[Martin Taylor 2017.08.28.11.59]
[From MK (2017.08.28.1215 CET)]
Bruce Nevin (2017.08.27.18:02 ET)--
Recalling last Spring's thread "Possible new forum (was Re: CSGnet authorship 2017)", let's bear in mind the desirability of migrating threads from the short-lived ECACS forum to the new platform.
Maybe it was short-lived for a reason.
There are usually reasons why things happen the way they do. Not all are individually important or generalizable. And language is a malleable artifact...
In the case of ECACS "short-lived" means from February 2004 to March 2014.
I can identify three probable reasons for its final demise. (1) ECACS was an acronym for "Exploration of Complex Adaptive Control Systems", with the emphasis on "Complex" and "Adaptive". Although everything in it was about PCT, several of the contributors had felt rather unwelcome on the more purist and less exploratory CSGnet either personally or in respect of the topics they wanted to pursue. Most of the contributors continued to participate on CSGnet talking mainly about more purist single-loop topics, and I suspect that many (among whom I include myself) found it rather a strain to be contributing both to the Forum and to the e-mail conversation. (2) One of the major contributors to ECACS died, and I think that afterwards the number of thought-provoking contributions declined below the critical mass at which members would make a habit of logging in. (3) The developer went out of business without providing a security update, and it must have got hacked, because my ISP told me the domain had been reported as being used for malicious purposes, so I immediately shut it down. I had intended to get it converted to another forum form, but never got around to doing so.
Reorganize.
Do not try to resuscitate failed experiments.
I wouldn't really call ECACS a failed experiment. It was a forum very much like what is being discussed as a replacement for CSGnet. Members could receive messages as e-mail notices, as e-mail with full content, or just read the Forum. I don't remember whether we implemented the ability to add to a thread by replying to an e-mail, but we intended to, and may have done. We (the membership generally) did think that facility would be desirable. Once in a while an administrator might think a thread had gone too far off topic, and would split off the deviant part to form a linked but separate thread. We had a designated area for "spats" (not the kind a Victorian gentleman would wear), but if things got too nasty, we could (and did) suspend a member's posting privileges.
Some of the ECACS concepts were "experiments" in the sense that they were not available to the mailing list, and were tried out over the short (as compared to CSGnet) life of the ECACS forum. For example, right at the top level there was a fixed set of root topics, including Administrative announcements and planning, for documents and links (like Dag's), for academic discussion of theory, for Applications and Software, and for material such as postings we thought should be kept for posterity.
I wouldn't say the ECACS concepts all "failed", and I think some of the threads were quite useful for further reference. In particular, in such a forum, no thread is ever closed, or even forgotten since its title is always on display, and if one has new thoughts on an old topic, the relevance of the addition is immediately obvious. In fact, looking at a little of ECACS this morning to find its starting and stopping dates, I noticed that I had posted a response in 2014 to a thread in which the last previous message was sent in 2004.
Hiking the PCT is best done without needless baggage.
M
I think the traveller is the one best suited to determining what baggage is or is not needed. I would consider lots of old CSGnet threads "needless baggage", but no way would I censor them from a new forum. Someone else might find them useful. The same is true of several threads (and one or two posters) on the ECACS forum.
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By the way, I second Bruce's concept for the forum name. "IAPCTnet" doesn't roll off the tongue as PCTnet would do. Nor is it as easily explained to a potential new member. PCTnet sounds as though it is about PCT, the "International Association" is about PCT, but IAPCTnet sounds as though it is about the international association, not about PCT.
Martin
Martin