Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 00:13:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: fido <jfr10-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Dirk's majordomo+


I hate the idea of ordering takeout each day from a majordomo. But 
seriously, such a plan--that users would get a kind of daily menu and 
request from majordomo the yummy-looking topics--seems somehow counter- 
intuitive. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think part of it, for me, has 
to do with the semi-aleatory nature of the mail lists themselves.

Part of what we are discussing, of course, is what the best way these
discussion (as opposed to lists) should operate. Clearly the problem--for
there is one, or a set--has to do with a kind of trickle-down list
manipulation (for lack of a better word): list subscribers are at the
bottom of the trickle, really. This also goes for responsibility towards
running the lists. 

Rather than having this daily menu thing--which irks me for some reason
(besides, what is a day in cyberspace?)--it seems that what is being asked
for is that "subscribers" become "users" actively parsing a particular set
of locations; this might be called centralizing. I also, as a pessimist,
very much doubt that in the immediate future the majority of current
subscribers are likely to make the jump to becoming users; and I wonder if
such a model could sustain as robust a discussion as the lists. A further
consideration is what kind of access and mobility people have on the net; 
this is a question of expertise not within the specific confines of list
topics but within the confines of this medium. Part of the appeal of the
lists, of course, is that the mail comes direct to the subscriber, into
that more-or-less private inbox; it's a psychological thing, and I think
it's the thing that makes discussion feel like discussion, personal, with
shifters or, as Tom puts it (I finally decoded the acronym) FPSP--versus,
for example, the horrifying chat boxes in AOL, "You guys are really great, 
have a great day."

Maybe I'm just being conservative, but having finally discovered the 
archive I just don't see what all the fuss with majordomo+ is about. To 
my mind the only innovation needed might be the option of ordering a set 
of lists with indices that comes in a little tree structure--and 
it's probably something already possible that I just don't know about.

-f

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