> NativeNet's moderator explained his agenda, and I'd like
> to explain why my vision is more modest (only in comparison, since
> the North American continent is so vast and its aboriginal communities
> so geographically diverse), despite appreciation for his
> considerable efforts...
Well, I don't know that I care to engage in a lengthy debate over this
point, but I would be interested in getting the perspective of others
using this mailing list. In fact, I would really appreciate hearing
what other users of the list have to say on this topic, since I've been
doing a fair amount of thinking lately about directions for things to
take in future and about some of the other projects that I've been
discussing with a few people "behind the scenes," and I'd like to take
this opportunity to discuss some of what this thinking has been about
and to solicit broader participation in this dialogue, whether in this
open forum or in discussions restricted to those who have specifically
identified themselves as having a particular interest in helping "chart
a course" for NativeNet as a whole. I hope that everyone interested in
the future of NativeNet will read through this entire article. I know
I have a tendency to "ramble," but if you're at all interested in where
I think things might go or in helping to influence future directions,
I'd like to encourage you to read this article in its entirety.
I think that what Peshewegunzh says is quite valid and legitimate, in
that even a narrower focus on the issues and problems of North American
Indian people could be sufficiently broad to stimulate a very important
exchange of information and ideas, and it would not be difficult in a
technical sense to create such a mailing list and to rule "out of order"
any article that did not bear on the subject thus defined. The question
in my mind is one of what is gained and what is lost by creating and
maintaining such a list as compared with what we have now.
On the one hand, we would have the potential for a "tighter" exchange,
which appears to me to amount, in an operational sense, to a situation
in which people who are *only* interested in a given subset of informa-
tion and ideas (whether North American Indians or any other) have fewer
articles to deal with on a daily basis. In fact, I'd like to suggest
that this situation is close to what Peshewegunzh is suggesting he'd like
better.
So, let's suppose we could create a number of mailing lists, which could
be broken down by subject matter something as follows:
Natives of:
1. North America
2. South & Central America
3. Europe
4. Asia
5. Australasia
6. Pacific island regions
7. etc.
8. etc.
The first question would inevitably be whether these groupings are the
correct ones. Should we distinguish between Central America and South
America? Are the national boundaries between the United States and
Canada of any real significance when considering the issues of "North
American" natives? Why consider there to be a distinction between North
and South America, since the division is based mainly on the dominant
languages, which are those of the conquerors of the Indian peoples of
those respective regions? Is it meaningful to speak of the "natives" of
places like the Nordic regions or those of India? Would there be enough
interest to support separate discussions? Do we really care? How about
the fact that it would be difficult to make comparisons between and
among various peoples based on articles previously submitted, since one
could not rely on those articles being distributed to the entire list?
I hope it doesn't appear that I'm "grinding an axe" here. I've been
doing a lot of thinking lately about this whole "project" and where to
go with it, and how to sustain it properly. (The mailing list is just
one aspect of the whole thing in my mind -- I'd like to write an article
one of these days, especially for the benefit of people who have joined
in the past year or so and who are unaware about the broader conception
of "NativeNet"). I'd really like some help in "thinking things through."
There are lots of issues in my mind, both at the level of thinking about
what we're trying to achieve here and how best to achieve it in the broad
sense of administration, and at the level of the "nuts and bolts" used to
implement it all, which breaks down into issues about whether to establish
closer ties with conferencing systems like Usenet, and whether and how to
create closer ties with organizations working on behalf of native peoples,
and whether to have separate lists for information and for discussion, and
how to involve more people in the day-to-day operational aspects of all
this business, in order to share some of the burdens and the joys with
others and to develop things in such a way that more definite ends can be
defined and served with this technology we have available to us.
I have no problem with the idea of a mailing list strictly for discussing
issues pertaining to North American Indians, and would be willing to help
think through such a thing and to provide technical assistance to whoever
wants to take on the project. I'm sure there are some discrete issues
faced uniquely by the natives of North America, whatever has created the
distinction between their situation and that of the natives of other parts
of the globe. In fact, having such a thing might even make it easier to
have a broader discussion by means of a separate mailing list on more
general topics.
On the other hand, one could think of what we have here as being something
like a newspaper or magazine, where there will inevitably be some articles
that interest a given person and others that do not. The mere fact of
these articles being published within the covers of a single journalistic
entity does not imply any necessary strong relationship of subject matter.
One could argue that there is major benefit possible from the "serendipidy"
effect - that people interested in subjects pertaining to the natives of one
region are likely to be interested in those of natives of another region,
whether or not they have any specific "political" content in their interest
or reasoning.
It would be technically possible to associate topic "keywords" with each
article submitted, and to create something like an interest profile for
each person on the mailing list, and to have software which does selective
distribution based on the choices indicated by the user. Using the LISTSERV
software that we're using, another possibility would be to circulate to a
given subset of people only a listing of articles published within some time
period, say a week, and to encourage these people to retrieve articles of
interest themselves from the archives. In fact, it is currently possible
for users to produce their own article listings over any desired time period.
Maybe all we need is to provide better instructions for using what we already
have in place. All of these ideas take some work to implement, and "I'm only
one person."
For anyone who has read this far in my reply to Peshewegunzh - would you be
interested in helping think through issues such as these?? It has long been
my hope to involve more people in charting a course for NativeNet as well as
in doing the sometimes considerable work to keep it going - for several
reasons, not the least of which is that I want to have some time and energy
to devote to a number of related projects, which I'll tell you about another
time.
I have a list of tasks (that only keeps growing!) of neat things I'd like to
do. The fact that they haven't been accomplished thus far is based on a
variety of reasons, including the fact that I realize that a fair amount of
energy is required for any of them. To give you some idea of the kinds of
things I want to do, let me list a few.
One thing I've wanted to do for some time is to circulate a well-designed
survey of our membership, both to get a better idea of who is out there and
what your specific interests are, and to solicit ideas and opinions and some
volunteers for various "neat" projects that have been conceived during the
past couple of years which have been discussed behind the scenes among some
of us who are more actively involved with the list. I'd like to think about
ways of involving organizations which have as their mission the serving of
native people, whether at the local, national, or international level. I'd
like to work on a project to implement a database of various kinds of infor-
mation pertaining to the well-being of native people and of various issues
(such as the upcoming Columbus Quincentenary), which would be accessible via
electronic mail. I want to help think through and coordinate projects having
to do with getting native schools communicating with one another at a class-
room to classroom or person-to-person level, and to sponsor projects to help
develop curricula which takes creative advantage of communications technology.
I want to help foster projects which seek to enable native communities or even
individuals to obtain affordable computer and communications equipment and the
training to use it effectively so that they might be able to take part in the
existing mailing list, or in new ones designed more specifically for their
needs (a project which I am sure Peshewegunzh would support - and maybe even
help to implement). I want to help a number of American Indian organizations
(like the Organization of North American Indian College Students, which in-
vited me to present workshops on electronic communications last May at their
annual conference in Tempe, Arizona) to implement and administer their own
electronic mailing lists and conferences.
Some of these projects require funding, and there have long been plans to
seek funding, primarily in the form of foundation grants, to do the kind of
work implied, and to solicit people with specific skills to work on these
projects. People with skills in writing funding proposals are also needed.
I have collected the names of a number of people who have already indicated
a willingness to help in some of these areas who are just waiting to hear
from me (you know who you are), so it's not as if we're starting "from the
ground up." I've mainly been waiting for that so-called "critical mass"
and the sense that the time is right to launch a given effort. Perhaps we
can talk about some of these kinds of things during the next few weeks,
and start to actually undertake some of them in the new year.
Well, I think I'll just close here for now. I hope Peshewegunzh and others
will forgive me for using his article as a "springboard" for a more far-
ranging discussion on directions for NativeNet. There are some important
philosophical and conceptual issues he raises which I have not even attempted
to address here, and which I might like to return to another time. I'd like
to encourage anyone else who is interested to do so as well.
The essence of this article is that I'd like to get some help in thinking
things through and in actually "doing what needs to be done." I have a
promise from one person in Europe to help in a major way (who will be able
to start helping once we figure out a few technical problems), and I'm sure
there are others out there who are also willing to help in more limited ways.
Whether you'd feel better sending your comments to me personally (see address
below) or to the entire list (just reply to this article), I'd really like to
hear your comments and/or to have you raise any issues you feel to be import-
ant, either at the practical, conceptual, or philosophical level. I want this
thing we've been calling NativeNet to be a joint effort, and I want to once
again invite everyone to become more involved.
Thanks for listening!
Regards to all,
Gary
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst