Re: [gopher] History and future of "the gopher project"

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 5:41 AM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre@floodgap.com> wrote:

> > Although I respect (and in some ways wouldn't mind) a central planning
> > process for Gopher, I think that makes what is for many of us a fun sideline
> > unnecessarily bureaucratic.
>
> This is a good point: bureaucracy shouldn't evolve!
> But what could be bureaucratic? People could work/play on as they used to do.

In that case, what would such a central approach solve? Perhaps I don't
understand clearly what you're proposing. It sounded like a W3C-like
consortium, and I think the W3C's drawbacks have become rather apparent.

Being quite new to Gopher myself (old things new again?)

I also don't' really understand the discussion so far

or what the proposal is.

I also happen to agree with some other comments

wherein centralization has never really proven to be

a good thing. The Internet at large was designed to

be a decentralized homogenous network of interconnected

networks and computers. "Central Authority" has no place

on or in the Internet (but recent times are forcing this to

change and I believe it's a **BAD** thing).

If Gopher is to survive as a protocol and medium IHMO

it **MUST** remain simple; decentralized and open.

Based on this,

> What could be constraining and for whom?
> For example: If there was a guide on how to setup Bucktooth which(the guide)
> has been developed and was maintained by "the gopher project" anyone could
> write h[is|er] own guide or propose changes or whatever. In which way could
> this be constaining?

It seems more like you're actually proposing a central resource or repository
for this data, which doesn't really need anyone's permission ...

Indeed. If your ultimate goal is to help new users

being more content to Gopherspace then this is

fairly easily achieved IHMO without anything special.

You need: a "presence", "good content" and "a user base".

cheers

James

James Mills / prologic

E: prologic@shortcircuit.net.au

W: prologic.shortcircuit.net.au