Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 11:34:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: fido <jfr10-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: moribund setup


On Fri, 23 Jun 1995, Malgosia Askanas wrote:

> My problem with this discussion is that I am not quite sure why it is
> worth having -- what problem are we trying to solve?  First of all we 
[....]

My non-problem with this discussion >:} is that, whatever our individual 
feelings about list lifecycle and activity, we are finally getting down to 
a conversation about what exactly those look like, rather than talking 
_at_ each other in incompatible abstract languages. I'm all for empiricism 
here.

If there's a problem we're trying to _solve_, it's kind of an abstract
problem--list ontology--and it's kind of concrete--what about spoon lists.
Malgosia's post made sense to me on a number of levels. Still, I wonder
what effect the presence of a moribund list has on the discursive
environment at large, meaning the other spoon lists, or lists kept
elsewhere--"Oh, there's a list at spoon which discusses X, let's go there
instead of doing that here or starting our own." 

The corollary question has to do with list vigor; for me there is a huge
difference between a list with substantive posts regularly, like weekly or
daily, and a list on which either one gets fluff or maybe there's a little
peep ("Is anybody there?"), even if _that_ is once a week. With the first
one develops a sense of applied mind, of, at the very least,
exercise--like crosswords and scrabble exercise. The second is more of an
irritation, and pretty non-productive. If there were no ontology list, for
example, what would prevent a person from asking, here on l-p, what the
viability of an ontology list would be, pitching a proposal; or asking on
spoon-announcements to build up a head of steam? (Is this how it happened?
I can't remember.) If dismantling a list is not a desirable option, rather
than asking the ontology list if it was dead--guaranteed to evoke
plaintive denials for a few days--what about announcing on
spoon-announcements that the ontology list is there and looking for
discussions (rather than subscribers). On this issue of discussion and
posting I am in agreement with Laurie: if it ain't there, it ain't there. 
I'm all for building net kin-groups, but I don't think silent subscribers
constitute such a thing, certainly not without _at some point_ having been
very un-silent. 

-f

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