Speaking personally, I would be interested if people from around
xmca-land wrote brief reports about interesting conferences they
went to as when Anna Shane wrote about the fascinating conference
in Russian on using theatre methodologies in education.
I get the feeling that an awful lot of people participating in xmca
feel that somehow their bit of news, their observation, is not
interesting. Perhaps this sense is enhanced for newcomers when
someone complains about "unofficial" comments that are overly personalized.
There is, of course, the danger of people writing so narrowly that
only one person is a plausible audience, but the opposite problem --
people who encounter interesting papers or talks or ideas-while-strolling--
are intimidated by a false sense of the unworthiness of their
contributions because someone expert won't be pleased. The false
attribution of expertise/"insideness" is really an insidious block
to community.
I think we also need to be careful at the other end-- writing
too much per message. I have a number of colleagues I really
respect and miss in this medium who are put off/down by long
dense texts in electronic form.
There is no perfect solution to any of these problems. As more
of us learn to use the website, I am hoping we can work toward
a mixed genre with shorter discussions here, longer texts there.
mike