Greetings Economists, On Apr 24, 2007, at 4:43 PM, ravi wrote:
This is the point I have been trying to convince PEN-L and LBO members about. It takes only a few "digg"s to promote a submission (such as recent books by Perelman, Yates, others) to the front page. And in this case, it is not even a case of subverting the system, for each of the "digg"s (recommendations) would be a genuine one.
Doyle, Hi Ravi, I think your efforts are great myself. Like you I'm at a loss that such recommendations seem a bit hard to sell. Possibly if we talk a bit here we'll get some feedback that will nudge things another step along this path. Possible barriers? The work of doing things on line is unfamiliar. What sort of reward is in doing these things? If one looks at the social software communities a lot of that comes into being as a pleasure mostly young people are attuned to. In other words the work of doing hub work is being adopted by young people because they dig connecting to their friends on line. The work process that underlies building community develops out of desire in the general population rather than the left has a vision that could guide and build upon the tools. The work to connect erodes a culture in which tv is a great metaphor. Sit on the couch and veg out. All the media is in big corporate hands and there is nothing you can do but lie there and watch something to while the time by. The assumption is that say doing family photos is personal and disconnected from the culture. Has no value, but is fun. That sort of hub work is just 'too disconnected' from conventional organizational work. This sense of 'no value' is pervasive. A lot of the work people do, Louis is an example are essays that assume very little interaction. That's standard left wing brain work. A nice well formed piece of writing that inertly gets posted. One can pull up some day and so on. Wikipedia articles as a community work process get quite an editing process that constantly subjects an essay to revision. Why not do that work on Pen-L? The work process of sharing something is still really new and old habits inhibit taking this to another more abstract level than just playing and noodling that the general public likes about doing YouTube. I don't think people quite take that a kind of labor yields a kind of community process that is broader, more powerful than traditional community processes. Me included. I move a lot slower than my ideas indicate. What's needed? A discussion here amongst more than just you and me and a clearer long term goal. I think the goals ought to be debated and proposed and acted on. Not doing that is why it doesn't happen. But it means unlimbering muscles not used much. Seeing that work like writing is really a community process, not individual smart people showing what they have worked hard to gain and understand. Doyle
