At 12:58 PM -0500 3/8/02, Tom Diffenbach wrote:
That might suggest to you what this political consultant see as a prospect that aoir should consider: that serious professionals on this list, openly or quietly, will find or start a similar list. The issue isn't so much whether there should be rules but whether an internet researcher can find a list that better fulfills an internet research mission.
To which I can only say - I would subscribe. AoIR got its start as an e-mail list, and may well meet its end as one. I hope that's not the case. But it's up to the people on the list to do as they do and say as they say. I don't think I would be happy about AoIR trying to structure interaction on air-l in such a way that it perpetuates itself as an organization. What you describe, Tom, is a very possible scenario, and always will be. What we have been trying to do with AoIR is create more than air-l (which, as a reminder, is open to _anyone_, whether they are a dues-paying AoIR member or not), via the Web site, conference and additional means (see http://aoir.org/faq.html and other pages on the site for more details). For many people air-l may be the only contact with AoIR, which is fine. I suspect that many are also subscribed to other Internet research-oriented lists. What the executive committee has discussed is trying to find a way to poll members to learn more about what they'd like to see. However, that's a research project unto itself. We're an all-volunteer organization, and could certainly use more volunteers, and we are in the process of creating some additional working groups and the like, in hopes that we will get additional help. As a final thought, I'm not sure that air-l has "an Internet research mission" as such. Much like the kinds of discussions that go on in the hallways at trade shows and conferences and the U.S. Congress, I've found air-l to be a conversation that people sometimes drop in on and sometimes tune out. I reckon in some very, very broad way all the messages (spam excepted when that does turn up, of course, but even that could be construed as...) are somehow related to Internet research. Even the messages about the list, these sort of meta-threads, could be seen that way, and they're an interesting phenomenon themselves! Thanks, Sj