[MD] A Suggestion for Horse

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Craig,

Craig said:
At present, this site separates the "MoQ Forum" 
( = monographs) from the "MoQ Discussion [MD]" 
(= dialogue). I propose a third (dare I say) "level" 
(= chat).  (Can be pronounced with an "sh" sound.)

The archives are overwhelmingly close encounters of this 
third kind.

Matt:
Yes, and it is very sad from my perspective, though other 
people like that kind of thing.  And overall, I say to each 
their own.  I treat the MD as slow-paced, and if the 
conversation moves way past what I would have said, I 
either say it and take people back, or don't worry about 
it (of course, that also means I only half-pay-attention to 
fast-paced conversations because of time-and-energy 
management).  People, if they find what you say 
interesting, will conform to your pace.  And that's what I 
think you see in watching me in the midst of the MD: 
1) I don't get a lot of responses to my posts (and I mean 
in a long-range sense, like my conversations don't often 
last long) because the way I write isn't typically congenial 
to creating the sense of an "on-going conversation" and 
2) when I do get a lot of responses, it's usually because 
I _am_ writing in the way that creates that sense.  (1) 
represents people conforming to my pace, (2) represents 
me conforming to other people's paces.  

Well, at any rate, there actually is a "rule" that says you 
have to limit your posts per day in the MD:

3) Each member should limit the number of posts they submit to a maximum of four per  
day.


The trouble is, Horse is a good enough moderator to 
know that to do that would kill a lot of activity, and 
therefore energy, of many participants who thrive on 
sending 42 posts per day.  I take it that Horse has 
decided to ignore the rule for fear of killing the MD 
entirely.  (Though he has occasionally spoken up about 
this kind of thing.)

Oh, and there's another rule I wish people would have 
some respect for:

4) Members should reproduce only the relevant parts of any previous message to which they 
are responding.

I mean, seriously, how hard is it to shift, page down, delete.

I have more theories about how Horse is doing the best 
possible job currently for moq.org e-mail discussion.

Craig said:
They have become worthless for research & would 
prohibit any endeavor such as "Lila's Child II".
I propose that what is now the MD NOT be archived 
permanently.
Instead, a t the end of the exchange on any subject, the 
initiator & others should summarize anything of value & 
summit it to the archives.

Matt:
Okay, I vote no to deletion because everything I write is 
pure gold, baby.

As Horse will no doubt let us know for why he will not 
take action on your suggestions, Craig, it is because 
we've already experimented before with this kind of 
thing, to massive failure (maybe not "massive," but...).

First, your plan calls for a third arena of discourse, when 
you've overlooked the existence of a (currently defunct) 
third arena of discourse--the MF.  Nobody's used the MF 
in years.  We've tried several times in the last 10 years 
to breathe life into that thing, but it seems a limited 
endeavor based on 1) a critical mass reached in the MD, 
which produces 2) pressure to create a slower environ 
for "more considered" back-and-forth, which leads to 
3) the resurrection of the MF, which eventually 4) runs 
out of gas as people simply run out of new, considered 
ideas.

Second, the last time we resurrected the MF, we 
experimented with the summary idea.  The idea was to 
resurrect the promise of "results."  It pretty much totally 
failed, partly because the energy required for good, 
neutral summary is a lot higher than some people think, 
and partly because, I think, the whole idea of "results" is 
out of place for the endeavor of philosophy.  

Now, the idea behind someone summarizing a thread is 
not a bad idea in itself (even if the idea of "results" is 
misguided).  But practically it 1) will never get done (or be 
sustained for very long) and 2) summaries are just one 
more kind of polemically disagreeable posts and if they 
are the only thing kept in an archive, people will not be 
happy if they disagree.  Summarizing "anything of value," 
as we all know through Pirsig, isn't an "objective" kind of 
thing, but one done with a person in the view.  The only 
solution for (2), it seems to me, would be to keep all the 
posts, thus allowing people to check back over the 
record.  But that would be to experiment again with the 
last attempt at the MF.  And is there energy for that?  
That's the real question.

I think ideas have been floated for using different 
programming than centralized e-mail-bouncing to get a 
MoQ Chat going, but I'm not sure what became of it.  I 
think the only hope for something faster and disposabler 
would be something new in the housing of it.  Because 
all creating an e-mail-bounce MC (MoQ Chat), to sit 
alongside the MD, would do is recreate the dynamic of 
the MD-MF.  And this, I would predict (and as I think 
Horse will predict), would mean that eventually all the 
energy will be syphoned off into the new "dynamic" MC 
and the MD would wither away, which means that we'd 
have two defunct arenas in addition to all the same 
problems.

But mainly, everything I write is gold and there's no way 
I'd write for something that was just thrown away.  It's 
why I hardly ever speak to anybody.

Matt
 		 	   		  
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