From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 03:03:51 +0000
Subject: M-G: The future of Marxism space



Friends,

I have been reading the posts about the recent developments and about 
starting a new M-G list. First of all thanks to Vladimir, Mark and 
Rolf for volunteering  to set  and run the new list (manually) for 
the first few months. I will suggest a number of points below and 
then attach a letter received today regarding some ideas.

1. Louis G of M-I has sent me a new M-G subscriber list current as of 
yesterday. For the moment, I am holding on to it and will pass it on 
to the modertaors/administrator of the new M-G when it gets born.

2. We have to think about the new list(s) with an eye towards the 
future. At this moment, there are already  new M-I and M-SCI lists 
being run from a server at Emory University (with Louis G, Gay and 
Dennis as moderators) - this was set up a few hours ago. Louis P has 
proposed to start a new list at some other university and so has Doug 
Henwood. Then there is the Leninlist run (manually) by Jim Hillier. 
What we are witnessing is the fragmentation of the marxism lists 
previously located under the same server (Jefferson Village). This 
has some negative features like (a) no access to a central archive 
(2) locating the lists with a university or commercial servers which 
are susceptible to the same pressures as what happened at Spoons.

Another aspect that we should consider is that the marxism lists 
should ultimately be up on the World Wide Web. One advantage to 
that in the near future, a search engine can be developed that will 
enable one to search the archives with keywords, subjects, etc. 
Another is that once it is up on the web, it will be available to 
thousands of potential subscribers from all over the world. 
Yet another will the ability to see at a glance discussions threaded 
in a rational manner. For an example, take a look at the LINUX web 
site (http://slashdot.org/) to see where we are headed in the future.

It would be good to have automation and technical 
expertise right from the beginning.

3. I agree with Mark's comments about the screening out of clear
provacateurs (as we have witnessed on M-G time and again) from the 
new list but we can discuss that later.

For now, here are the important items pointwise:

(a) Server - This server should preferably be owned and run by 
progressive people and not by commercial/university ones. Two 
reasons: such a server will not be subject to pressure of pulling the 
rug from under the feet. Second, such progressive servers should be 
supported even if it means that a monetary fee is involved. If we do 
not take care of our own, nobody will. Such a server seems to be 
available (more below).

(b) Technical expertise - The adminstrator  of the list (s) should 
be someone connected with the server who has technical expertise 
which can be passed down to interested list members in the future . 
Such adminstrators, who are from the left, with technical 
expertise also exist.

(c) Future World Wide Web development - We need people knowledegeable 
with Web programming  to build the future WWW page. A search 
engine needs to be developed. Once it is up on the a Web, many other 
features can be considered also. This way, we will go way beyond what 
the Spoons Collective could achieve. Again, such technical help is 
available.

(d) Prevention of fragmentation - location of all the marxism lists 
on a single server (which can later have a mirror site) will ensure 
to prevent the disintegration we are seeing now.

(e) Moderators Panel - for the list(s) can be selected later.

(f) Money for server - if a few people contribute a little (by 
western standards) per year, it should be sufficient. Such people 
should preferably be from the rich countries and not from the South. 
This will also ensure supporting progressive people who run the 
server.

Please reflect on the above and let us come to a decision ASAP. 

Here is the letter. I will keep you posted of any future 
developments.

Sid

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you about the current crisis in the Spoons Marxism
space.  Although I have not been a very active participant in these
forums, I find them valuable in many ways and I'm unhappy about the
current situation.

It's already apparent that the Spoons space is fragmenting into several
scattered lists.  This is not good because there will no longer be a
central archive for all the old posts.  Beyond that, we are losing the
potential to ever have a searchable archive with threaded articles and a
World Wide Web interface to aid researchers.

Marxism International and Marxism Science are already being moved to
Emory University, while Marxism General is in limbo.  I personally have
reservations about relying on an academic site like Emory because we
have already seen how an academic site can get cold feet and suddenly
drop the lists.  I am proposing we try to get all the lists over at
Blythe Systems because they have a proven political track record.
Unlike most web sites and archives, they are political activists who
have withstood numerous political attacks from reactionaries due to
their pro-Cuba and pro-PCP web sites.  Also, we on the left should be
willing to support left-wing alternatives to corporate and academic
systems.

Beyond saving the Marxism Space and its various currents, there is an
opportunity to make something better than Spoons could do.  I have
downloaded a great deal of the Marxism archives from their FTP site, and
am willing to donate the time to make these searchable with a WWW
interface.  I think we have the potential here to make a real leap
forward for Marxist discussion on the Internet.

Blythe charges $70 per year for a mailing list, and there would be
additional cost for an organizational email account.  I realize it is
tempting to go with free corporate-sponsored or academic systems, but we
should support sites run by the left.  Also, there should be some effort
on our part to avoid the tendency to fragment the Marxism space into
personal projects which are likely to gradually die out over time.




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