Re: <nettime> report_on_NNA

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@commspeed.net>]

>Let's say for the sake of argument that nettime is actually run by
>Satan himself. Do his motives matter? For most subscribers' purposes
>I think the answer is probably no. The very worst I could do is a pale
>shadow by comparison with him, so it seems like my motives would be
>that much less noteworthy. As for the rest, it's best to let straw men
>rest.

This is of course, an issue -- facilitating a space for creative 
encounters among others is a control issue no matter where you set 
the slider-tab on the range from NO CONTROL (one devil) to TOTAL 
CONTROL (another devil).  It is subjective, delicate, and always open 
to conflict-of-interest criticism.  Ideally, such facilitation should 
provide a discursive space that is not too large to be difusive, and 
not too small to disallow experimentation.  A moderator has to decide 
this range based on the full range of posts, and select a range where 
he/she believes to be reasonable (to whom?).  Impossible mission.

In terms of possible solutions to help nettime make the next 
evolutionary step, while retaining the format of list (vs blog, etc) 
what about, for example, that moderators not be allowed to post 
except back channel to individual subscribers -- this would eliminate 
instantly the very real conflict between moderation and opinion which 
has generated more noise than necessary (and more noise than signal 
on several occasions).  Moderators should have a public email address 
(public to subscribers) for back channel communications, and that 
communications content should be placed on an archive server.  Easy 
technical solutions.

I can't imagine that you can say Geert "has had nothing to do with 
nettime for 8 years."  That's total bullshit.  And not that I always 
have the time to read his prodigious posts nor do I frequently even 
agree with his ideas -- anyone who reads, lurks, posts, subscribes is 
as much a participant as any other.   If you understand networks, I 
don't understand how you can make such a statement. You are not 
acting as a moderator when you say something like that.  You 
shouldn't be a moderator if you think things like that.

As someone who has admined my share of lists over the years, it seems 
that nettime has had the worst time with the relation between 
moderation or lack thereof.  In spite of this there has been a decent 
flow of interesting ideas.  For that I am thankful.  And I respect 
the work of adminning and moderation (and the dedication of Felix and 
Ted and the others who do this kind of facilitation), but maybe it's 
time to look for new moderators, or have a rotating moderation 
structure.  Ted, you sound as though you are burning out, and that's 
no position to be in when attempting this kind of facilitation... 
Facilitation is not about carrying crosses.

Cheers
JOhn


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