> where's
> your meta-content information? How many subscribed do you have? Of each
> sex. Where are they from? Why not give some demographics. Publish/expose
> the whole Lurkership. Who are/is the list? With all your
> identity/subjectivity psychologizing/politicizing there's some simple Qs to
> be answered by setting free the list. Allow some interaction outside the
> discourse. A little search engine to start with? Mapping possibilities? An
> expert summary? Heck, it's the Early Information Age: myriad expert
> summaries! Why haven't 100 days 500 savvies been invited to periodically
> criticize-summarize-edit the list's content? More savviews, more agents!
> Now this list is like any old 'letters-to-the editor' we know, or a
> debating club. Aren't we acting in an information media supported/-ive
> environment then? Abundancy rules: and you're still tied to economics of
> scarcity. While _having_ computational power on either side of the lines.
> The lists contents can be filtered, re-organized, de-authorized. In the
> current set-up we are completely dependent of rearview methods. Seriously
> Jordan, why isn't any of this (authors, arguments, keywords, links, texts,
> cross-reference,...) filed in a publicly searchable database, why in other
> words is a list like this so backward, both in its technology as in its
> arguments? It must be a budget problem? Think about the _informed_
> discussion you would have hosted when indeed you would supply more angles,
> interpretations, when You would have _invested_ in a concept and format for
> the list, beyond 'discussion', beyond lecturing, beyond endless repetition,
> quoting.
I was offline for a week and would have responded to you sooner. There
is no demographic information available; there is only a list of current
subscribers that you can access (send mail to the majordomo with 'who
blast' in the message body). The other issues you raise--how to access
the list from multiple angles, how to sort its content, etc.--are very
important to consider. We had planned to deal with this issue at the
close of the discussion (when we would like to edit down and organize
this body of content to be accessible in ways other than through the web
archive), but it would certainly be productive to discuss the
possibilities now. Do you have any practical suggestions? Eve had once
mentioned a list of keywords with summaries (I think)--would anyone like
to take on the task?
As for why this hasn't been done sooner: 3 limitations come to mind --
we just have the basic software; there is no paid staff really (because
no budget); and my own time is limited. I try to keep up the discourse
the best way I can.
But the issues you raise are, again, very important, and it would be
very helpful if anyone had practical suggestions as to how we can make
the most of our final month, and the final 'shaping' of this body of
content afterwards.
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