Re: <nettime> Nettime is in bad shape. Let's see if we can change it.

On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 4:32 PM André Rebentisch <[email protected]> wrote:

Am 01.07.19 um 15:49 schrieb Max Herman:
>
> Hi André,
>
> Which of the formerly valuable lists are dead? I'm very far out of the
> loop working mostly offline for the last decade.

Dear Max,

almost all lists I am subscribed to. Simply members are not posting
anymore. I still read nettime. I still get lots of newsletters via list
infrastructure channels.

Inter-Media Transition is normal. We have other means of online
communications. telegram groups, facebook groups, twitter, yodel, slack,
mattermost etc. Before usenet groups with their odd clients and rude
channel rules became obsolete.

A simple method to kill a mailing list is spam. Or low quality
communications. Or dumping all kinds of communication into the list. Or
opening the mail archive to the general public without asking for prior
consent (happened on Liberationtech). Open Archives in return could lead
to legal risks in Germany, what do you do as a mailing list admin when
you face court injunctions to remove copyrighted or defamatory content
from list archives etc. You simply can't risk to let removed content pop
up again after an archive regeneration etc.

Or other kinds of risks with ML public archives, I just recall an
exchange with RMS who didn't bother to call out the president of
Zimbabwe on a mailing list frequented by free software people of that
country where archives were kindly indexed by google. RMS insisted on
his right to free speech. Well, how nice to exercise your rights to
converse with people when an incautious reply (which your rant incites)
could get them killed or set behind bars and otherwise they cannot
respond on equal footing plus all you do is put your associates at risk.

Mailman still has a horrible user interface. Often moderators don't
moderate anymore because there was too much spam, default settings are
suboptimal, spam filtering remains sub-standard. I have no idea why no
org financed a Mailman replacement or Mailman NG project.

You could also observe the same phenomenon of declining list
communications on open source developer lists. Occasionally dead
communication channels come to new light.

Encrypted mailing lists exist. Almost no one uses them.

> One aspect of mailing lists is that they are a powerful example of a
> free public sphere (and maybe its most essential _expression_ regardless
> of technological advancement). You can put a bunch of content in an
> email, and it can go to literally everyone on the planet.

Yet who is keeping a record? And how to curate email exchanges?

> All that said, a listserv is only as good as its content. If no one
> creates any content that is relevant, nothing that cannot be gotten
> better elsewhere, then why bother with the noisy clamor of a list?

Attention is limited. The time people spent to acknowledge and oppose
the latest outrage, the daily trump tweet etc., is missing for serious
debate and thought.

Online speech is Karl Kraus on steroids, always picking the
insignificant targets, always declaration of persons as enemies, always
hate mobs that try to engage us.

Dialogue becomes impossible as we don't talk with each other anymore but
to (at times imaginary) third parties. As "Nick Nailor" (Aaron Eckhart)
explained in Thank you for Smoking: "Because I'm not after you, I am
after them". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLS-npemQYQ

20 years ago there was a common sentiment that open low-censored online
debates, even rude ones, contribute to a better and more open society...
only if we would spread the technology to ignorant people from the past
and institutions. Like in that previous Ito quote everyone had his or
her pivotal moment.

Best,
André

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