[Week-old draft]
But subgroups require me to know what I want and what I don't want so I can
absolutely have or not have them, respectively. This does not reflect real
mail, where I am not sure whether I think Phunny Stuph is amusing or crass
and have to see it first. The best way to do this would be to have all the
mail delivered, but in separate bins, so that I can see each pertinent part
of the whole at a time without having to work my way through all the rest,
mixed in. This would require some mechanism in the email system to do this,
though, like the mail program remotely implementing Gmail's filters
(auto-applied labels, which are just non-exclusive categories [tags, in
other words]) - probably a security problem, and just hypothetical anyway.
I suppose you could consider separate mailing lists to be Better Binning
like that, and then if so we have the machinery for a solution (since many
[but importantly not all] members are shared between FriAm, WedTech, and
Discuss, so it is basically the same general community binned by topic
type), we just need to keep the definitions in the lists clearer in our
minds.
So...what are they? As I understand it, the WedTech list is for planning
WedTech and discussing topics that would be discussed at a WedTech event,
and in the same manner: so, an instance of technology and what it means for
the world? I guess the only WedTech event that I have actually attended is
the one where my Supercomputing Challenge team presented our project,
mostly involving an explanation of Dijkstra's algorithm. Then Discuss is
discussing news items (including those local to Santa Fe, but maybe in not
a predominant enough volume for that distinction to be significant)
relating to the list's interests, namely technology, world affairs, and
social trends. And then there is FriAm...which also has physical meetings,
so presumably some of it is organising that, though from the time I have
been subscribed it has been discussions ranging all over tech, science,
philosophy, and social issues, incorporating both news and olds, with a
good dose of interpersonal flavouring.
I guess long story short, organising discussion is nontrivial.
-Arlo
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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