[discuss] Should the 1net discussion be split into two (or more) lists?

[Milton L Mueller]

I feel your pain, Nick, but fragmenting these lists has its own problems, most of which are worse than dealing with high volume and cross-posting. 

First, people tend to gravitate to different lists according to their own political and stakeholder status, which means that the cross-community dialogue is severely attenuated. Second, each list develops its own political equilibrium and any attempt to bring the different views together involves a bunch of additional discourse and work which will duplicate - and often frustrate - the work done by the subgroups. I don't think the 1net list is suffienctly problematic to even begin to think about fragmenting it. Perhaps once we have a more well-established coordinating committee and modus operandi, then and only then we can consider delegating tasks to subgroups. 

--MM

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of Nick Ashton-Hart
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2014 12:02 PM
To: Avri Doria
Cc: discuss at 1net.org
Subject: Re: [discuss] Should the 1net discussion be split into two (or more) lists?

I for one think we need more than this division, we also need some more thematic lists, like:

* ICANN and DNS
* IP and other addresses and policy considerations
* Brazil meeting related
* IETF, W3C, and standards-related
* ITU
* Surveillance and related multilateral engagement

Having one list is unmanageable. I'm paying less and less attention to the entire list now, the volume is simply too great and I get two, or three, copies of many emails because of the cross-posting.
 
On 19 Jan 2014, at 17:09, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am amenable to splitting the lists, I will just combine them in the same folder, just one more filtering rule.
> 
> I don't think it will achieve anything, other then the addition of arguments about whether something is 'on or off topic' to our list of less than productive conversational threads.  And it is not like we have enforcement conditipons and enforcement on this list*.
> 
> 
> Now I guess it word as a filtering decive for those who abhor the icky part of the multistakeholder churn, leaving it to the devotees and to those who feel one has to maintain some degree of awareness about all of the public threads.  But in that case, there are other ways to filter.
> 
> But as I said I have no objection, just think it wold be counter-productive.  But I can live with that.
> 
> 
> avri
> 
> * a side thought that occurred while writing that:  if we ever start to talk about list etiquette (oh and what a discussions that would be - we have already seen shades of Foucault) would we have it on one list or on both?
> 
> 
> On 19-Jan-14 10:24, John Curran wrote:
>> On Jan 19, 2014, at 5:08 AM, "George Sadowsky" <george.sadowsky at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> When I first thought to suggest this, I thought of it as a way of using humor to highlight the wanderings of topics on the list and the seeming inability of the discussion to come to convergence and agree on anything.  Now, the more I think of it, perhaps the suggestion also deserves consideration as a serious one.
>> 
>> George -
>> 
>> Your idea has serious merit - in general,  I do not think we should 
>> attempt to achieve perfect separation of threads through multiple 
>> mailing lists, but it does appear that at least one list division 
>> would be helpful at this time.
>> 
>> /John
>> 
>> Disclaimer: My views alone.
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> 
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