[CAUT] Forum format (was Re: Requirementsforcontributing/posting; RPT status

[Ed Sutton]

I would suggest, if anyone is motivated, to undertake a small demonstration project, for example, to take the 1998 archives of CAUT and show how it would be organized into a reference format. I suggest this because I believe there are a number of difficult value decisions that must be made in such a project, and that we won't know if it will be worthwhile and workable until we try to do it.

The CAUT and Pianotech lists are basically discussions of opinions. They work because we know the persons and their contexts, and the flow of the discussions. It will be no small project to try to convert this flow of opinions into settled and organized objective information. In fact, I suspect that when we remove the persons and opinions, there might not be a lot left.

Doctors, for instance, have very good reference materials, but they still get together to discuss difficult cases. In many instances the best threads on the lists are "live diagnosis" conversations. I don't know how this could be converted to a reference format. 

Again, I think it would be very interesting to have a person or committee take a small section of the archive and show how it can be converted to reference material.

Ed Sutton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Sturm 
  To: College and University Technicians 
  Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 8:08 PM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] Forum format (was Re: Requirementsforcontributing/posting; RPT status


  Hi Dale,
  Thanks for publicly committing PTG to back this venture financially. It is truly inspiring to see the new, nimble PTG in action, able to turn on a dime (in contrast to the old, lumbering, ossified version).
  In a slightly more serious vein, I presume that you are saying that you will use your authority and persuasive ability to move forward on this project, finding some degree of support from home office in a technical way (probably at the cost of some number of PTG dollars, whether directly or indirectly), providing there are enough people willing to stick their necks out and say publicly that they will work on the project on a volunteer basis. Is this about right?
  Regards,
  Fred Sturm
  University of New Mexico
  fssturm at unm.edu






  On Jul 16, 2008, at 4:05 PM, Ward & Probst, Inc wrote:


    Fred,

    Thanks for volunteering to help get this started. We've been talking about
    this project for a while. Anybody else willing to help?

    DP
    Dale Probst, RPT
    pres at ptg.org

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