From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Wed Jan 18 2006 - 18:32:30 MST
Hi all,
This discussion of the shortcomings of the mailing list format leads
me to bring up the point that there IS a better discussion format out
there, which is the forum.
Mailing lists do not lend themselves to consistently high-quality
discussion. I think SL4 is a great list as lists go, but that's
because the *best* discussions on SL4 have been really good -- even
though the average discussion is quite uninteresting and repetitive
from the list old-timer's perspective.
As has been pointed out, SingInst has a little-used forum site.
AGIRI (AGI Research Institute) also has a new forum site, which we
just put up last month, and which has gotten very little usage yet:
http://www.agiri.org/forum/index.php?showforum=10
I would like to invite all list members to sign up for the AGI Forum
and carry out high-quality discussions of AI and Singularity related
topics there. I'm not suggesting that forums should necessarily
replace mailing list discussion, but at very least I think they can be
a very appealing alternative/augmentation.
I admit that using a forum is slightly more of a pain than using a
mailing list. However, forums are more easily searchable, they're
editable after the fact, and they are more cleanly organizable by
topic. Overall my view is that they support a higher level of
discussion. For instance, the forums at the imminst.org website have
definitely supported a more consistently high level of content than
that on the SL4 list.
-- Ben Goertzel
On 1/18/06, Mike Dougherty <msd001@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is this the thread/post equivalent of Flickr-style tagging?
>
> It would be great to have each message catalogued through what I have read
> has been labelled "Folksonomy" (vs. Taxonomy) but i wonder if that would
> require a special reader-interface through which to communicate the
> evaluation. Personally i think this list would be improved by a
> concentrating the threads into a more navigable tapestry, rather than a
> stream of loosely integrated emails.
>
> I also would volunteer my time for this.
>
>
> On 1/18/06, Phillip Huggan <cdnprodigy@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Sometimes I have spare time but am too bored or burned out to read the
> subject material I'm studying. If there were a mechanism by which I could
> flag or compile a "best of sl4 archives" (top 10%), and if the flagged parts
> were later compiled by someone as a newbie intro or something, I would
> gladly volunteer my time for such an effort.
> >
> >
> > Mitchell Howe <mitch.howe@gmail.com > wrote:
> > So SL4 is no longer the lean, fresh list that it once was. There was
> > never any reason to think that it could stay new forever. The SL4
> > idea-space is no longer virgin territory. The main avenues have been
> > surveyed out. The old-growth forests have been thinned. The tavern by
> > the pier has already burned to the ground twice.
> >
> > Does this mean it's time to redefine the posting guidelines, especially
> > in regards to reading! the archives? I leave that to the owner to decide.
> >
> > I was countermanded a while back when I tried to kill a thread about AI
> > Jail. It was an official "dead horse" topic, so I thought it was a
> > no-brainer. But Eliezer felt that, as a highly relevant topic, it
> > deserved continued debate, so long as people could maintain quality
> > standards in the process. Is this possible without tracking back and
> > forth over older ground on occasion? Probably not.
> >
> > So, I've been hesitant to snipe on-topic threads sustained by people who
> > communicate reasonably well and have something to say, even when I know
> > that, somewhere in the archives, the points have been made before.
> >
> > That said, the archives do exist. If I were a relative newcomer to SL4,
> > I wouldn't try to read them from end to end, but I would definitely
> > search for specific topics I was interested in discussing, if only to
> > avoid embarassing myself.
> >
> > With this in mind, another good ! question to ask yourself before posting
> > is, "will this comment be 'signal' or 'noise' to people going through
> > the archives?" This is subtly different from the question of whether a
> > posting will be relevant in the here and now.
> >
> > I'm not going to kill a thread about list moderation, for obvious
> > reasons... but let's at least tag it as the META discussion it is, lest
> > we muddy up the archives even more.
> >
> > --SL4 List Sniper
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> Yahoo! Photos
> > Ring in the New Year with Photo Calendars. Add photos, events, holidays,
> whatever.
> >
> >
>
>
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