Re: Future of the list / Questions?
Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 05:42 PM Wednesday 10/22/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 22, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: One problem is that compared to an e-mail list like this, most of the web-based communities have too rigid a structure, while this is much like an informal conversation where one person says something and then someone else responds, etc., and there may be different individual conversations going on between subsets of the group at the same time, etc. And too rigid a structure can be a community-killer, as I've seen happen more than once over more than 25 years. Online communities that rely on the technology to structure the communication too tightly, as well as the ones that are very strict on enforcing topicality, tend to have low populations, and going from less structure to more structure or radically altering the technology base of the community can trigger population crashes as people are driven off by the hassle factor. The e-list format does very much resemble a conversation, as well as some degree of cross-pollination between conversation threads, and the blog format can sometimes isolate the topical threads *too* much. That was the objection on the other list, including the fact that a small group would choose the topics of the various blog threads and approve all responses. (The e-mail list was and is moderated, but as it happens many of those who had been on the list for 10 years or better had also known each other in RL beginning as much as 25 or more years ago, while those who were going to be in charge of the blog system were by comparison relative newcomers. (Yeah, it's complicated, and I'm trying to avoid compromising some peoples' privacy by not going into all of the specifics . . . )) Also, as someone has mentioned, many people prefer having the messages come to them (as on a list like this) rather than them having to remember to look somewhere else for them . . . Now, this isn't necessarily a problem if you set the RSS feed up right. (I follow several online communities from my mail client, which can import RSS feeds along with mail accounts. Which mail client would that be, if you don't mind saying? Using Mozilla Thunderbird here, for the same purposes. And actually, I'm following the list on gmane, with the NNTP/news interface, so as not to clobber my inbox. I love gmane (http://gmane.org). /c ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
- Original Message - From: Kevin B. O'Brien [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:29 AM Subject: Re: Future of the list / Questions? I've been through this a few times, and my experience is that moving to a web-type forum generally means the end of the community. Sometimes I think that is the intention (I'm getting too much e-mail, how can we cut it down?). I have a quote in my sig file that goes A university is what a college becomes when it stops caring about its students. I think a corollary should be that a web forum is what a discussion list becomes when people stop caring about the conversation. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL Somebody mentioned a while ago that there are currently two Brin Lists, three if you count David's blog. Was an argument about the list's format the reason for the split? I had a look at the site for the other list yesterday and I note that the volume of posts there is pretty light compared to here. William you are member of both, and you plug the weekly chat forum is that a fourth Brin List? Is binary fission the answer to list longevity I wonder? If there were 20 Brin Lists each claiming to be the original, you might imagine that at least one would find the right formula and continue on into the distant future. Regards, Wayne. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 12:40 PM, Wayne Eddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Somebody mentioned a while ago that there are currently two Brin Lists, three if you count David's blog. Was an argument about the list's format the reason for the split? I had a look at the site for the other list yesterday and I note that the volume of posts there is pretty light compared to here. The other list was started by a person who was so disruptive, including trying to hack into my server, that he was banned from the list. He is the only person we have banned, as far as I know (other than some spammers who tried to post right after joining). I can't even think of anybody else we have ever put on moderation (although all new users are automatically moderated until we feel confident that they are not just spammers and such). I'm not sure exactly what David B.'s attitude is toward the other list, but he is subscribed, albeit filtered, to this one. David only sees messages whose subject starts Brin:. William you are member of both, and you plug the weekly chat forum is that a fourth Brin List? A chat isn't a list and vice versa. Is binary fission the answer to list longevity I wonder? If there were 20 Brin Lists each claiming to be the original, you might imagine that at least one would find the right formula and continue on into the distant future. This one has been around far longer than any other. Its future rests mostly in the hands of the participants. My attitude has always been to err on the side of letting the community regulate itself. Now if I could just get PHP to work properly on the serve, I'd be most of the way to getting the blog mirror working. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On 23 Oct 2008, at 20:40, Wayne Eddy wrote: Somebody mentioned a while ago that there are currently two Brin Lists, three if you count David's blog. Was an argument about the list's format the reason for the split? I had a look at the site for the other list yesterday and I note that the volume of posts there is pretty light compared to here. There was argument involved, but not about the list format. William you are member of both, and you plug the weekly chat forum is that a fourth Brin List? The chat is a complementary forum that has coexisted with the email lists since the original list was hosted at Cornell. I volunteered to take over running it a few years ago when the original computer service became unavailable. Is binary fission the answer to list longevity I wonder? If there were 20 Brin Lists each claiming to be the original, you might imagine that at least one would find the right formula and continue on into the distant future. This is the 'original' Brin List in the sense that it is the direct successor to the original Cornell list. Identity Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Theists cannot be trusted as they believe that right and wrong are the arbitrary proclamations of invisible demons. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
Nick Arnett wrote: I'm not sure exactly what David B.'s attitude is toward the other list, but he is subscribed, albeit filtered, to this one. David only sees messages whose subject starts Brin:. Not counting times when He uses a sock puppet just to see if we are still worshipping Him in His absence :-))) Alberto the paranoid ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 21, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Wayne Eddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. As long as the email interface persists, please. I like the fact that it comes to me, rather than my having one more place to go to check out the goings-on. Several communities of which I've been a part have threatened to go all-web (for various reasons) and the practically universal response has been but keep the emails coming. Which puts me a bit at odds with my employer, probably, since we make our living by running web-based communities. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 21, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Wayne Eddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. As long as the email interface persists, please. I like the fact that it comes to me, rather than my having one more place to go to check out the goings-on. Several communities of which I've been a part have threatened to go all-web (for various reasons) and the practically universal response has been but keep the emails coming. I suspect that's why there's been such little move to go set up web forums in one of my RL communities. I mean, who wants to deal with that when you can just sit there and hope that Julia sets up a Yahoo group for it? :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
At 01:01 AM Wednesday 10/22/2008, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 21, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Wayne Eddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. As long as the email interface persists, please. I like the fact that it comes to me, rather than my having one more place to go to check out the goings-on. Several communities of which I've been a part have threatened to go all-web (for various reasons) and the practically universal response has been but keep the emails coming. This happened a few months ago on another list I am on. The list owners presented it as a done deal that the e-mail list would be terminated and replaced by a blog-type forum run by the officers of the organization on such-and-such a date. (IIRC less than two weeks after the first mention of it to list members.) After many people stated that they preferred the e-mail list, and were told No, and long time members of the list made their good-byes, those in charge changed their minds and re-started the e-mail list. Which puts me a bit at odds with my employer, probably, since we make our living by running web-based communities. One problem is that compared to an e-mail list like this, most of the web-based communities have too rigid a structure, while this is much like an informal conversation where one person says something and then someone else responds, etc., and there may be different individual conversations going on between subsets of the group at the same time, etc. Also, as someone has mentioned, many people prefer having the messages come to them (as on a list like this) rather than them having to remember to look somewhere else for them . . . . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 22, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: One problem is that compared to an e-mail list like this, most of the web-based communities have too rigid a structure, while this is much like an informal conversation where one person says something and then someone else responds, etc., and there may be different individual conversations going on between subsets of the group at the same time, etc. And too rigid a structure can be a community-killer, as I've seen happen more than once over more than 25 years. Online communities that rely on the technology to structure the communication too tightly, as well as the ones that are very strict on enforcing topicality, tend to have low populations, and going from less structure to more structure or radically altering the technology base of the community can trigger population crashes as people are driven off by the hassle factor. The e-list format does very much resemble a conversation, as well as some degree of cross-pollination between conversation threads, and the blog format can sometimes isolate the topical threads *too* much. Also, as someone has mentioned, many people prefer having the messages come to them (as on a list like this) rather than them having to remember to look somewhere else for them . . . Now, this isn't necessarily a problem if you set the RSS feed up right. (I follow several online communities from my mail client, which can import RSS feeds along with mail accounts. Getting xkcd in my morning email is a delightful thing to wake up to. :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 22, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: Also, as someone has mentioned, many people prefer having the messages come to them (as on a list like this) rather than them having to remember to look somewhere else for them . . . Now, this isn't necessarily a problem if you set the RSS feed up right. (I follow several online communities from my mail client, which can import RSS feeds along with mail accounts. Getting xkcd in my morning email is a delightful thing to wake up to. :) I'm getting new entries for one blog e-mailed to me. I usually click on the link to take me to the blog site because it's prettier than the e-mail, and if anyone's left a comment, that's how I'll see it, but if I didn't care about the aesthetics or comments, I could just read the e-mails and leave it at that. (The folks running that particular blog did *not* want an LJ syndication set up for it, and once I looked at the website and found out I could get new entries e-mailed to me, I signed up for that, so I'm still in my only one site to check for everything not in e-mail state.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
At 05:42 PM Wednesday 10/22/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: On Oct 22, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: One problem is that compared to an e-mail list like this, most of the web-based communities have too rigid a structure, while this is much like an informal conversation where one person says something and then someone else responds, etc., and there may be different individual conversations going on between subsets of the group at the same time, etc. And too rigid a structure can be a community-killer, as I've seen happen more than once over more than 25 years. Online communities that rely on the technology to structure the communication too tightly, as well as the ones that are very strict on enforcing topicality, tend to have low populations, and going from less structure to more structure or radically altering the technology base of the community can trigger population crashes as people are driven off by the hassle factor. The e-list format does very much resemble a conversation, as well as some degree of cross-pollination between conversation threads, and the blog format can sometimes isolate the topical threads *too* much. That was the objection on the other list, including the fact that a small group would choose the topics of the various blog threads and approve all responses. (The e-mail list was and is moderated, but as it happens many of those who had been on the list for 10 years or better had also known each other in RL beginning as much as 25 or more years ago, while those who were going to be in charge of the blog system were by comparison relative newcomers. (Yeah, it's complicated, and I'm trying to avoid compromising some peoples' privacy by not going into all of the specifics . . . )) Also, as someone has mentioned, many people prefer having the messages come to them (as on a list like this) rather than them having to remember to look somewhere else for them . . . Now, this isn't necessarily a problem if you set the RSS feed up right. (I follow several online communities from my mail client, which can import RSS feeds along with mail accounts. Which mail client would that be, if you don't mind saying? . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 22, 2008, at 7:04 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: Also, as someone has mentioned, many people prefer having the messages come to them (as on a list like this) rather than them having to remember to look somewhere else for them . . . Now, this isn't necessarily a problem if you set the RSS feed up right. (I follow several online communities from my mail client, which can import RSS feeds along with mail accounts. Which mail client would that be, if you don't mind saying? . . . ronn! :) Apple Mail. (I'm very much a Mac person, currently considering expanding into Linux for home server and possibly CNC machine controller applications, but for my personal machine, OS X only.) :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
Julia Thompson wrote: I'm getting new entries for one blog e-mailed to me. I usually click on the link to take me to the blog site because it's prettier than the e-mail, and if anyone's left a comment, that's how I'll see it, but if I didn't care about the aesthetics or comments, I could just read the e-mails and leave it at that. (The folks running that particular blog did *not* want an LJ syndication set up for it, and once I looked at the website and found out I could get new entries e-mailed to me, I signed up for that, so I'm still in my only one site to check for everything not in e-mail state.) I've been through this a few times, and my experience is that moving to a web-type forum generally means the end of the community. Sometimes I think that is the intention (I'm getting too much e-mail, how can we cut it down?). I have a quote in my sig file that goes A university is what a college becomes when it stops caring about its students. I think a corollary should be that a web forum is what a discussion list becomes when people stop caring about the conversation. Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux User #333216 Paid for by the Tirebiter for Political Solutions Committee, Sector R. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Future of the list / Questions?
Has anyone thought much about the future list? What it will be or should be like in 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 years time? Are people joining leaving at an accelerating, decelerating or constant rate? Is its demographic changing over time? Has its purpose changed over time? Should its purpose be restated? (I haven't noted a lot of Discussion about the Killer B's or Vernor Vinge since I joined.) Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? Regards, Wayne Eddy ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Wayne Eddy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Wayne Eddy wrote: Has anyone thought much about the future list? What it will be or should be like in 5, 10, 20, 50 or 100 years time? Are people joining leaving at an accelerating, decelerating or constant rate? Is its demographic changing over time? Has its purpose changed over time? Should its purpose be restated? (I haven't noted a lot of Discussion about the Killer B's or Vernor Vinge since I joined.) Should it move to a newer type of platform? Facebook or a wiki maybe? Does the list have a life of its own? Does it somehow attract the type of member that will enable it live forever? Are monotonous posts and trolls and heated discussions the way it has found to survive? Regards, Wayne Eddy There's an interesting sort of social dynamic to successful online forums that seems to have been fairly constant since the dialup BBS days -- I notice a lot of commonalities between an unusually successful local BBS I used to frequent back in the dialup days, and many modern social-networking communities and e-lists like this one. Based on that, I think the medium the forum resides in is only a superficial aspect of the community -- focus on the people, and on bringing in people who are both the kind of people you want to attract and, to some extent, the people who attract others of that type as well, and most of the other problems solve themselves. It may just be the fact that I've lived close to Internet-related technology for a lot longer than most people, but I've never seen the technology itself as a raison d'etre for an online community. The technology facilitates communication, but never perfectly, and never in such a way that there isn't room for improvement. Email is a good medium for writers -- the one population not particularly vulnerable to email's known limitation of filtering out nonverbal communication cues that keep offhand humorous quips from being treated as hideous insults and mortal threats -- and literate readers, whom I tend to think of as just extremely non-prolific writers in disguise. But there are other media that would work equally well. (Facebook probably isn't one of them, from my experiences with it, as it tends to provide a sort of canned sociality that facilitates social activity between people who have difficulty navigating both the technology and the social conventions, but tends to get in the way of more meaningful social interaction by reducing it to a sort of video game. Same complaints about Myspace, never liked either of them much. LiveJournal stays out of the way somewhat more, and as a matter of fact, at least two of my favorite communities are LJ communities, but again, it's only a medium, not the message.) LiveJournal does provide an article/comments structure that e-list communities handle more in terms of email threads (and some mail reader clients don't handle those as well as others, and sometimes servers regurgitate old posts, etc.), so that might be a good model to look at in terms of better supporting the *style* of communication the community prefers, but still, people first, technology as needed to support the people. IMHO, trolling and monotonous posting are self-limiting problems. I've dealt with them in e-list communities in which I've been a mod or owner, and while new members may be more inclined to feed trolls and pour fuel on flame wars, for the most part, these are behaviors that mature community members eventually learn to help control, if by no other means than ignoring the posts/comments that tend to generate more heat than light. Media that provide more tools for depriving a flame war of fuel (like placing the more intemperate commenters on temporary moderated status, etc.) can help somewhat in that respect, but can also make it hard to strike the delicate balance between moderation, facilitation, and censorship. I'd rather live with the signal/noise ratio and decide for myself what's signal and what's noise than have someone try to protect my delicate little ears/eyes .. the latter is often a hallmark of *unsuccessful* online communities, and tends to kill successful ones too when it's over-applied. That's for starters. I've thought about this for at least 25 years, so there's a lot more in my head that hasn't bobbed to the surface yet .. :D ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
- Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:46 AM Subject: Re: Future of the list / Questions? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick Good idea. William can do a blog on 'Why Religion is Evil'. John can do a blog about 'Why Interference in the Free Market is Evil' etc, etc. and list members can read up on the topics they are interested in as they desire. Should make everyone happy. Regards, Wayne. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Oct 21, 2008, at 4:07 PM, Wayne Eddy wrote: I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick Good idea. William can do a blog on 'Why Religion is Evil'. John can do a blog about 'Why Interference in the Free Market is Evil' etc, etc. and list members can read up on the topics they are interested in as they desire. Should make everyone happy. Regards, Wayne. Can even make them sticky, so people who want to discuss those subjects can find the current discussion easily. :) - (also believes religion is evil, but for possibly much more personal reasons) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
At 04:07 PM Tuesday 10/21/2008, Wayne Eddy wrote: - Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:46 AM Subject: Re: Future of the list / Questions? I hate to pre-announce... but I'm working on installing a blog interface. I also hope to mirror that blog to another server, as backup. Nick Good idea. William can do a blog on 'Why Religion is Evil'. John can do a blog about 'Why Interference in the Free Market is Evil' etc, etc. and list members can read up on the topics they are interested in as they desire. While the rest of us can continue with the regular list here. . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On 21 Oct 2008, at 21:58, Bruce Bostwick wrote: There's an interesting sort of social dynamic to successful online forums that seems to have been fairly constant since the dialup BBS days -- I notice a lot of commonalities between an unusually successful local BBS I used to frequent back in the dialup days, and many modern social-networking communities and e-lists like this one. Based on that, I think the medium the forum resides in is only a superficial aspect of the community -- focus on the people, and on bringing in people who are both the kind of people you want to attract and, to some extent, the people who attract others of that type as well, and most of the other problems solve themselves. I think the technology does shape the community. Slashdot and Digg are the way they are because of the peer-review algorithms they use. Wikipedia has its problems because of the way the hierarchy of moderation is organised. The way all these forums have been played and abused and the way those running them have tweaked the algorithms and organisation to counter that and been re-countered in return show that there is no simple way of building a general forum for ideas and debate. It may just be the fact that I've lived close to Internet-related technology for a lot longer than most people, but I've never seen the technology itself as a raison d'etre for an online community. The technology facilitates communication, but never perfectly, and never in such a way that there isn't room for improvement. Email is a good medium for writers -- the one population not particularly vulnerable to email's known limitation of filtering out nonverbal communication cues that keep offhand humorous quips from being treated as hideous insults and mortal threats -- and literate readers, whom I tend to think of as just extremely non-prolific writers in disguise. But there are other media that would work equally well. (Facebook probably isn't one of them, from my experiences with it, as it tends to provide a sort of canned sociality that facilitates social activity between people who have difficulty navigating both the technology and the social conventions, but tends to get in the way of more meaningful social interaction by reducing it to a sort of video game. Same complaints about Myspace, never liked either of them much. LiveJournal stays out of the way somewhat more, and as a matter of fact, at least two of my favorite communities are LJ communities, but again, it's only a medium, not the message.) LiveJournal does provide an article/comments structure that e-list communities handle more in terms of email threads (and some mail reader clients don't handle those as well as others, and sometimes servers regurgitate old posts, etc.), so that might be a good model to look at in terms of better supporting the *style* of communication the community prefers, but still, people first, technology as needed to support the people. An email list represents the bazaar model of idea exchange. One can simply ignore threads of discourse one isn't interested in and killfile those that are irrelevant or pointless. Any more complicated model with ratings, peer trust networks, relevancy association or whatnot is placing faith in the idea someone else's algorithm can sort interesting from bullshit better than oneself. IMHO, trolling and monotonous posting are self-limiting problems. I've dealt with them in e-list communities in which I've been a mod or owner, and while new members may be more inclined to feed trolls and pour fuel on flame wars, for the most part, these are behaviors that mature community members eventually learn to help control, if by no other means than ignoring the posts/comments that tend to generate more heat than light. Media that provide more tools for depriving a flame war of fuel (like placing the more intemperate commenters on temporary moderated status, etc.) can help somewhat in that respect, but can also make it hard to strike the delicate balance between moderation, facilitation, and censorship. I'd rather live with the signal/noise ratio and decide for myself what's signal and what's noise than have someone try to protect my delicate little ears/eyes .. the latter is often a hallmark of *unsuccessful* online communities, and tends to kill successful ones too when it's over-applied. The problem is avoiding communities that crystallise around a world- view and become isolated by filtering out all dissenting voices. Opinion Maru The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. - Albert Einstein -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ ___
Re: Future of the list / Questions?
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, William T Goodall wrote: An email list represents the bazaar model of idea exchange. One can simply ignore threads of discourse one isn't interested in and killfile those that are irrelevant or pointless. Any more complicated model with ratings, peer trust networks, relevancy association or whatnot is placing faith in the idea someone else's algorithm can sort interesting from bullshit better than oneself. And this is what I like about mailing lists. I tend to read every. single. post (so I'm not subscribed to as many lists as I *might* be), especially the ones I'm a moderator for (and one of the others is deathly dull, but I have to keep an eye out for anything illegal, which has been a problem once or twice), but also for the others. Eventually I work out how much weight to give a particular poster on a particular subject, and have the values for that in my head. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
