[OT] How We Discuss Things
Dan Shafer
dshafer at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 31 23:01:39 UTC 2001
As someone who has been involved in the online world longer
than I care to admit and as someone who has been deeply
involved in online community for the past several years, I am
intrigued by the fact that the Squeak community -- with one of the
richest and most powerful environments on the planet
presumably at everyone's disposal -- still feels most comfortable
discussing our mutual interest in the relatively inefficient halls of
a mailing list.
I don't subscribe to the list by email any longer (though I spent
the past year doing so) because I found it too cluttered an
experience, regardless of whether I used the digest or dealt with
individual emails. Following threads was very difficult at best and
filtering out topics in which I was not interested proved all but
impossible.
Dealing with the list in quasi-discussion mode via the Yahoo!
interface is a tiny bit more satisfying, but only a tiny bit.
It seems to me that if we moved from the older mailing list model
to a true discussion board or Swiki model for all of our
discussions, we'd all be enriched and our experience would be
both more effective and more efficient. But I never hear anyone
suggest this, which indicates perhaps I am alone in my feeling
that this is such an archaic and relatively inefficient way of
dealing with such material.
If Swiki isn't the right tool -- and I see some drawbacks to it that
are addressed in every good discussion board tool I know about
-- then perhaps a real discussion board tool is?
There is a way to experiment with this. I have access to a
licensed Web Crossing discussion site where we could legally
and easily reflect the mailing list in discussion topics and allow
people to particpiate directly on the disussion board or via email
or even mix those modes. I'd be willing to set up the site and
open it to people who are interested in trying that mode of
communication. It wouldn't disrupt the list any, but since it's not
my list I don't think I should do this without some sort of
agreement from at least some other list members.
Or perhaps we can write (or someone has written) a discussion
board product in Squeak?
Thoughts?
=====
------- Dan Shafer, Author and Community Consultant
^. .^ | Commentator on Community, Web Building, Nanotech
='= | Sr. Co-Editor, Online Community Report
| Author, NanoTech, MegaQuake: Business Implications of
Squeak| Nanotechnology (Spring 2002), Wiley, ISBN 047120045X
------- http://www.gui.com (major update Spring 2001)
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