Re: This list... was BBS format

[Violet Xoxox <violet@missviolet.com>]

openjam@aol.com wrote:
>Amazing to me,  LD still runs the way it did when i first discovered.
>Kim even still appears from time to time. Not sure how much behind the
>scenes stuff is going or who's involved in the day-to-day, but I'd like
>to believe that no one is and it's simply the genius of kim flint still
>looping.

I won't burst your bubble, then.  I'll just say that Kim was a genius, but
even he couldn't swing that.   ;)

mark francombe <markfrancombe@gmail.com> wrote:
>I think he knew that Jeff.. and I know what he means! You just try
>sending a mail to LD using the wrong mail address, Kim sends you a
>mail and reminds you politely but firmly what a dolt you are... I cry
>every time...

Somewhere I'm sure Kim is crying over that too, Mark.  Or laughing.  LOL

Jeff Shirkey <jcshirke@frontier.com> wrote:
>Actually, I don't even know why I'm here--but I stick around, mostly
>for the  conversation and the company. lol

That right there is what makes it special.  In a [cyber]world where most
people are "expressing themselves" via text messages and tweets and status
updates, having an actual conversation is a rare thing.  It's getting
harder and harder to find people who can write more than a single sentence
any more.  And to think this is what's called "progress"....

If you think about it, even though mailing lists in general may be
"old-fashioned," the way this particular list was designed and the
principles under which it operates are actually pretty cutting edge.
(There's only been one other mailing list that operated the same way, and
it was one of mine.  Our lists were a carefully thought out social
experiment that paid off, but it was a lot of work having to repeatedly
explain the concept to members, who were used to a lifetime of authority
figures telling them what they could and couldn't do.)

I think that's the reason LD has continued to thrive as other mailing lists
fell by the wayside.  If you give people a place where they can form a true
community, one where they're in charge and are free to discuss and interact
without a crapload of rules and regulations and TOSs and limits, they not
only appreciate it, but they will defend and protect it.  The reason this
list succeeds is because you guys care about it and put yourselves into it
and make it what YOU want it to be, and in today's bland cookiecutter world
of social networking sites where we're herded into little pens and kept in
line and are barely more than numbers and commodities to the corporations
that run them, with our personal information being sucked out at an
alarming rate and given to advertisers to pester the snot out of us, and
with privacy policies, boundaries, and even user interface designs changing
minute-to-minute, having a place where people can talk and connect like
real PEOPLE is unique.

Just for fun I went hunting to see if I could find any explanations Kim
might have written and turned this up from a few years' back:

   Looper's Delight has always operated under principles of freedom of
   expression and individual responsibility. That is why the community is 
so
   strong. There is no authority available to censor anybody else, nor is
   there any need for it. The community manages and regulates itself just
   fine. (a reasonable example of a functional anarchy, in fact.)

The biggest difference between Kim and me is that he could be succinct.  
LOL

Okay, I'm done yapping.  I get so excited talking about this, the way the
list operates, because Kim and I spent so many hours having deep
discussions about stuff like this and I miss that desperately.  I don't
believe I'll ever find anyone else in my lifetime that I can talk to the
way I could talk to him, and I'll spend the rest of my life struggling to
comprehend how life could be this cruel and never being able to understand.

Violet
xoxox