My view is that ProFox OT wasn't alone, but one of *many* online communities worked by propagandists in an organized and concerted effort to sucker America and Britain into supporting war in the Middle East. It wasn't by chance that critics were heckled or that all of the clever bullshit lines our rulers could dream up was repeatedly pushed through the pipelines and onto our screens.
Sprinkled over and masking that problem was another, perhaps by chance: a flood of useless, purposeless chatter from a very few people with, to put it nicely "have way too much time on their hands". Ed's determination not to squelch free speech, laudable, doesn't have a mechanic "vote out" speaking rights for even the worst such case. These factors led to a decline in participation by more thoughtful, educated, experienced people who value their time and wouldn't surrender it to fools. The nature of an online group or organization was brought into a different light for me recently. Watching a PBS show on the digital age, the segment about Second Life included a walkabout in a large IBM office complex in Westchester NY. Just about all of the offices were empty because people are either working from home and on the road, and nowadays conduct most of their communications online, Second Life style, with virtual meetings and avatars. They say it works. Not without it's implications and consequences, the purpose of the show, but revealing and intriguing, if not compelling, nonetheless. Suggestions: 1. Ed should have a (PO box) address where members who are willing and able can contribute $ 100 a year. His time and effort should be rewarded. 2. Eventually move the group to something like Second Life in the "cloud". I'd imagine there are logs for people who can't attend in real time. I was going to add that there should be a differentiation between "speakers" and "listeners", or some way to throttle or mute attention-diverting nonsense other then individual filters, because the detriment is at the group level - but it's possible that such a mechanic is implicit in a 'virtual room' context. What are the odds that a mindless chatterbox will ante up $100 to join a virtual group, walk into it's room, sputter nonsense repeatedly, and not get "booed" off the stage? Bill > > OT was much nicer back in the days before it became > necessary to segregate the OT. > > > Well, of course - that was the main reason we had to > segregate OT. > > > -- Ed Leafe _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/5491c3bbae28431f88d2675b10dbd...@bills ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
