From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Wed Jun 16 1999 - 13:43:40 MDT
> Why do we react differently when it is "our" topic getting banned?
> Forgive me for the coming rant: I am really getting depressed to discover
> that everybody's principles (on all sides!) are flexible and fluid.
Speak for yourself; I don't recall ever having expressed an opinion
against list control, even of my pet topics, and I do not recall most
others in favor of list control objecting to themselves being subject
to it. Most of us /do/ have principles, and stand by them. If you
perceive that some people don't, then call them on it, but don't paint
everybody (your word) with that brush.
> The list has existed for 10 years. Most of its grandiose plans have not
> materialized. In fact, we seem to be going backwards in time. The
> newsletter has transformed into an ill-kept web page. The Node-net idea has
> not been updated on the web page, and as near as I can tell has not
> progressed since the original announcement. All the work on private list
> software has stopped, and we are now to the point that off-the-shelf
> commercial software runs the list, and even that can't be configured to work
> correctly. We have abandoned our original ideas of an anarchy list owned by
> no one, our ideas of a self-governing forum. None of the extropian ideals
> apply to this list itself. Even the Extropian Principles are rewritten such
> that many extropians no longer agree with the new versions.
Agreed; I think the problem is that the original conception of anarchy
and self-regulation is incompatible with the idea of non-ownership, and
we've tried to have it both ways. The list has been a commons, and the
resulting tragedy quite predictable. We don't need any high-tech or
gradiose solutions, just the simple time-honored one: stewardship. We
need to have an /owner/ of the list who acts like one; who takes pride
in it and nurtures it (I like the "weed and feed" analogy). We haven't
tried self-regulation at all, we've had non-regulation, which is not the
same thing at all. The net has been here for years, and the simple
fact that a discussion group works when its moderators do a fair job,
and doesn't work when they don't, hasn't changed.
> Sorry for the rant, but it's been 10 years, and nothing has changed. Ten
> years with no progress is usually about my limit to leave a "movement" and
> look for something that works.
If there is a community to be salvaged here, let us not split the list
as some have suggested, but simply move it. If ExI does not choose to
take advantage of the offers of needed labor (Eugene has offered, there
are others including me who are also quite capable and available I'm
sure), then let us simply move the community to a garden whose owners
care enough to provide for its upkeep.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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