On Sat, 8 Feb 2004, Tim Churches wrote: > Many subscribers to the Openhealth list value it as a source of > enlightened discussion ... > list does not suffer from spam, nor are there endless flame wars ... > However, some subscribers have complained, justifiably I think, that > some of the discussion threads evolve (devolve?) into arguments between > a few, often just two, protagonists ...
Tim, 1) One person's "enlightened discusssion" may very well be another person's "devolved" thread. How shall we draw the line? 2) Enlightened discussions need not always involve more than 2 willing participants. If anyone feels left out, they are free to contribute to the discussion. ... > I think that the establishment of an OpenHealth Wiki to complement the > OpenHealth list (or whatever the replacement for the current Openhealth > list ends up being called) offers a solution to this problem. As soon as > a discussion thread starts to devolve into a duologue, You mean "dialog"? > or becomes of increasingly narrow interest, then it can be transferred > to the Wiki, and any protagonists still interested can thrash it out on > the Wiki. 1) I suppose you will be the one monitoring the List to "help" us decide what constitutes "narrow interest"? 2) How shall we deal with any discussant who disagrees with you/our wise judgements? Shall we bar them from posting to OpenHealth? 3) If we adopt your proposal, how confident are you that we will reduce the number of "complaints" regarding our "enlightened discussions"? ... My view is that we should avoid any form of censorship. Furthermore, "Narrowness" is often highly desirable to clarify the subject matter. Our ability to access each other's expertise depends on our willingness to give detailed, well-reasoned, and sufficiently narrow communications through this List. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
