[Xmca-l] Re: Not too long and not too short

[Vera John-Steiner]

Annalisa,

I think Mike expressed his appreciation for your efforts with the comment on the newcomers page.I don't think that indicates a desire to 
get you off the list. The gallery is a lovely idea, but I think conversations are more realistic. Most people write their messages very quickly.
Keep up your good work.
Love,
Vera

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 10:39 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Not too long and not too short

​Seems like matters of message length will be regulated by conventions established by those who post, don't post, delete, read, ignore or participate. My "too long" comment was not original with me. It was made earlier and i (mistakenly) thought had been accepted as conventional.
Clearly wrong! The too short came because I was feeling badly by a too-short message I had sent earlier and was totally confused by a message that was too short for me to know the reference and it turned out to be a response that pertained to something I had written (or at least I think so).

Seems like no cure. But I have my handy delete key at the ready, along with a key inscribed with a ?  :-)

Rob-- I believe we are past the "its broken, fix it" discussion into the "its fine but it could be even finer" phase. By my reckoning, the incremental changes that have been undertaken lately, such as Annalisa's suggestion for a newcomers page, and the (I think!) agreement to try to keep threads as continuous as possible have been productive. At least I find navigation easier and appreciate explicit cross referencing such as David's discussion of imagination in the math in russia thread.

In short

Whatever!
mike

On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 5:44 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> I definitely agree that it should be place based space vs. cyberspace 
> rather than real space vs. cyberspace.  I would also say that most 
> successful online endeavors are not transfers of place based 
> activities to cyberspace - cyberspace activities are unique 
> activities.  Most successful virtual communities - and I feel 
> comfortable saying I would consider lchc/xmca one of the more 
> successful virtual communities/educational platforms in the short 
> history of the Internet (really somebody should do a dissertation 
> and/or write an article for WIRED on the listserv) - generally limit 
> posts to approximately 20 lines.  This is generally (almost always) 
> what works for communities based on Bulletin Board System/conference 
> communities which I think xmca is.  Psychological reasons for this - I 
> don't know, but there are definitely structural reasons which I won't 
> go into (because it would shine a light on my own hypocrisy).  If you 
> move past that you are generally into another form of Internet posting - basically long form blogging.  There are community blogging communities but
> xmca does not use that type of platform.    In the time I have been on xmca
> there have been a few people who regularly posted very long messages 
> but these were trusted users - this is not a title bestowed on anybody 
> - it is a part of any successful virtual community and is part of 
> overt or natural systems of online governance - lchc/xmca has always 
> used an organic form of governance - don't ask me how that comes 
> about, I also don't know, but I would point you to Howard Rheingold's 
> writing on the WELL (Whole Earth Lectronic Link).  This does not mean 
> people should count their lines (which like an idiot I just did) but 
> that the one screen rule is not arbitrary but may be instrumental for the community.
>
> Happy Holidays
>
> Michael (No the name does not count as a line!!!) 
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar 
> [annalisa@unm.edu]
> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2014 8:27 PM
> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Not too long and not too short
>
> Andy,
>
> My conception would be meaning-making, which is all and none of the above.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
>     > a kind of scientific symposium or maybe a conference?
>     > or an after dinner conversation? (or maybe a staffroom conversation)?
>     > a formal decision making meeting, where we address the Chair, 
> make amendments, etc.?
>     > a Occupy-type general meeting?
>
> > Or is "none of the above" the only answer?
>
>
>


--
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.