As someone who has been involved in the online world longer 
than I care to admit and as someone who has  been deeply 
involved in online community for the past several years, I am 
intrigued by the fact that the Squeak community -- with one of the 
richest and most powerful environments on the planet 
presumably at everyone's disposal -- still feels most comfortable 
discussing our mutual interest in the relatively inefficient halls of 
a mailing list.

I don't subscribe to the list by email any longer (though I spent 
the past year doing so) because I found it too cluttered an 
experience, regardless of whether I used the digest or dealt with 
individual emails. Following threads was very difficult at best and 
filtering out topics in which I was not interested proved all but 
impossible.

Dealing with the list in quasi-discussion mode via the Yahoo! 
interface is a tiny bit more satisfying, but only a tiny bit.

It seems to me that if we moved from the older mailing list model 
to a true discussion board or Swiki model for all of our 
discussions, we'd all be enriched and our experience would be 
both more effective and more efficient. But I never hear anyone 
suggest this, which indicates perhaps I am alone in my feeling 
that this is such an archaic and relatively inefficient way of 
dealing with such material.

If Swiki isn't the right tool -- and I see some drawbacks to it that 
are addressed in every good discussion board tool I know about 
-- then perhaps a real discussion board tool is?

There is a way to experiment with this. I have access to a 
licensed Web Crossing discussion site where we could legally 
and easily reflect the mailing list in discussion topics and allow 
people to particpiate directly on the disussion board or via email 
or even mix those modes. I'd be willing to set up the site and 
open it to people who are interested in trying that mode of 
communication. It wouldn't disrupt the list any, but since it's not 
my list I don't think I should do this without some sort of 
agreement from at least some other list members.

Or perhaps we can write (or someone has written) a discussion 
board product in Squeak?

Thoughts?




=====
------- Dan Shafer, Author and Community Consultant
^. .^ | Commentator on Community, Web Building, Nanotech
 ='=  | Sr. Co-Editor, Online Community Report
      | Author, NanoTech, MegaQuake: Business Implications of
Squeak| Nanotechnology (Spring 2002), Wiley, ISBN 047120045X
------- http://www.gui.com (major update Spring 2001)

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