[extropy-chat] META: ExI List Quality & Future

[Emlyn]

Over time I've oscillated between being a high volume poster and being
a lurker, usually depending on my workload/motivation in meatspace.
But I love this list; it's the only one I've stuck with for a really
long time (hmm, maybe 7 or 8 years now? Good grief!)

This quality issue has come up constantly as long as I've been
subscribed, and we've always survived by riding it out, and maybe with
a bit of heavy moderation at times (good one for doing this now
Spike!)

Personally, I think the list is a lot easier to take these days. I can
say "Guns" without starting a 6 month all-of-list demolition derby. So
I can't honestly see the problem. OTOH, I have barely been looking at
the list for the last 6 months, so hey.

I think problems of quality on this list, and the desire by Exi for a
higher quality forum of some kind, are separate. I ask Natasha and Exi
to consider solving them separately. Start a new by-invite-only group
by all means, in whatever format is desired. But don't kill this list.

If you don't want to host it any more, then set it free, just like the
more enlightened companies in the software industry set their obsolete
software free by open sourcing it. Hopefully someone will volunteer to
host it, or it can go to the Yahoogroups ghetto if it has to, but
don't just let it die.

I'll stay subscribed, even if my involvement varies. I love this list.
It might be unextropian of me, but I feel it's one of the things I
personally hope wont change... a little point of constancy for me in a
world that otherwise morphs beyond recognition on a periodic basis.
I've always seen it as a little salon of likeminded individuals, where
we can chat, rant, laugh, and commiserate as we all ride into the
crazyness of the future. In my mind, the exi list has a sense of
place, and it'd be sad to have that disconnected. Like losing your
favourite watering hole.

I like to think that one day I'll be part of some m-brain, controlling
probes and sensors across near space, wandering around in virtual
worlds, interacting and merging with other minds with ad-hoc ease, to
as yet unknowable ends, but somewhere on a little node of my extended
mentality, there'll be the far future equivalent of a pop client
subscribing to the list, still yacking away, amongst old friends.

--
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *
Our show at the Fringe: http://SpiritAtTheFringe.com