FLUXLIST: (I) a few thoughts about moderation, ownership & the origins of FLUXLIST

[allen bukoff]

Several questions/issues have been raised on Fluxlist recently on which I would like to offer my views (in several installments). These are simply the views and perspectives of one Fluxlist participant who has been here from the beginning (you longtime subscribers may find little new here).

IS FLUXLIST MODERATED? No.
WHY NOT? Simplest answer is because 1. we've debated this idea various times but always ended up leaving it un-moderated and 2. no one has ever stepped forward to assume the responsibility and challenge of being the moderator.

WHO STARTED FLUXLIST?
Dick Higgins, Ken Friedman, Joe De Marco, Jon Van Oast, and Allen Bukoff launched Fluxlist as an experiment on 19 April 1996. Each of these people had somewhat different aspirations and desires for Fluxlist (more on this below).

WHO OWNS FLUXLIST?
An attempt was made in August of 1999 to revise and expand the "ownership" of this list to include the following: Malgosia Askanas, Allen Bukoff, Joe De Marco, George Free, Ken Friedman, Judith Hoffberg, Ann Klefstad, Sol Nte, Jon Van Oast, Saul Ostrow, and Owen Smith. We may have also added one or two more people to this list since then (Kathy Forer?), but my memory is not clear on this.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE OWNERS/OWNERSHIP GROUP (my best guess in parentheses)?
Dick Higgins (deceased)
Malgosia Askanas (no longer subscribes)
Allen Bukoff (subscribes and is an occasional list administrator)
Joe De Marco (no longer subscribes)
George Free (no longer subscribes)
Ken Friedman (no longer subscribes)
Judith Hoffberg (subscribes)
Ann Klefstad (subscribes)
Sol Nte (subscribes and is current list administrator)
Jon Van Oast (hosts FLUXLIST server but does not subscribe)
Saul Ostrow (no longer subscribes)
Owen Smith (subscribes)
The "ownership group" is currently very inactive. It has been at least several years since this group has discussed or decided anything about Fluxlist.

The best REAL answer to who "owns" FLUXLIST is probably "no one" or "everyone" (meaning all of the subscribers). The person who has the most direct power to pull the plug on Fluxlist (one functional definition of ownership) is Jon Van Oast (who doesn't even subscribe!). Jon has hosted the Fluxlist email software and discussion list on scribble.com since the beginning. In fact, the only times when FLUXLIST has been off the air is when Jon moved to Portland, Oregon and a couple of other times when his server/internet connection went down. I haven't heard from Jon in more than a year...Fluxlist just keeps magically chugging along thanks to Jon. Jon Van Oast has never charged or asked for any money for hosting Fluxlist. He knew a little bit about the Fluxus art movement and was happy to help us get it going and keep it going. Thanks aqain, Jon, where ever you are.

MORE ON MODERATION
The issue of moderation (having a person who would review all submissions to Fluxlist and determine which of them got posted to the entire list) was debated even before this email discussion list officially debuted. Ken Friedman was an early and consistent proponent of moderation. Some of us others (especially me) thought the list should be un-moderated, at least to start with. Ken had hopes that FLUXLIST would be a forum for serious discussion of Fluxus and Fluxus issues and believed that moderation could help shape such a forum and avoid some of the more typical noise and flame-wars that these discussion lists are prone to. As the list waxed and waned (sometimes weeks would go by without any posts!) and blew-up on occasion during the first couple of years, Ken (primarily) would revive this debate about whether it would be better to have the list moderated. I became an equally strong advocate of leaving the list open (meaning anyone can subscribe, anyone can post anything they want). After several years it was clear that the more-serious, more-academic historically-focused Fluxus discussion that Ken and others had sought was not going to dominate or really even flourish on the un-moderated Fluxlist (e.g., too much noise, personal attacks and flame wars...and also a lot more collective effort required to maintain this level of discussion). The last idea I had as a possible solution to this dilemma was to offer to help Ken and anyone else so inclined to start ANOTHER parallel email discussion group that 1. could be moderated and/or 2. participation reserved for serious scholars/students/participants of Fluxus. Neither Ken nor anyone else took me up on this offer (Ken was too busy with too many other academic activities to take on this responsibility himself). Having two email-based Fluxus discussion groups, an "open" one and a more serious/scholarly "moderated" one, still seems, to me, to be a potentially workable but untested solution to the open-vs.-focused dilemma.

MORE ON ORIGINS OF FLUXLIST
Part of the moderated/unmoderated debate about Fluxlist flows from the issue of "what is the purpose or goal of Fluxlist?" Not surprisingly, all of the originators of this list had somewhat different hopes, wishes, goals for Fluxlist (and this is probably true for all subscribers today). Dick Higgins expressed the desire that this list could become a serious forum for discussion of InterMedia (and even suggested that we name the list that). Ken Friedman was hoping that this could become an interesting and productive forum attracting Fluxus scholars, artists, and thinkers. My desire in helping start Fluxlist was 1. to find people to play new Fluxus games with (my own experience told me that Fluxus wasn't "dead" or "over"), and 2. to get some wider and more official recognition for the "Fluxus" work I felt I had already been doing on my own (since the early 80s). Joe De Marco was brought into the Fluxlist project by Ken Friedman. Joe had been helping Ken get an early Fluxus website up and running <now located at http://www.nutscape.com/fluxus/homepage/> and I believe he felt that Fluxlist was a natural part of this effort to get Fluxus "on the internet." Finally, as I mentioned above, Jon Van Oast (an internet enthusiast since before the dawn of the world wide web) had/has the early internet pioneer ethic of helping others out with a good cause...and he saw this as being a potentially good cause. Despite our different professional and personal agendas in 1996, I believe we all shared an excitement about the potential of the internet to bring more people around the world into more contact with Fluxus than ever before.

Tomorrow (maybe...) what the list administrator does, the issue of "censorship" on Fluxlist and my own personal views about the successes and failures of the Fluxlist experiment.