>I'm totally against futurec.org I have decided. Too official.
>Marius' pages were always just that--*Marius'* pages. In the
>kind of "Here's a list I sub to and here's some stuff from this
>list" kind of tone.
But that is just it. They were *Marius'* pages, yet they spoke for the
whole group. They were the de-facto "Official" pages. Partly because they
were/are so damn good and comprehensive. But when Marius left the pages
grew stale (like the FAQ). In my mind the web pages for futurec should be
something that we all work on and that we all can take responsibility for.
ANd if one of the people who was working on the pages drifts off, then
someone else can pick up the slack. They should not be Taylor's, Fran's,
Robert's, or Chris's page. But something that we all can work on. A place
where we all feel we have a say in. Some of us have more technical
knowledge and access then the rest so we appear to be spear-heading the
whole web page thang, but I don't think that it can or should be said that
we own, or are in charge of the site. We are just volenteering to work on
something.
>This whole futurec.org project is taking on the same aura of the
>.neXus. thing with Adam Mertz or whatever his name was. "Official
>FutureCulture HomePage"? I hope not. However, the mere fact
>that it's called futurec.org implies a sense of ORGanization that
>I prefer not to see on this list.
Well the current structure of the net doesn't permit us to have any more
descriptinve name. futurec.list, futurec.vcom (virtual community),
futurec.thing.... We are definatly not a .com, and the 'nic has recently
become more strict about granting .edu and .net domains. And most
definatly we should not have a geographic (futurec.tn.us) domain, though it
does stick it in the US by virtue on not explicitly mentioning a geographic
place (Ahh the golden Kingdom, where nothing of import happens outside its
borders.) This is not a few outsiders coming in and offering to do our web
for us. This is us as a group, the list deciding to do it ourselves. And
we are an organization. We are organized enough that we are all on this
list that bounces our mail around to each other for an extended period of
time. And furthermore this organization of mailing has caused people to
donate time, work, and equiptment to publishing a couple of pages that
state "We get together on email and talk, here's what we have said in the
past, here's who we are, here are some pointers to things we think are
interesting, and here is a mainfesto or two that certain folx on this list
have written. If you want to join up send mail here."
>Suddenly, Chris "owns" the name futurec.org and is creating a
>"special group" to mastermind the FC pages on futurec.org. No
>direct offense to you, Chris, because I am sure -- totally 100%
>absolutely honestly sure -- that you, Fran, Taylor, et al are not
>making some kind of ploy for list domination, but it bugs me that
>a small group of people will be in charge of creating something
>that will -- for all intents and purposes -- appear to be the
>official face of the FutureCulture mailing list. In a forum that
>so often speaks out against the few assuming responsibility for
>the many, I'm surprised to see a few has decided to elect
>themselves responsible for presenting the face of the many to the
>public. (Hmm. That sounded meaner than I intended, but I can't
>think of another way to phrase it.)
In the absence of having elections and what not how would we get anyone
together to do ANY sort of project? I don't intend to speak for the group
and I don't WANT to speak for the group. However I would be interested in
spending my time puttering around in the bowels of some scripting language
working on methods for the group to speak for itself. Or, as someone has
handed to me, spend some time on my girlfriend smac coming up with a logo.
Now if you don't like my logo, or you think that you could do a better job
(I know spud could probably kick my ass graphic design wise) then make a
new one and over write it.
Also Chris doesn't own the futurec.org domain he is the "contact" for it.
Now true he is both administrative and technical so right now he does have
a bit of power over the domain, but if that makes people uncomfortable it
merely takes an email to the 'nic to change that. Would it be better if
someone else is the administrative contact? Since it is Chris' machine he
should probably remain technical contact, but we can divide the points of
contact between people, or even rotate it if everyone wants to. Quite
honestly I'm comfortable with having him listed as both. The dom is
registered as belonging to the list and if any problems develop over
"ownership" of the name a very good case can be made that "the list" has
more right to it than any one person.
>Matter of fact, if I had known how I think I would have
>registered the various possible futurec.xxx concatenations ahead
>of you and just sat upon them, assuring that there would be NO
>seemingly official FC website. It seems the Web increases the
>desire to centralize information, even while its hypertext form
>attempts to undermine that desire. Why, pray tell, does a
>MAILING LIST need a WEBSITE?
That would have been a supremely assholish. Not everything about the list
must be stored on that machine or under that name. If you have the space
and want to publish you own thoughts and feelings about futurec on your own
then do so and link it up to the page. Right now that is what the page is
mostly, the start of an archive and links to members home pages that say
something about the list. But keep in mind that not everyone on the list
has webspace of their own. This is a place for the list to publish
material relating to the list.
Why does a mailing list need a website?? A place to store an archived
version of the list and to provide a search engine. So when a friend of
yours tells you that a schoolmate of hers was just killed by someone who
leaped out of a window commiting suicide, and you get this sinking feeling
that you had heard that story before, you can do a search on the archive to
find out if you heard it from futurec. A place to link up the member's
homepages. Besides that heady flush you get when you find out your page
has been linked it allows you to see what topics your fellow listmembers
think are importing enough to point the way to. As in "gotta do something
about applescript, who do I know that uses it? SPUD! let's see if he
links. What's all this SI shit??? hmmmm.... interesting.........." A
place for the emails if you want to privately want to tell someone that
they are acting as spokesman for the whole group and you really wish they
wouldn't :-) A place to store and access the FAQ and other documents (so
when the bubble manifesto comes up we don't have to repost the damn thing
just say everyone go look at http://www.futurec.org/bubble.html) And as a
place where information that relates to the discussions on the list can be
pointed to.
Now this sounds remarkably like Marius site, probably becuase Marius is a
smart cookie and knows his shit about web design. But he is not
maintaining the site anymore, and I know that myslef and many other people
on the list would like to take our hands at it. Also one of the toughest
things about publishing on the we is that now that you have this space and
the sills to say whatever you want, what do you say??? Well how about
saying something about future culture. I know that I have some ideas that
I would like to try out that need a forum to support them. Like a 'bot
that scans through all the mail and posts all the URL's that were mentioned
in the last seven days so you don't have to save 300 lines of ascii for
that one URL. Or get my hands dirty with (urg..) databes text searching
since web jobs seem to find this in demand and I have so far avoided it.
And we have people who have volenteer their services who have said that
they don't have the tech skills but want to help. Well let's all pull out
your beginner's guide to HTML shall we. We have a number of folx on the
list who are technicaly proficient in Web publishing and I for one would be
glad to answer any question big or small you have about it. All I ask (but
do not require) is that you contribute to the webspace in some way.
Then there are some quewstions to be answered. You just asked them
yourself. Why does a list need a Webpage? How does the web affect our
virtual community? Does it add anythng, take anything away? Is there a
better way to communicate certain things? INstead of me jabbering away
about some grand new newsreader I found, why don't I just post the URL and
put up my scorefile on the website for you all to try out as you will, or
not. JP could just link up all the news postings instead of sending them
to the list and if any were interesting enough to start discussion then
they will, otherwise they don't interfere.
I don't know, but I am excited to find out. Excited enough that instead of
applying for jobs right now I am ranting about the webspace. I think that
we can and should set it up so that everyon one on the list can have the
ability to contribute to the site. I think that there should be no one
"in-charge" of the space, this list runs as an anarchic entity, I believe
that the site can as well.
engough e-ranting. RL beckons.
. . . . .. . . ... .._..._...__..___._.___.______________taylor@taylor.org