Just adding my two cents, as per the call. :) I only discovered nettime in the last few months. I'm a computer-child, I've grown up on the net, and one of the people who now take a more conservative or critical approach to tech. I came here because I am trying to develop as an artist, working with the net as a medium and reflecting critically on the net and its constituent parts. I don't post in to every thread because a lot of the time I don't have anything worthwhile to add, but I appreciate reading: most of the contributions on this list are really insightful.
The fact that people are posting meta threads like this is a good sign to me, I appreciate a community that can take a critical view of itself. If nettime does rap up, let me know where you all go, I'd like to talk more. :) John On 7 June 2019 18:38:46 BST, nettime mod squad <nett...@kein.org> wrote: >Nettime is in bad shape, don't you think? > >It has still a lot of goodwill, and more generally there's renewed >interest in formats of exchange and collective thinking that >aren't defined by the logic of social media. But the dynamics that >social media companies exploit are hardly limited to a handful of >platforms. For example, nettime has its own 'influencers' -- a 1%, >so to speak -- who generate the vast majority of list traffic. >That's been true for years. The discussions they sustain may >variously seem interesting or annoying, but either way they've >become somewhat formulaic. An attentive reader knows more or less >what to expect based solely the subject and the sender; and even >meta-discussions about whether the list is dominated or by this or >that tendency are largely dominated by the same few people. > >Some might argue the debates that have animated nettime over the >last year -- the trajectories of postwar society, neoliberalism, >the 'digital,' complexity, surveillance and big tech, Brexit, >media and elections, Assange, even the Anthropocene in all its >terrifying inclusiveness -- are the defining issues of the day. >Maybe so. But if the nettime project had settled for a consensus >model of the defining issues of the mid-'90s, it would never have >gotten off the ground, and it certainly wouldn't exist almost 25 >years later. The challenge, we think, is to maintain a space that >attracts ill-defined ideas and uncertain issues -- things and >not-things that don't quite exist yet and yet haven't been buried >under torrents of authority and theory. > >So, what can we do? > >In the past, we've asked people to think about outreach -- say, >inviting new people from new contexts. It seems like that's had >limited success; but at a time when nettime has been limping >along, it's hard to get excited about inviting people to join an >environment so heavily defined by habit. We've also joked that >shutting it down before it fades into complete senescence might be >best. But that joke wasn't really funny, in part because it wasn't >meant to be: it was a way of expressing serious concerns about the >list's increasingly parochial status. > >Now, we have a simple proposal: let's switch roles. > >It goes like this: > >If you've posted more than others to the list in the last 60 or 90 >or 120 or 180 days -- the math matters less than the spirit -- take >a break. Let others define nettime, a space made up of nearly 5000 >subscribers. > >If you haven't posted to the list -- say, because it seemed like >your ideas, concerns, or whatever you want to share wouldn't fit >with nettime's habits -- maybe that will change. > >Think of it as an un-grand experiment: a way to see what else >might happen, who else might speak, what less familiar ideas, >perspectives, or styles might spring up. Maybe the list will fade >into silence, and we'll be left with a paradoxical object, a list >composed *entirely* of lurkers -- not such a bad non-end for >nettime. Or maybe not. There might be many ways to find out. For >now, rather than the 1% debating how narrowly to define good >manners, let's see if a different 'we' can change things. > > >-- the mod squad (Ted and Felix) > ># distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission ># <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, ># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets ># more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l ># archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org ># @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
