[-empyre-] Free Cooperation

[Trebor Scholz <treborscholz@earthlink.net>]

Hi Allan,

>Hi - I think re: below - this is wonderful.
>I'd like to hear more about the 'tit-for-tat' strategy. For myself - I've

The "tit-for-tat strategy" in open source development is described in "The
Architecture of Cooperation" by Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark.

>always found collaboration difficult, but if I'm given or give myself a
>particular role or segment, there's no problem at all. Having to be
>creative and negotiate otherwise is hard for me.

Conflict is scary as it could mean the loss of friendships but at the same
it has the potential to deepen them, and build respect (though I'm not in
favor of the Nitzschean what-does-not-kill-me-makes-me-... wip style)

>I used to moderate email lists solo; I'd never do that now - instead, it's
>always fully collaborative, and it works a great deal better. There's a
>tendency to respond far too quickly to negative situations online; having
>a group automatically produces lag.

Writing to lists really is a skill that needs to be learned to be creative
with it. I completely agree the need to slow down, and to being creative
instead of reactive. This makes for exchanges that are more interesting to
the large group of list listeners. The fact that we speak to a list and not
only to an individual is one of the aspects of list culture, to only speak
when we have something to contribute, and to be self-reflexive in this
process. That's especially hard facing quick lightening strokes of mailing
list inbox struggles and the long distance character of these human
encounters. Then sometimes we are supposed to have a dialogue with somebody
who hides behind a safe "firewall" of a cryptic online identity.
Occasionally our inboxes are swamped by responses to a post we made and we
are to suddenly prioritize this exchange of everything else in our life.
It is interesting to note how this dynamic of mailing lists turned some
people to collaborative weblogs or wikis, which are less intrusive.

Another aspect of collaboration is that of RESPONSIBILITY to the
collaboration or a lack thereof. Once committed to a project the frequent
argument of a lack of time is boring as it really is about priorities. This
relates to the model of the free-rider. For me the free-rider is somebody
who committed to a collaboration but then does not contribute her part of
the unwritten contract. It is somebody who acts irresponsibly with regard to
the aforementioned distributed supply of effort.

So much from Brooklyn,
Trebor