Re: Tragedy and otherwise (was Re: water, water everywhere,...)
On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> *Using* GNU/Linux isn't going to prevent anyone else from using it --
> you're not using anything that another user can't access because of your
> presence.
>
> Communications bandwidth is another issue. Network communications grow
> according to Metcalfe's law: the square of the nodes. Fortunately,
> mailing lists are pretty resilient to such effects -- most of the
> conversation is node-to-node, without effecting other nodes or a central
> chokepoint (other than the listserver). Usenet, being even more
> decentralized, is even more scalable (weblogs, incidentally, are poorly
> scalable because of the centralized load).
>
I was in the middle of preparing a long reply to John but I see the thread
has gotten ahead of me. I agree that Linux software is infinitely
replicable but software (with the exception of worms) cannot exist by
itself. It needs humans to maintain and support it. Their time and
energy is the scarce resource. Thus I submit to you Linux as a whole is
susceptible to the tragedy of the commons. The sole advantage open source
gives in this regard is to ease (but not guarantee) the resurrection of
dead or forgotten code -- again if someone makes the effort to do so.
> So you need effective means of managing the rivalrous resource. In the
> case of a list, it's large topic-scanning -- I flip through new posts,
> looking for responses (or references) to me, then scan for topics of
> interest, then look for unanswered, non-response, posts. I'll typically
> delete deeply nested threads (such as this one)....unless I'm one of the
> provocateurs. They've generally drifted off-topic.
>
Try this idea on for size. Subject line editors. They would have the
power to change subject lines but not the text of the posts themselves.
This would give the benefits of moderation without the drawbacks such as
censorship, feedback loops etc.
> At some point, mailing lists grow to a size that's no longer manageable.
> Depending on the topic, this may be several hundred to several tens of
> thousands of users. At this point, some form of subsetting of the list
> becomes essential.
>
> One of my side interests is in developing the filtering tools and
> algorithms to aid in sifting through such data. Kuro5hin (see sig) is a
> partial implementation of same, MeatballWiki is a site at which some
> related discussion is occurring.
>
Have you seen the Everything engine? That might be promising.
--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar@debian.org>
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