Re: Any suggestions? - newsgroups

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

John,

You bring up an interesting notion:
> a thread
> starts to proliferate - skewed into different and even more different
> topical corners, everybody happily regurgitating hisher own favorites. No
> concern about the topic, they just click Reply and write a differen thing.

...plus....
> It is high time to invent the internet as a live construct which
> has its own
> sexlife.

Imagine a discussion "environment" where posts are initially
undifferentiated. Then as threads progress down generations of "offspring
posts" they wander into assorted topical "ecosystems" on their own. So that
one could look at topics historically (those portions of threads that
previously wandered into that particular topical region) to get information
on a topic, but there would be no predefined categorizations for initial
posts. How would the topical areas get defined? Manually? AI? I don't know.
Does something like this already exist?

It strikes me as useful in the sense that then there is no "off-topic"
thread - each thread segment will find its own topical region(s) to occupy.
And (in the best of all possible worlds) so would spam find its own topical
backwater ecosystem, thereby freeing users from endless spam annoyance. It's
been awhile since I read his book and it is packed away now, but Tim
Berners-Lee (sp?), the guy who invented the web, talked about a semantic web
as something like a next-step in internet functionality.

I agree that the converse (heavily enforcing categorized threads up-front)
will usually fail. I've seen that happen repeatedly, even on computer gaming
discussion boards I used to haunt.

Regards,
Tim


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of John M
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 3:29 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: Any suggestions? - newsgroups
>
>
> Tim,
> you have to get to know the biology of lists. Un lively groups a thread
> starts to proliferate - skewed into different and even more different
> topical corners, everybody happily regurgitating hisher own favorites. No
> concern about the topic, they just click Reply and write a differen thing.
> If a moderator activates topics to orfer, they die. There were atempts on
> the 3-4 Psych lists, unsuccessfully.
> It is high time to invent the internet as a live construct which
> has its own
> sexlife. The joke that comes to mind (sorry: they do to me about
> everything):
> The colonel orders the sergeant to command something for the platoon. He
> bends to the ear of the first man and whispers in.
> Colonel: What was that? I ordered the move for everyone! Sergeant: Sir, it
> will spread, believe me.
> If a topic is interesting to a lot of people, it will spread without
> artificial PR. If not, you can do anything in vain.
> The other point is the tide of interest. There are surge-times
> and low tide
> spells. Like in highway traffic. Or economy.
>
> Best regards
> John