Bill Powers wrote:
[Martin Taylor 2008.10.10.17.08]
[From Bill Powers (2008.10.10.1413 MDT)]
Fred Nickols (2008.10.10.1255 PDT) --
Well, just for the heck of it, I set up a group on Yahoo called CSG Forum (interestingly, PCT Forum was taken but not by us). Anyway, if you want to sign on you can send an email to the subscribe address below or send me an email and I'll sign you on.
I don't want to split up CSGnet into special-interest groups. For one thing, I would be swamped trying to keep up with everything. For another, the CSG has always operated on the principle that it's good for people to see what's going on outside their fields even if they don't understand, or care about, everything that's said.
So I'll stay put on CSGnet.
Why should having a CSGnet-forum bring your mind to think of special interest groups? To me, the result should be quite the opposite, since everyone has the opportunity to cast back and look at all the disparate threads, in contrast to CSGnet-e-mail, where, as I illustrated trivially this afternoon, threads and issues are quickly forgotten. To me, a forum is a way to avoid splitting into special interest groups.
Ideally, CSGnet-e-mail and a putative CSGnet-forum should be synergistic, not competitive. E-mails to CSGnet would automatically or semi-automatically be appended to the forum, and forum postings would be sent to CSGnet. It's a bit like an easily accessed thread-based archive in my mind. I don't know whether there exists forum software to do this. At one time, some of us tried to get CSGnet dicussions to move to the forum at ecacs.net, and we did actually have some good discussions there, especially on PCT economics. But only a few CSGnet participants joined, and there wasn't a critical mass to keep it going. The site still exists, but nothing has been done there for some years.
What I see as a major difficulty with the development of PCT is the ephemeral nature of the discussion, and to a large extent, its superficiality. A topic is raised, and it can go three ways: an issue might be resolved, the topic might deviate into something quite different, or the issue remains unresolved. The first situation cries out for a permanent repository of resolved issues, the second is suited to e-mail ramblings, the third demands a way for open discussions to remain open AND visible in case some further insights come along.
Anyway, I'll probably come back to this at some future time. I really don't have time to argue this week or next, and then I'm away for three more. However, I do think it's a crying shame that all the worthwhile stuff about PCT discussed here is effectively lost in the archives, never to be seen again except by some diligent searcher who knows it should exist somewhere.
Martin
