I think that if you spend any amount of time in chat rooms, you will find that those are more like the regular kinds of face to face OST meetings that we are used to. Mailing lists are asynchronous, which is an element that is a little bit present in a face to face OST meeting (people can comment on the news wall for example, or start other groups as a result of previous discussions).
UseNet (the old pre-list internet discussion groups) and MetaNet is a lot more like a F2F OST meeting than this list is. I think the Internet in all it's manifestations mimics OST simply because as technologies both facilitate conversation, interaction and information exchange in similar ways. Most notable is that "no one is in charge" and participants are invited to follow their passion and create stuff. There are lots of examples of "interactive" media that are nothing like OST: phone in radio shows being my favourite example. But I think by and large, when forums and media are allowed to evolve on their own, they look more and more like home. Chris -- CHRIS CORRIGAN Consultation - Facilitation Open Space Technology (604) 947-9236 Bowen Island, BC, Canada http://www.chriscorrigan.com ch...@chriscorrigan.com go leafs go * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html