[TAG] found something in the attic...

[Heather Stern]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2006 at 02:41:54PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Jay R. Ashworth (jra at baylink.com):
> 
> > We're not acting willfully dim, at all.
> > *We disagree with you*.
> 
> For reasons that don't make a lot of sense.
 
Can't we just agree to disagree and get back to work?  Hmm.  Apparently
we've tried that, and failed :(

Exec Summary:
We are not less "open source" just because less than a requisite number of
sorcerors see the raw version.

We aren't gaining by continuing hand-wringing, we're just finding each
other's buttons to push.  

The question *as posed* was: shall we make the semi-public archives more
public than they already are?  Follow-on: and advertise that we did so?

Ben, help... :( Make a decision, any decision, just please, put an end to
the thrashing.  I don't want to thrash anyone, I don't want to be thrashed,
and I don't want to watch us all getting crispy with each other anymore.



Gory Details:
If it is a harsh task being the "ML admin" of something that is not being
treated like a mailing list but something else, please, one of the rest of
us could try to do it.

I *want* this to remain the TAG Bar and Grill, not the deli counter at
Whole Foods (take a number please, did you want hamming-it-up and wry with
your query?  No crossing threads now, or we'll make you pay ex.. uh oh yeah,
it's free, right....) nor the open soapbox at a public square.

If such was the nature of LG, we would be a newsgroup, making a webzine
of it would have been unnecessary, and unappreciated, and the whole
effort would have died much younger, possibly even before I got involved.
Instead, it blossomed well enough to support one and a half efforts of
the sort - and would have supported two, if the other side hadn't been
playing ownership games instead of playing in the community proper.

There's room in the world for those newsgroups too - and they do exist;
Jim's in them too.  If you want to not say your words of wisdom here because
the multitude they are heard by is smaller - and not measured later after
release - then I regret not being able to give you a dumb chart about it,
but not very much, because benchmarks are dumb.  The Openness of this
particular Source of wisdom was not in question... was it?

#exclude <rant/philster-excuse-to-use-CMS-instead-of-human-editors.h>
(It was, but we fundamentally defied buying into the question before, at
least when expressed his way.)

I refer now back to issue 64, wherein I describe the Coin of the Realm, for
our particular realm.

I respect that your machines have taken on our noise and chatter.  I'm not
feeling the respect for the effort that makes it worth publication, as a
side effect of the implication that it's not only worth pubbing but should
insist to be pubbed "raw".  In this case publication is a continuum, not an
on/off switch... and it's closer to the "on" end of the continuum anyway.
I'm feeling more respect for the past content than for the people that
actually had any of it to say ... and that bothers me.  The future content
was the original issue, but *people* are what makes this 'zine alive.

That's my opinion, not yours, and that's the way it is;  I don't expect you
to change yours to match me just to hang out in the same project.

The thread is starting to closely resemble the archived copies of Reply-To
Considered Harmful threads that I have in some of my other lists as they 
passed adolescence.

I'm also seeing a distinct case of last-word-itis. /me too...

As Ben is our editor in chief,  I'd rather see *his* word be the last on this.  
Call it tiebreaker if you want to be kindly.  We can revisit it next christmas, 
if that will put you in a sufficiently grumpy mood to have at it again...  or 
next october, in anniversary of our escape from restructured silence and doom... 
or Ben could say: what the hell, the floodgates should open, hey Rick, here's 
a passel of work for you.

To say I no longer care about the outcome would be entirely incorrect;  I 
care enough to feel distressed.  But I also care enough to prefer the good
of the *final* result of LG - and that's the editor's job.  I'm a big part
of this zine, but only part, and we've been striving to make each of us
have backups, and be good to each other.  I will accept whatever Ben asks
of me in this.

Ben: let's see an end to this thread.  Please come up with something.

PostScript, not TAG related, but perhaps indicative of my mood:  
My brother Michael's gravestone will be unveiled this weekend down in 
LA.  I do not know if I'll be able to attend the reception or not.  I
don't even know how I feel about it.  I only know that I miss him :(

-* Heather Stern * star at starshine.org * The Answer Gang's Editor Gal *-
   The Linux Gazette (http://www.linuxgazette.net/) is under the LDP