[-empyre-] Getting started...

["Axel Bruns" <snurb@snurb.info>]

G'day !

I guess I'd better join this discussion as well - my thanks to Melinda for
inviting me as part of this interesting line-up of guest participants... I
think it's very interesting that the discussion has immediately turned to
lurking here, and I must admit that unfortunately that's most of what I do
on mailing-lists these days; finding the time to participate meaningfully
amongst all the other daily tasks has become increasingly difficult. (Plus,
being able to sort list posts into separate email folders also means being
able to skip whole lists more easily - some interesting observations of the
relation between email software design and list use might be possible
here...)

Perhaps this points to a more general observation about lists - that
although they're usually seen as a more casual, communal form of engagement
than, say, publishing on Websites, they may in fact require a more
disciplined, regular engagement for anyone who really wants to be part of
the community. Additionally, engagement can be exponential: the more one
participates, the more responses there will be, and the more participation
is required again.

So in this light I think the idea of temporary guest posters to this list is
very interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

Other than that, and perhaps because of my limited participation in lists
these days, I'm particularly interested also to steer the discussion towards
seeing lists as a part of the wider network culture. I think the movement of
users across different networked media forms opens up important questions
about what people are hoping to get out of their engagement, and what forms
they see as suited to their needs. There might be a general convergence in
the way people use traditional lists and blog networks these days (TrackBack
and other systems allow ad hoc conversations of sorts to emerge across
blogs, for example), but there are also significant differences still. What
are the likely uses of either, and where do they overlap ?

This might do as a starter... I'll also post my contribution to our ISEA
panel in a minute - look forward to your responses !

-- 
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http://snurb.info/                                      \ \ / /~|_)
snurb@snurb.info - Axel Bruns Ph.D., Brisbane, Australia \ X /  |_)