These past several days of relative peace and quiet have been useful for
me in "taking stock." I'm getting a better sense of several important
things, including what I would like to accomplish with the mailing lists,
and how best to determine what others want. In the absence of a real survey
to tell us these things, I can only go on the basis of what some people have
written in personal messages to me. While perhaps not reliable in a rigor-
ous formal sense, they're enough to give me a number of useful impressions.
Rather than launching into an essay on these impressions, I'll restrain
myself, and will just offer a few tentative observations and ideas for now,
and I'd like to ask a few questions, which can be answered either in the
form of public comments (just reply to this message) or private remarks
to me personally (use my "gst" address, DO NOT reply to this message).
[ For the benefit of those who have joined the list recently, we've just
been through a period of often-intense discussion on a very contro-
versial subject. I'll be sending you more information on that whole
matter shortly, along with introductory information about NativeNet. ]
I want to start by saying that I feel that I personally need to change my
relationship with this NativeNet business, which I've been doing since
shortly after the "From the Arctic to Amazonia" conference at Smith College
in September, 1989. I've been trying to simultaneously work on a number of
aspects of what has become a nearly full-time effort, and I'm now coming to
realize that I need to make some space in my life for other things, and to
pursue those aspects of the project which I can reasonably expect to be able
to deal with effectively.
I haven't yet worked out the details of what I would like to do with these
new understandings (which have been there all along, but I've managed to
repress them, I think). Let me offer some ideas, and ask you all to tell
me what you think. Meanwhile, I'd like to hold off on other discussion,
except for items on those topics mentioned in my recent article: urgent
alert bulletins, the membership survey, what you want from the list, and
any suggestions you might have for making it better, and discussion of the
projects outlined in my "reorientation" memo (Wed, 6 May 1992 03:44:19 GMT).
Speaking of that memo, I'd like to mention a couple of items before going on:
helping tribal councils in U.S. and Canada use telecommunications
As it was pointed out to me in a subsequent personal message, tribal councils
have sometimes been used as tools of controlling and repressing native people.
The person who sent me that note suggested that tribal elders would be more
suitable beneficiaries of this technology. I think this statement represents
a valid and important question, and it is one I will take up with my advisors
when we next talk about the subject.
helping get native and non-native media outlets (newspapers,
radio/television, tribal publications) using telecommunications
effectively
What I meant to say here is that I have been talking with a representative
of a certain organization which would like to create a native media network
which would help disseminate native news stories to both native and non-native
media outlets (print media, radio/television, etc.). I would like to help
them create such a computer-communications-based "wire service," and they
seem to want my help. I would like others to help me think things through
a bit, especially those with communications technology technical expertise.
(Most of my knowledge is based on UNIX/UUCP related technology, which would
seem suitable for the task, but I'd like to get other perspectives, and it
might be handy to have others out in the field to help with installations.)
Back to my main topic...
Some people feel that it is a mistake to mix discussion-oriented articles
with more "newsy" ones, while others feel that the mixing is good and even
essential. I find myself to be of two minds on the subject. I am leaning
toward hoping that more of our discussions can be based on reports of current
events or on easily-accessible reading material (books and articles), some of
which could be made available via the listserv archive. I don't know, though,
whether it is truly essential for the two kinds of information to be combined
into a single channel.
One idea that has come up in private discussion a few times is that we could
merge our discussion with Usenet's "alt.native" - carried on a large number
of mostly UNIX-based computers around the world, and maybe move toward the
creation of a "mainstream" Usenet newsgroup. A proposal for one such group,
called "soc.culture.native.american, was narrowly defeated a few months ago,
though initial indications were that the vote had succeeded. Thinking about
it some, though, I have long felt that I prefer a newsgroup which is oriented
toward the subject of indigenous peoples worldwide, and not just those living
in the Americas - at least for linking with our main list. Perhaps we should
work toward the creation of a "soc.culture.native" newsgroup. (Recall that
my inspiration for this mailing list project came from a conference at which
the links among the problems faced by all indigenous peoples was stressed.)
In any event, it would not be difficult for me to create a new mailing list
for the benefit of those who cannot access Usenet directly, which would be
linked in a bidirectional fashion, initially with alt.native, probably by
means of a new LISTSERV based list - how does "NATCHAT" sound? :-) There
seems to be a strong enough sentiment among our readers that the discussion
works better being moderated, so I'd like to retain that feature, unless
there is strong dissent by a sufficient majority of people. I would retain
the capability of controlling the mailing list part of the discussion,
leaving the decision of which alt.native articles to pass onto the mailing
list to the moderator. The decision of whether or not to link with alt.native
is one that I would like to leave up to the present membership of the mailing
list. We can have any discussion you like on the subject (yes, I will relay
articles on this topic) and then take a straw poll, which I feel should be by
a private ballot. We need not worry too much, I think, about what people
currently using Usenet's alt.native might think about the subject, since
Usenet is organized along fairly anarchistic lines. However, just for reasons
of wanting to practice simple courtesy, I would post an article to alt.native
soliciting comment before constructing the software linkage.
Even if we decide to link up with Usenet, we could do it as an experiment.
Deciding to split off the discussion portion of the mailing list does not
depend on the decision we make about alt.native - so we could just create
a new list for discussion without linking it with alt.native, except on an
experimental basis. The cultures are similar enough (most Usenet sites
being at colleges and universities and at high-tech companies) that there
shouldn't be too much of a cultural mismatch. (I can't say the same about
Fidonet, based on our recent experiences concerning the Mohawk debate.) I
see the advantages of linking with alt.native residing in the fact that it
would make it easier for some people currently on the list to participate,
by switching from being the mailing list to using their already resident
news software, and the linkage would open our discussions to more people
who are currently having discussions which in many cases almost exactly
parallel the ones we've been having (I, along with a number of our member-
ship have been monitoring and even sometimes participating in alt.native
conversations for a number of months). The other possibility, which I
don't at this point know much about, not having researched the idea, is
to see about creating a new Usenet newsgroup in the "listserv" (or what-
ever it's called) hierarchy to link with, which might be easier to do
than to get a new newsgroup created in the "soc" hierarchy - and we could
invite the alt.native people to collapse that newsgroup into the new one.
The last, and possibly most personally important, topic I'd like to raise
in this article is that I would like to think about sharing my moderator's
role, at least with regard to this discussion list. I would remain in
technical control of the software which does the actual posting to the
list, but I could easily share the responsibility of screening incoming
postings with others. We could make it a rotating responsibility, as is
common on other LISTSERV-based lists.
As I've been indicating lately, I am becoming more directed toward working
on the various projects I've been talking about, and want to leave more
time and energy free to work on those, as well as to pursue a contract
with a local organization doing technical work which I feel will be com-
plimentary to what we're doing here with Nativenet. I think that what
we've been doing is useful enough in its own way, but my vision includes
using this communications technology to advance some purposes which I feel
most of us share, but that we haven't really explored very effectively so
far. I will continue to seek out those people who share something of this
vision who want to collaborate on such projects (mentioned in my recent
"reorientation" article).
Getting back to the subject of sharing my role as discussion moderator, let
me give prospective co-moderator/facilitators some idea of what the task
involves. There are a number of functions I routinely perform, including
minor editing for appearance: Some people apparantly unfamiliar with text
editors, or using workstations with window systems permitting oversized lines
sometimes send articles with lines having more than the standard number of
eighty characters. Sometimes I add a blank line between paragraphs when it
seems to improve clarity. More importantly, perhaps, I try to remind readers
what a given discussion has been about when it is not immediately clear from
the context of the article itself, by means of inserted comments, and I try
to provide a uniform article appearance, especially with regard to included
quotations, and try to make sure that it is clear who a given person is
responding to, so as to make reading easier. When given articles seem more
appropriate for one of the other lists I maintain than the one in which it
is posted, I will send it to that list, with a note to the author. And, as
is well known by now, on rare occasion, I do exercise my prerogative to limit
or terminate discussions, or decline to relay a given article when I feel that
doing so represents the majority opinion without being unfair to the minority
(no - once again - I do not censor opinions that disagree with any I may hold,
or which are antagonistic to those which I feel are held by the majority, and
I have very seldom withheld articles - but I do reserve that right). I will
continue to handle for the time being messages which are returned as unde-
liverable, but it would help me a lot if someone could help me with this task
as well.
So...
If anyone would be interested in helping moderate any of the lists (proposed
general discussion forum, Columbus Quincentenary, native language), please
send me a brief statement, including something about yourself and why you
would like to help with the task. (I think that the education list will soon
be under the able command of a person whose name will soon be announced, as
that list moves to a LISTSERV at Indiana University.)
The simple fact is that I cannot continue doing all that I've been doing,
for a number of reasons, indicated here. I don't want to abandon this
project, but to change my role a bit. In order to accomplish this change,
I need your help. I need comments and suggestions, either public or
private (I will post excerpts from private comments, deleting identifying
information upon request), and I need help with projects and with list
facilitation/moderation.
Thanks for listening!
Gary
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst