Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 19:06:59 -0600
Subject: Current model for the new marxism space




Some of you may have seen Malgosia's posting this morning
describing her vision for the marxism space.  After a discussion
involving Malgosia, Lisa, and Hans, we decided to modulate
this vision as follows.  We propose that the marxism space supported by the
spoon collective should have the following three main components:



-  One general-purpose list that is not moderated at all.


-  One broad low-noise list with no subject specialization, for the
   purpose of general discussion of all marxist issues,
   moderated by a team which enforces certain formal rules
   that require the participants to make substantive posts,
   and that prevent individuals from hogging the discussion.  The
   following set of rules might be sufficient:

        (1) Only list members can contribute.

        (2) Every contributor can only make one
        contribution per day to a given thread.  This gives
        everybody a chance to reply to you before you write
        again.

        (3) No contributor can send more than 3 postings
        per day.

        (4) combining threads in the same post is
        forbidden.  I.e. you are not allowed to circumvent
        rule (3) by writing one message which should really
        be two or more messages.

        (5)  Repetition is forbidden.

   These rules are designed yield a high enough
   substance-to-noise ratio that subscribers who have poor
   email access or have to pay for email find it worth
   their time and money to subscribe.  In such a list, it
   will also be feasible for us to have a team of
   translators on call so that people can post in their own
   languages and have their contributions translated within
   48 hours.  Further refinements (indexing the archives by
   key words) etc. may be envisioned in the future. It is
   hoped that such a list will carry a high load of
   substantive debate on a world wide scale.


-  A set of specialized, focused lists for subjects of
   special interests, subjects that might benefit from
   being discussed in a more rescricted environment,
   subjects that interest people who don't want to deal
   with the traffic on the general list, etc.


Hans Ehrbar





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