[MD] A Suggestion for Horse

[Ian Glendinning]

I support this (the idea of separating chat-paced discussion from
other dialogue)

Ironically, I was about to comment on one of Matt's latest blog posts
on "conversation", but gave up, because Matt's idea of conversation
involves trading 3000 word essays ;-)

Each to his own (as Matt said).
Regards
Ian

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 11:21 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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