<nettime> a note about nettime

[Ted Byfield <tedbyfield@gmail.com>]

Hi, all —

It's always great to see support for the list. That support has
had a slightly paradoxical quality for many years now — for
example, as Felix hinted, in paeans that have welled up in the
past when he and I have made "nottime" posts about shutting down
the list as a way to prompt discussions about its flaws. Here we
are again, but with an important difference: the list didn't exist
for several weeks — and since it's been resurrected, it's still
had issues with mail delivery. Any discussion of the list's future
is compromised because something like a third of the list may not
be seeing these discussions. That includes me — I've had to read
these threads in the archive, and I'm not even sure this mail will
be delivered to anyone. 😹

Felix and I have been moderating and adminning nettime (with the
help of many others who've rarely received the credit they
deserve) for twenty-five years now — a bit longer than the eight
years Menno acknowledged. However people feel about our various
contributions to the list on many levels, I think it's fair to
say that people have, at least in effect, trusted our judgment.

The Kein server crash has been challenging for many people and
communities, not just nettime. For some it was a real emergency;
but nettime has often been quiet for long periods, and since we
received vanishingly few inquiries about the list while it was
down, the list's needs seemed much less pressing. This is a subtle
but important point: nettime is just one facet of larger network
of communities, and we decided to slow-walk the process of
recovering the list as a way to *support* those others who were
facing more serious problems. The fact that this discussion is
happening at all clearly means this isn't an emergency at all.

There's no clear process for resolving nettime's future, but in
my view that's good: it's an opportunity for the community as a
whole to collectively deliberate the path forward. That'll take
time, and it may be difficult, but that's as it should be. So,
please, if you have ideas, hopes, concerns, proposals, anything,
please share them — that's how this discussion will happen. But
also understand that, just as Felix and I (and, again, the others
who've kept things going, would *never* capriciously shut down
the list capriciously, nor will we fall back on a first-mover
advantage model.

So: please be patient for a bit longer while we sort out the mail
delivery problems.

Cheers,
Ted
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