[spectre] spectres partially uncovered?

[Sally Jane Norman]

Dear Andreas, Honor, Spectres

Not wishing to put down current attempts and initiatives and offers of
precious time to build up a sorely needed minimum of recognition and
confidence on the list - I realise that "purging" mail as Honor is proposing
to do is a time-consuming process and am very grateful that there are moves
underway to make things more transparent. Also realise that spamming is an
inevitable danger in our electronic communities. Misgivings there
nevertheless about where to stop - isn't any public action prone to
"spamming" in some form or another? Something old fashioned called give and
take that goes with communication.

Not wanting either to trigger the pundits into philosophising vapidly about
public and private space.

On the other hand, perhaps wanting this (at least) threefold question - the
issue of anonymity, of identity, of communication - to be tackled front on
by a bunch of people who should theoretically be capable of original
reflection on the implications and behaviours and quirks of online
communities. We all (at least, those of us who were around at the time) know
why numerous syndicate subscribers had to adopt electronic camouflage in
spring 99. How have things evolved since to make camouflage demands a mere
social convenience, as opposed to a poignantly expressed and respected
wartime survival strategy? Can a list like this one accommodate a multiple
persona correspondent? Does it want to? Are we a diehard community attached
to the myth of the integral, singular, unviolable individual (Feyerabend
showed Greek mosaic "individuals" of antiquity, patchworks of beliefs and
toythings of the gods, to be close in many ways to composite modern humans -
though hemlock's a good test for anybody's physical integrity any time). Hey
Melentie, maybe we have a good subject for next weekend? Balkanising
identities? Though I guess this is a permanent subject you're extremely well
versed in - just looks a bit novel from a cartesian viewpoint, even if we've
since embraced all kinds of bergsonian and post-modern and rhizomatic
phlogisten in my current part of the world.

HO hum. Better shut my door, school's brimming with problems and humans are
spamming my office.

cheers (and warmest greetings to you friends who are battling to resolve
these social and epistemological problems in their everyday manifestations -
i.e. by keeping this communication vehicle running)

sjn







-----Message d'origine-----
De : Andreas Broeckmann [mailto:abroeck@transmediale.de]
Envoye : mardi 20 novembre 2001 08:52
A : spectre@mikrolisten.de; Sally Jane NORMAN
Objet : RE: [spectre] spectres partially uncovered?


dear sally,

>I'm perplexed that we have to go to such measures to preserve anonymity,
>when what we're trying to uphold/ relaunch (or at least as I see it) is a
>quality of dialogue. What reasons do people have for not wishing to publish
>their identities?

honor's question came on my suggestion - i thought it would be more polite
to ask before we post that list (from which honor kindly edited the domain
names).

maybe more importantly, the postings to the list get archived in a public
archive, which would mean that - if we don't obscure the addresses - the
list would be an invitation for spammers to use it.

greetings from sunny, cold berlin,

-a