Greetings Economists, On Jan 11, 2008, at 8:53 AM, Leigh Meyers wrote:
It's EXACTLY what listservs are for...
Doyle, I'm not sure what you mean by exactly here, but what a listserv doesn't do is provide an environment for working on a topic in the sense that wikis offer organized means of collaborating. One can't do much with a listserv except encourage people to write in. They do if they feel like it. It's a loose and disjointed process of production with no particular defining method other than topic as you indicate by your comment about bad form, and moderator keeping order and making the list interesting to read. Text to me is very difficult to work equally on. People can co-write things on a list but how to organize that in a meaningful way eludes me, other than searching an archive for what? If I were to look at blogs in relation to lists, they represent more extensive investment in personal care about what is offered up to be viewed, but carries on the same sort of chaos that listservs create by lack of focus in the brain work process. Michael's list works well enough in the limitations of the medium. I like Wikipedia for it's immense reach of topics. That to me is an indication that including various forms in a listserv is not an issue. In other words movie reviews are not 'bad form' in my view. What usually is 'bad form' is escalating to intense feelings and picking unnecessary fights. This is because the medium does not have some way to regulated or observe modulating feelings in a sense that say face to face does. These are all issues of bandwidth and limited means of producing information. And son on. I mean I could go on quite a bit, but a listerv cannot really aspire much above my previous three paragraphs, much as I would like to see a more ambitious left project get off the ground. thanks, hugs to Leigh, Doyle
