Re: Four Years Later.

From: Gordon Worley (redbird@rbisland.cx)
Date: Sat Apr 20 2002 - 12:12:42 MDT


On Saturday, April 20, 2002, at 06:41 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> Nope. Forums are good (even if they're mostly web-based and make users
> jump through pointless hoops a la CoV BBS:
>
> http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=11526
> )
>
> Forums stop being good however, when they fragment and compartmentalize
> the community. Fringe is notorious for that, so I keep pointing that
> fact
> out.

This is a lot smaller issue than you might think. SL4 has a clearly
specified purpose which excludes chit-chat and discussing issues again
and again. Other lists allow for discussion of other topics and a more
casual setting. Actually, more lists are probably good for everyone,
because it gives persons a place to be casual, thus reducing the amount
of inappropriate posts on SL4.

Also, remember that SL4 started as a split from the Extropians and has
done quite well and explored several interesting topics. VCs, IIRC,
have something like a 1/20 success rate: for every 20 businesses they
invest in, only about 1 ever makes any money. Mailing lists are just
like that. Lots of people create different mailing lists for different
purposes, and every now and then a new lists comes along the facilitates
the discussion of new, important ideas. I created a mailing list a few
months back that died for numerous reasons. I know why it died and if I
had the time I'd probably rework it some to get some meaningful
discussion going on it. Hopefully I'll have time in a couple of weeks
to do more writing and work on Singularity related things, but at the
moment I just can't.

At any rate, there's not cause for alarm. There is always membership
crossover between lists and powerful memes tend to propagate between
lists.

--
Gordon Worley                     `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty
http://www.rbisland.cx/            said, `it means just what I choose
redbird@rbisland.cx                it to mean--neither more nor less.'
PGP:  0xBBD3B003                                  --Lewis Carroll


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