[From Rick Marken (2014.04.08.1030)]
···
Matti Kolu (2014.04.07.1845 CET)
MK: Is there enough agreement among the forum proponents of what the
overall purpose of the forum should be? The interests and experience
levels of the participants on this mailing list are widely divergent.
Can these interests be accommodated under a single, shared banner?
RM: I’m going back to my original position, which I believe was the same as Bill Powers: CSGNet should remain as the go to site for information about and discussion of PCT. When Bill Powers was alive CSGNet was unquestionably the official “gold standard” PCT site. I think, in honor of the the legacy of Bill Powers if nothing else, CSGNet should remain the “official” PCT site. I know that Bill considered the fact that people with widely divergent interests and experience levels come to CSGNet to be a feature rather than a bug.
RM: The only reason I suggested considering a new forum for CSGNet was in order to make it more accessible to people who discover PCT and want to learn more about it. But I think that problem is solved, from my point of view, by including clear pointers at PCT “portal” sites (like PCTweb.org) to where people can subscribe to CSGNet.
RM: So I am set on keeping CSGNet as it is. It’s the only site I will use for discussions of PCT. I find having lots of alternative sites to be distracting and kind of a waste of time. Of course, there is nothing to stop anyone who wants to from setting up their own PCT related discussion forums, like ECACS. But I think those other sites kind of dilute things, for me anayway. CSGNet may not be as fancy as other forums but I personally find that it allows for more substantive discussions, perhaps because it lets me focus on the ideas more than the bells and whistles of the forum itself.
RM: So that’s where I stand. Let’s just keep CSGNet as it is and try to get more people, especially students, involved by making it more accessible via portals like PCTWeb.org,
Best
Rick
I
suspect that people who get their introduction to PCT from a text such
as “Introduction to Modern Psychology” would be very hesitant to join
a forum such as ECACS. It is too intimidating. (Largely by design?)
I shudder every time “mission statements” are brought up, but it seems
to me that the hard stuff lies in figuring out the objectives of the
potential forum, and in reaching some kind of shared understanding of
who the readers and members should be. Building a community without a
some kind of shared mission (or worldview) is hard. In comparison to
the social stuff, choosing an adequate software platform is trivial.
Matti
–
Richard S. Marken PhD
www.mindreadings.com
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. – Upton Sinclair