me. I read
interesting commentary from people I respect, with the reassurance
that I can
always add my voice to the symphony.
The fact that I do not post more often is mainly testament to the fact
that I
am busy with other responsibilities. I am sure that this is true of
others
here as well. This problem will not suddenly disappear with a shift to a
different choice of underpinning technology. In fact, it will be
exacerbated,
because although I run my own e-mail server, the tools for engaging
with the
so-called 'fediverse' are not part of my workflow. And so, a shift in
technology will inexorably induce a 'shake out' in which people are
forced to
either adopt new workflows or face exclusion. I would have thought
that the
moral foundation of Internet ethics would be incompatible with the use
of force
in this way.
As far as I know, the argument that 'fediverse' technology, such as
that used
by Hometown and Mastodon, is superior to e-mail is weak at best and
has never
been articulated to this group. As far as I know, such technology is
in the
hands of a handful of software developers and has not been subject to
the same
rigorous standardisation process of the sort that led to the
establishment of
e-mail. I suspect that most people on this list did not use e-mail
before
1977, by which point RFC 724 was already published [1]. Of course, this
standard has evolved over the years, in a direction that has benefited
the
world and is now used by billions of people. As far as I know, there
has not
yet been a comparable community-based effort to standardise the
implementation
of 'fediverse' protocols. Here, we have precisely the sort of
platform-based
tyranny by fiat that the Internet pioneers laboured to bury forever.
Finally, I find the argument that new technology can solve a
fundamentally
social problem to be absurd and somewhat hypocritical based on the
topic of
discussion on this list. While I am not convinced that the so-called
'fediverse' is a solution looking for a problem, I am also not
convinced that
it will make things better for us.
Perhaps some of the maintainers of the current infrastructure are
bored of the
job to which they volunteered, years ago. In that case, they should
step aside
and leave the task of maintaining this list to others. Surely there are
democratic and less-than-democratic ways to achieve this; let's try
something.
Perhaps a call for volunteers might be a start.
But what I can say with certainty is that if you pack up and go
somewhere else,
not everyone will follow you, and even fewer people will follow if you
neglect
to provide a solid argument for why. Whether you like it or not,
Nettime is
more than a toy project of yours; it provides a valuable service that
works.
Let's stick together.
Best wishes --
Geoff
[1] https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc724
On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 at 11:34:35PM -0100, nettime's mod squad wrote:
Dear nettimers,
Nettime was founded at a time when, as quaint as it sounds, email was
exciting.
That's long since gone for those who experienced it, let alone for
those who
didn't. Discussion-oriented mailing lists like this are, in a word,
over,
technically *and* culturally. It's time to think more attentively
about whether
or how nettime can evolve beyond email and its peculiar 'list culture.'
And it's not just email. The edifices that have displaced and
replaced lists
are on the rocks too. Twitter is widely thought to be going over a
cliff as
Facebook, already graying, sinks under the weight of its "Metaverse."
As more
and more people cast around for alternatives, net.critique has become
a bit of
a thing again.
We say: let's ditch the mailing list and start moving to the
fediverse. Toward
this end, we've set up an instance < https://tldr.nettime.org > with the
following bare-bones "about":
tldr.nettime is an instance for artists, researchers, and activists
interested
in exploring the intersections of technology, culture, and politics.
It has grown out of nettime-l, one of the longest-running mailing
lists on the
net ??? in particular, on the 'cultural politics of the internet'.
tldr.nettime is based on Hometown, a fork of Mastodon. It's
compatible with the
wider fediverse, but it also offers two tweaks we hope will help make it
unusually fruitful:
* The character count per message is higher ??? 2000 chars at the
moment.
* You can choose whether your post is public or visible only on
tldr's local
timeline and only to tldr's members.
Aside from that, everything is raw by design: it's for those who make
the move
to define what this instance will be and how we can make it useful.
This is a chance to move beyond nettime's shrinking in-group, so feel
free to
invite others. Our goal is to keep tldr to a size where the local
timeline
remains a useful tool for an actual, not rhetorical, community; how
big that is
remains to be seen.
In the longer run, we won't maintain two infrastructures, one for
email, one
for the fediverse. At some point we'll close one ??? ideally, which
one will be a
collective decision.
So, we hope this is the beginning of change in every sense, hopefully
including
some of the imbalances that have plagued the mailing list for many
years.
There's no clear path or process ahead, so this is a free-form, open
invitation
to get involved. As they say: be the change you want to see on nettime.
See you on the other side
Doma, Felix & Ted
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