[Vision2020] Chas leaves V2020; Liberal Moscow Dead? How might V2020 be improved?

[rvrcowboy]

Personally, I understand the burnout Chas is experiencing.  However, he is
as much an antagonist against those with whom he disagrees as anyone who
participates.  I used to believe he was a total ass but slowly I came to see
some positives in his posts.  I still do not agree with about 85% of what he
has to say but I enjoy the debate and the difference in opinion, AND, most
of all, I respect his right to his own opinion.

I welcome the difference of opinion in the blog, it has given me new insight
and made me understand those with opinions differing from my own better.  Of
course the banter keeps things lively and makes things tense at times but
that is how we all play, and, how we also learn.  To be sure, there are a
couple of people who post here that I will never find myself in agreement
with.  Big deal!!

Chas is a big boy.  He can make his own decisions and we should all respect
that.  If he needs some time off, who wouldn't understand?  If he decides to
return at some later date... welcome him back.

All of us, at times, expect others to agree with us on certain topics.  In
reality, not everyone will ever agree whole-heartedly on every topic so we
need to stop fooling ourselves.  It is childish to think any differently so
if any of us can't take the heat we should just take our ball and go home.
Perhaps that is what Chas needs to do.  Perhaps he will realize this is not
reality but an exchange of opinions only and decide to bring his ball back
to the court.  Either way, it is his decision.

In the meantime, good luck Chas.  Whether we agree with you or not, we are
all better people in some way because we met and debated with you here in
the Vision.  Take some time to relax and let your brain rest and, if you get
the urge, come on back and share your thoughts with us once again.

Dick S.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nils Peterson" <nils_peterson at wsu.edu>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 9:05 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Chas leaves V2020; Liberal Moscow Dead? How might
V2020 be improved?


> The following is posted here
>
http://www.nilspeterson.com/2006/07/26/thoughts-on-improving-the-community-e
> mail-list/
>
> I could have arranged my blog to post to this list, and you could return
to
> my blog to post a reply. This is part of my exploration of the
alternatives
> outlined in this post....
>
>
> Moscow has an un-moderated, city-wide email list called Vision 2020,
hosted
> by First Step Internet (thank you for that.) The mission is: "Moscow
Vision
> 2020 is an informal, multi-partisan group of Moscow residents formed in
1993
> to encourage more public information and debate about the future of Moscow
> and Latah County."
>
> On the list, I happened to catch Chasuk's departure note (he was a
frequent
> poster). A victim of flame war burnout. The waters closed over the corpse
> with hardly a ripple.
>
> And where is the Liberal Moscow blog? A V2020 alternative, announced in
> early June 2006. I looked in via the RSS and the last post is mid-June.
> Another corpse un-mourned, a better medium (blog + RSS) but no critical
mass
> on the site.
>
> I have a research interest in these types of communities. What would
enhance
> the communication channel that V2020 can at times be? Chasuk spoke about
> wanting a better signal to noise ratio. It seems to me that much of the
> noise comes in the feedback to original posts -- questioning of the
poster's
> premise, elaboration, or conflation, of the issues. Simple provocation.
For
> some, that rhetorical exchange is clearly the fun of the list. Baiting and
> pouncing. Word play.
>
> The problem is, some would prefer that the 'exchange' were taken
"outside,"
> but then would it be fun, without a crowd to watch? For those who prefer
an
> information dissemination channel, or a non-personal rebuttal or
elaboration
> on a news or opinion piece in the DNews, the banter on V2020 is
distracting
> at the least and more often off-putting.
>
> For a long time, I have been reading the V2020 digests. This reduces the
> clutter in my inbox. I scan the table of contents of each digest for a
> couple features. First, is the post original or a reply. Second, who is
the
> author. Third, what is the topic.
>
> If the post is original, the author of good repute (to me) and the topic
> plausibly interesting, I typically read it (However, scrolling from TOC to
> item in the digest is clumsy.). If the reply is from a short list of
> authors, and the topic formerly interesting, I read. This choosing is hard
> to automate with a bozo filter alone.
>
> Email seems to be a good vehicle for transmitting the content, but list
> processor technology is clumsy for separating the good from the bad? How
> might it look?
>
> I posit that it would look like this:
> *Original posts could be subscribed to, without any replies, and readers
> could apply (or not) personal 'bozo filters' to the original posts.
> *The whole dialog, or the whole digest, could be subscribed to, as it is
> now.
> *Threads could be subscribed to on an individual basis. Making an original
> post, or a reply, would automatically subscribe the author to the
resulting
> thread.
> *When reading a post, a reader would have the ability to one-click
subscribe
> to the thread and perhaps see a digest of all the preceding posts in the
> thread.
>
> ---
>
> Thoughts?
>
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