Jonathan, Horse, all Jonathan > I just realized the real problem with the lists as latching tools . . > . They don't have an ERASE mechanism. Erasing is critical if we are > going to produce anything coherent from all our ramblings.
Absolutely right. Evolving from dynamic conversation to coherent, stable, latched conclusions requires revising, polishing, and editing which is very difficult in list server type e-mailing. Which is while I am taken by Joel suggestion of using a Wiki site to accomplish this. The software is/was designed to do just exactly that. Move from the "thread" discussion mode to a "document" mode over a period of time. Branching out to other threads, definitions, lists, and such easily all the while providing an automatic or semi automatic structure to retrace and tie it all together.(and a great deal of this is done by the user) I found an open to the public site by the guy who originated the concept, Ward Cunningham, that already had a ZaMM page and a Robert Pirsig page. Just to see well how it actually worked I went on and created four new pages. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LilaAnInquiryintoMorals - a book review type page http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheMetaphysicsOfQuality - a start of a MoQ overview document page. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AlexanderPirsigConnection - Since this is site primarily inhabited by software types who hold the work of Christopher Alexander in high esteem, and his philosophy parallels somewhat Pirsig's I thought this was a place I could contribute. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ThirdWaveDave - A user or bio page- used by some as a place for one on on conversations off topic. Lists of pages edited (refactored in Wiki language), Favorite pages, or links are also sometimes used. I started the first on January 13 after about a half hour of surfing the site and downloading the formatting page. Over the last three days I've gone to the site, when checking e-mail, and created the rest probably with a total time of a little over an hour. These are just attempts at documents or statements of my opinions. No one on the site has commented or objected to anything I've said so far. Anyplace ZaMM or Lila or Pirsig are mentioned (InTheWikiFormat)on this site these pages are automatically linked to the ones I create. Now I'm moving around the pages on the "Quality" pages on the site and making minor edits to link these pages to the pages I created. For instance: On the What is Quality Page I found this' " Philosophers have been arguing about the nature of quality for most of recorded history. RobertPirsig sent himself nuts trying to nail this one down in ZenAndTheArtOfMotorcycleMaintenance." to which I added this: [But he eventually regained his sanity and wrote LilaAnInquiryintoMorals in which he developed TheMetaphysicsOfQuality ThirdWaveDave ] So Jonathan (or anybody else) if you wish to use an eraser or the chalk go there and check it out. 3WD PS: Though this site encourages using real names as wiki names and signing your comments in the thread mode. I had to use my AKA because there, like in life, were already a bunch of real people with my real name. MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
