Hi, Adam,
This isn’t an unfortunate spat, and it’s not about technology.
The most important aspect of the list is that it works quite well for a
community of more than 2,100 subscribers. Since the list began in 1998,
people have created several dozen different lists or forums around the
topic of design research. Some use technologies such as Yahoo, Facebook,
or other services. Others use different forms of Listserv technology,
including JISCMAIL. Still others use purpose-built web interfaces. Few
of them have grown beyond a few dozen subscribers, and nearly none of
them is genuinely active.
While I’ve browsed some of these when I’ve been invited to
participate, I find the interfaces clunky. None works better than
JISCMAIL. More important, I find that few people seem to have an
interest in participating. People gravitate to the lively, on-going
conversation we have here. So far, no one has been able to generate
energy that a new forum requires.
PhD-Design is a coherent community of people who have joined together
in conversation for nearly fifteen years. This list represents a
conversation with a community of people I enjoy. The technology seems
perfectly usable. If you think there is a better way to work where a
different technology improves the quality of conversation, start a
forum. Perhaps a new forum will work better than the past dozen or so
attempts. As I see it, technology is not the issue. Nothing in a
technical fix will lead to a better or more intelligent conversation.
Yours,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 |
Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
--
Adam Parker wrote:
—snip—
Perhaps, the best way to respond to this unfortunate spat is instead to
go further, and now consider what this list might become, both
culturally and technically, rather than accepting a status quo that may
simply be technically obsolete.
Perhaps it is time - given we do live in a social media era - that this
community should consider moving onwards to (at least) a managed
threaded forum instead of continuing with JISCmail.
—snip—
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