[Vision2020] Chas leaves V2020; Liberal Moscow Dead? How might V2020 be improved?

[Ted Moffett]

Nils et. al.

My Gmail e-mail account already sorts and bundles e-mails into threads under
consistent subject headings.  For example, today when I opened my Gmail
account, there were 36 Vision2020 posts indicated under the "property tax"
thread that I could read if I opened that one line.  So those 36 posts under
that subject heading are reduced to only one line in my inbox load page,
dramatically reducing the "clutter."  This approach might help someone
better utilize their time to focus on what subjects interest them.

Gmail also offers a huge over 2 Gig free storage that would take many years
to fill even allowing all Vision2020 posts, never deleting.  The e-mail
account search function also allows finding a Vision2020 post, among
thousands, a cinch!  Much easier than plowing through the Vision2020
archives.  This makes Gmail ideal, in some respects, to use exclusively as
an e-mail account dedicated to Vision2020.  Some people have security and
privacy concerns regarding Gmail's system, run by Google, but for a public
list serve, the content is public anyway.

One of the problems, however, with expecting subject headings to match post
content, is the fact that often people post content on a differing subject
than what the subject heading indicates.  This does waste time when opening
a post expecting it to contain content on subject X, only to find entirely
different content that is of no interest.  I find this particularly
annoying.

There also can be valuable content missed when screening post content for
personal interest only based on what the subject heading implies, given the
aforementioned problem.

As far as egregious posting content on Vision2020, as long as the list
remains unmoderated, what can you do?  Some abandon the list because of this
problem.  I often unsubscribe for a spell, thinking the list a waste of time
due to the nature of the content, or that my contribution is of no
consequence, or is annoying others.  But here I am again.

But another way to view Vision2020 is that it gives the reader a taste of
the real world of opinion and "dialog" in a democracy, a real world that is
full of personal insults posing as rational discussion, cruelty posing as
humor, blind allegiance to authority figures when the evidence is
overwhelming they do not deserve it, and people who are afraid to really
speak their minds in public, for whatever reason, hiding behind make believe
identities as they post.  And so forth... Thus a person reading Vision2020
might discover a less censored view of the realities of public opinion,
outside of their circle.

That being said, I have found Vision2020 to offer discussion of some issues
from so many different points of view, with numerous posts from well
educated and informed list members, that the list offers a more thorough,
diverse and fleshed out discussion than that found in any other local venue
for public dialog, certainly exceeding what the local press offers.  And the
list has a healthy self correcting mechanism given that there are list
members from diverse points of view who are quick to correct opinions or
facts they think are in error.  This self correcting mechanism can function
very quickly with the speed of instant communication on the Internet.

Personally, I don't find it that difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff
on Vision2020.  And for those who want a nice tidy well behaved list serve
that never provokes, insults or wanders... well, these individuals don't
appear to understand the reality of public opinion and discussion in a
democracy, and/or just don't want to invest the time in sorting the wheat
from the chaff.

Which leads to my final point:  isn't the fact that so many people, even
among the well educated and financially successful, do not take the time to
invest in public discussion and dialog, with all the warts and blemished and
nastiness inevitably involved, one of the primary reasons that democracy in
the US has such a low rate of vital participation, expressed clearly in the
low rates of voter turnout?

Ted Moffett


On 7/26/06, Nils Peterson <nils_peterson at wsu.edu> wrote:
>
> The following is posted here
>
> http://www.nilspeterson.com/2006/07/26/thoughts-on-improving-the-community-e
> mail-list/
>
> I could have arranged my blog to post to this list, and you could return
> to
> my blog to post a reply. This is part of my exploration of the
> alternatives
> outlined in this post....
>
>
> Moscow has an un-moderated, city-wide email list called Vision 2020,
> hosted
> by First Step Internet (thank you for that.) The mission is: "Moscow
> Vision
> 2020 is an informal, multi-partisan group of Moscow residents formed in
> 1993
> to encourage more public information and debate about the future of Moscow
> and Latah County."
>
> On the list, I happened to catch Chasuk's departure note (he was a
> frequent
> poster). A victim of flame war burnout. The waters closed over the corpse
> with hardly a ripple.
>
> And where is the Liberal Moscow blog? A V2020 alternative, announced in
> early June 2006. I looked in via the RSS and the last post is mid-June.
> Another corpse un-mourned, a better medium (blog + RSS) but no critical
> mass
> on the site.
>
> I have a research interest in these types of communities. What would
> enhance
> the communication channel that V2020 can at times be? Chasuk spoke about
> wanting a better signal to noise ratio. It seems to me that much of the
> noise comes in the feedback to original posts -- questioning of the
> poster's
> premise, elaboration, or conflation, of the issues. Simple provocation.
> For
> some, that rhetorical exchange is clearly the fun of the list. Baiting and
> pouncing. Word play.
>
> The problem is, some would prefer that the 'exchange' were taken
> "outside,"
> but then would it be fun, without a crowd to watch? For those who prefer
> an
> information dissemination channel, or a non-personal rebuttal or
> elaboration
> on a news or opinion piece in the DNews, the banter on V2020 is
> distracting
> at the least and more often off-putting.
>
> For a long time, I have been reading the V2020 digests. This reduces the
> clutter in my inbox. I scan the table of contents of each digest for a
> couple features. First, is the post original or a reply. Second, who is
> the
> author. Third, what is the topic.
>
> If the post is original, the author of good repute (to me) and the topic
> plausibly interesting, I typically read it (However, scrolling from TOC to
> item in the digest is clumsy.). If the reply is from a short list of
> authors, and the topic formerly interesting, I read. This choosing is hard
> to automate with a bozo filter alone.
>
> Email seems to be a good vehicle for transmitting the content, but list
> processor technology is clumsy for separating the good from the bad? How
> might it look?
>
> I posit that it would look like this:
> *Original posts could be subscribed to, without any replies, and readers
> could apply (or not) personal 'bozo filters' to the original posts.
> *The whole dialog, or the whole digest, could be subscribed to, as it is
> now.
> *Threads could be subscribed to on an individual basis. Making an original
> post, or a reply, would automatically subscribe the author to the
> resulting
> thread.
> *When reading a post, a reader would have the ability to one-click
> subscribe
> to the thread and perhaps see a digest of all the preceding posts in the
> thread.
>
> ---
>
> Thoughts?
>
> =====================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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>
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