[WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution mailing list

[stevertigo]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Here's a literary answer I bring out every few years: Solzhenitsyn in
> "First Circle" described the use of chalk and blackboards to resolve
> disputes (in the context of scientists in a "camp" supposed to design a
> scrambler phone for Stalin). That apparently worked; while mailing list
> threads seem designed to prove that electrons are worse than chalk. But
> of course that is largely a function of the rules and moderation: in the
> "First Circle" context the audience would quickly decide who was in the
> right, and bring the business to a halt.
>
> I do not have the faith you expressed in the efficacy of "mailing list
> technology", an opinion perhaps not unconnected with reading three years
> of ArbCom mail.  It is entirely appropriate to ask whether a list will
> give good results, given the nature of lists.
>

Technically speaking, I was being a bit ironic in referring to mailing lists
as "technology [that works]." Maybe my irony was too subtle.

Solzhenitsyn. Consider that with each new context, the same ideas will be
reanimated to see if they actually work in the new context, even while they
failed in the old.

I like your point about electrons (now) being less useful than chalk (then),
as it goes to the real issue of interaction in being: Interaction in the
context of human being requires human expressiveness through gesture and..
well.. being. Electron interaction concepts can be quite different and less
conducive to the things which make beings happy.

-Stevertigo