>Good question about the Web archive, Olav. What alternative to an open
>forum do you propose?
access control on the world wide web is specific to the server. most
servers support some kind of access control with password on the level of
directories. i don't know the specific technicalities, but i have been told
that it is pretty simple to set up.
if then the password is added as an X-header (e.g. X-archive-password) then
everybody that had ever received a message via the list would have the
password.
this would make it possible for everybody who wants to access the archive
to do that, and at the same time prohibit "accidental gate crashing" :-)
>I have forwarded the message to Yrjo Engestrom who did research on the
>postal buddy.
i pointed to the chapter in the nardi book in my reply to marty.
this little history, is also interesting as a general example of
communication problems in the rooms based on electonic media.
marty feelt that something that i had said on xmca was insulting, and i in
turn was very annoyed, because marty took half a sentece out of its context
and started questioning me about why i was postulating that the postal
buddy was a failure, whuich i actually did not. to marty i was a mean
person, who said something that was not true about his work.
when we read something in a book we know already by the physical weight of
the object we hold in our hand, how important and reliable the
"information" we get is, but when we just travel away on some search
engine, we are likely to loose any sense of the "weight", and "area of
validity" of what we see.
/olav
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
OLAV BERTELSEN (olavb who-is-at daimi.aau.dk) It is generally recognized that
Computer Science Department no science can develop and flourish
Aarhus University, Denmark without a battle of opinions,
WWW: http://www.daimi.aau.dk/~olavb/ without freedom of critisism.
phone (+45) 89 42 32 81 --- J. V. Stalin
------------------------------------------------------------------------ :-)