Electric Minds

I think our little band of P&P fanatics qualifies as a community.

It really feels like a community to me.

Terry I was going to call you today to talk about some things, but here is a good opportunity to report something we were talking about in the Drawing Room last night. Joan has had a lot of experience as a participant in discussion lists and is very fearful that the inability to respond to individual messages may stifle the spontaneous flow of conversation we had with the branching board. I should not put it all on Joan. Lots of us miss the ability to see the structure of the responses, to change subjects in midstream and enjoy some of the other features of the wild and wooly outline style. I am so grateful to you for being so accomodating and giving us what seems to be such reliable server space that I tend to be determined to make this system work. Indeed if it has worked so well in other venues, I must believe that a) we can accomodate to the format, or b) that the format can be adapted to us. Plus, I don't want to acknowledge that format can play a life or death role in the whole feel of a community. So many other variables are in play: our common interests, affection for each other, need to convene. What has been your experience with each format and what is your opinion about the intuitiveness and naturalness of each? Amy

These are some good questions, but not directly releated to the Electric Minds discussion. I'll answer this in the yapp conference, or, better yet, I'll start a topic here about your group and we talk talk about community building issues there.

Well I hopped over here from Eminds at Terry's invite and it is fun to try a new system. Which topics are blossoming? Has anybody done any comparison with Eminds or other systems? Are there common features which help promote the conversations? Do you have a spellchucker here?

We do if you use the shell, and you do have a shell account. We just opened a chocolate topic in food by the way, where you just posted two responses. Do you use telnet Nancy?

No, in fact I was discussing telnet with our webmaster today -- confessing I really didn't understand it other than know it is DOS related. Wanna explain? And Terry, I feel like big brother is watching me... reporting my every step. Kinda scary, guy.

I'm watching the system pretty intensely today because Dave Thalers in here installing the new software. Sorry didn't mean to come on like big brother. We're testing pretty heavy and making sure the new software works the way it's supposed to work. And you can get a great telnet program from http://www.stroud.com in the terminal apps section. And we have a discussion on telnet in the apps conference.

I'll check it out. I am most happy when learning new things. Hope the install flys like the wind. New installs and upgrades always make me jumpy at work.

Yapp is the conference where we suggest changes and report bugs. Dave Thaler gets an email copy of everything that's posted there.

Who makes Yapp? Oops, guess I should go ask that in Yapp. I'll go cruise a few more topics.

Here's a great quote from George Mokray on Electric Minds which gives some insight as to what they're going through right now: Topic 6: History of the Electric Minds Community ��� #342 of 342: gmoke (gmoke) Wed 11 Jun '97 (02:17 PM) Here's an article I published in my weekly listserv/webpage this week.� It will be up at http://world.std.com/~gmoke/AList.html until Sunday and then archived at http://world.std.com/~gmoke/AList.June697.html for the next few months.� I hope what it shows is that there are many other examples of online/offline/cyberandmeatspace attempts at community.� And all of them need help.� "The only war is the war against imagination."� Diane Di Prima from "Rant" I've also posted this in the gift economies topic in the Wealth of Networks conference.� It has been more than interesting watching this dispersed diverse group of people try to support their meeting place. It has been just as interesting watching the volunteers of Virtually Wired try to support their labor of love and access.� You get back what you put in, sometimes ten-fold, sometimes not at all.� You put in out of the goodness of your heart and the reflection of your interests.� That's how you build one kind of community.� Howard and his business partners have to decide what kind of help and support they can use from the group of people who are committed to using EMinds.� We of EMinds have to decide what kind of support we can give. Here's what I wrote in my own venue:� The Begging Bowl I've been participating in Howard Rheingold's Electric Minds (http://www.minds.com), a virtual community webconferencing system, since it began around the beginning of the year. One of the conversations I've enjoyed the most is the one in the Wealth of Networks conference on the topic of gift economies. Anna Percy from Waitakere NZ, who I know from the Ecocity Listserv (ECOCITY@SEGATE.SUNET.SE) that UN University in Tokyo publishes, also takes part in the Electric Minds discussion. It is exciting to be working on the same problems - systemic ecological/economic/sociopolitical/personal delusions of restorative possibility - internationally networked, city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, together. How strange to recognize someone from the other side of the world this way and trade words and ideas so easily. Within the last few weeks, Electric Minds has lost most of its initial investors and stopped paying hosts and for new articles. EMinds is still keeping its conferencing system going. Is half a year a long enough time to build an international Web community? Is it an example of a gift economy since it doesn't charge a fee to join? Will it survive? Here in Boston, Virtually Wired (http://www.vw.org) faces a cash-flow crisis and necessary restructuring after two years of affordable public Internet access and training. We take in about $2000 per month from that and on average over $600 per month from contract job-training projects. However, it takes 30-90 days to receive payment some of these contracts and we don't have enough operating capital to make up the balance in the interim. VW also faces the uncertainties of a new landlord. In response to these difficulties, the volunteers are refocusing our services and systems. VW, like EMinds, can use all the help it can get. Will Virtually Wired survive? I've been doing "A List..." since November 1994. There are about 250 subscribers to the listserv, grown from the original 150 or so. I have never bothered to find out exactly how many hits my page is getting. I ask this world-wide self-selected interest group for contributions in the Begging Bowl section each week: "A List..." is a freeware/shareware publication. If the information is of any value to you, please contribute - money, information, encouragement, prayers and good wishes are all valid currencies for feedback and will be gratefully appreciated..." First year I received $448 from 12 people. Just paid for my Net service ($440 annually). Second year the budget was $630 from 15 people. This year so far I've received $407 from 13 people.� Circulation has grown from 150 to 250. About 5% of the people who receive "A List..." are contributing monetarily. Maybe another 5% send me information and acknowledged support. Thank you all for reading. Will "A List..." survive? Will these ventures ever become "profitable?" Or have they been profitable from their first moments as thought experiments? Thanks George for letting us reprint this!