<nettime> Re: public space and collaborative text filtering (democracy wall)

[jesse hirsh <jesse@tao.ca>]

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Felix Stalder wrote:

> In the mean time, there are some pragmatic work-around solutions:

i'm not satisfied with pragmatic solutions. i want the long-term. i need a
better reason to stick it out, rather than the usual 'nose to the stone'
spiel %}

>  murkying
> the structure of ownership is one way. Nettime itself is an example for
> that. Who owns it?

who's asking? is felix asking? if so, that's an interesting discussion,
which i think inevitably leads towards worker run co-operatives.

> There is a technical term called "list-owner" but this
> function is mostly technical.

not for those, both on and off the law, who can identify at least one part
of the chain of intelligence.

> A changing configuration of people doing parts
> of the maintance work without having control over the whole makes it more
> difficult to enforce a policy and a certain flavour of informal rules
> emerges.

which is still a policy, so why should it be immune from public comment
and display in the public space, if not explicit formalization in a
collective or communal process. the focus and limits of the process and
experience are what makes the event possible or even successful.

>  How stable that is remains to be seen.

only stable in so far as it is a transition between more lucid and
permanent movements and strategys.

> The other work-around solution is user control -- the classic co-operative
> structure.  Their social complexity and slowness may be their greatest
> strength in the cold and fast-paced electronic environment.  Maybe.

maybe. but the other side of the culture you describe still exists on both
sides. bloody paradox. where is the balance? only in diversity i suspect.
and the words collaborative text filtering keep coming into my head. what
does that mean? more than we all currently conceive it to be. since monday
feb 1 at 6pm est i have received 1,517 emails. the only way i can make
sense of any of it is with organized long term collaborative text
filtering. and i must say, (with the help of all the comrades@tao.ca) it's
going quite well. i can report back from the lab, after having spoken to
the white mice, that the more email you receive, given the right
collective support, the less dependent you become on this bloody internet
myth, and the closer you return to the source of what this phenomena
represents, as evoked through moveable type, and carried through language:
international popular (democratic egalitarian) revolution baby!

always feels good on a friday!

> At any rate, public space needs more than a unilateral declaration of
> publicty, it needs mechanisms to keep it public even if this is
> inconvenient for some.

word brother man! that's coming from the people on the ground, in every
community, all of whom crave the attention we desire, not from mass media,
or large audiences, but from genuine, breathing, human beings, with the
ability to listen and understand.

collaborative text filtering, i like that term. what's it's history?




		   Tao K'o Tao Fei Ch'ang Tao
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