Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 568.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 07:07:22 +0100
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: P2P or peer squared
Willard,
As subscribers to Humanist know, computer-mediated communication appears
in many guises: ftp archives, publishing on the WWW, discussion lists and
newsgroups, MOOs and synchronous encounters, software distribution on
disk. I wonder how academic publications and events are advertised. Has
there been an evolution from the days of when Archie was used to search
for repositories of files accessible by ftp? Has the sense of targeting
audiences shifted --- one thinks of the almost ubiquitous apology for
cross-posting and the frequent extension of calls for papers, proposals
and presentations?
My question is prompted by this little bit from an introduction from a
recent publication ( a programmers reference work ) :
<cite>
P2P
You can enroll in our peer-to-peer discussion forums at [...] where we
provide you with a forum where you can put your questions to the author,
reviewers and fellow industry professionals. [...] You can choose to join
the mailing lists or you can receive them as a weekly digest. If you dont
have the time or facility to receive the mailing list, then you can search
our online archives. Youll find the ability to search on specific subject
areas or keywords. As these lists are moderated, you can be confident of
finding good, accurate information quickly. Mails can be edited or moved
by the moderator into the correct place, making this a most efficient
resource. Junk and spam mail are deleted, and your own-email address is
protected by the unique [...] system from web-bots that can automatically
collect newsgroup mailing list addresses.
</cite>
I am struck by the interesting conjunction of the invitation to ask
questions with the promise of well-organised information : both poised on
the judicious intervention of a human moderator aided by ingenious
software.
I post this to re-iterate the now familiar theme of an academy without
walls, an academy that understands that the records of a gathering can
reach those not gathered in that instant. And in so reiterating the
commonplace of the documentary trail, I issue a plea that, as the new
century advances, more and more academically-trained professionals whether
academics by vocation or avocation consider access to the records of
events as well as access to events themselves. There is a risk in doing
so. And perhaps a greater risk in avoiding the consideration.
--
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/ivt.htm
per Interactivity ad Virtuality via Textuality
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