Very glad to be seeing indications of renewed interest in n.e.w.s. Here are a few thoughts to get the discursive ball rolling again.
I would personally be happy to see the "cultural diversity poll" disappear. I know it's tongue in cheek and makes light of both culture and pseudo diversity, but I think we can do better. The kind of diversity we should be working toward is not cultural but a constitutive diversity of our collective personality, our embryonic "we".
Which leads me to my main point: I don't think we have anything like attained the "critical mass" necessary to move things onto a new tack, or to seriously envisage collectively authoring texts. I'm willing to try, but in my opinion our entries to this point are themselves little more than expanded tags. We are tackling big issues with little text bites, which is uncomfortably typical of members of our informal curatorial guild. There are fascinating insights a-plenty, but frustratingly little detail or sustained argumentation. I have implicitly shown my disagreement with word-count guidelines by posting texts well exceeding the recommendations -- perhaps ensuring that no one reads them! -- but would explicitly argue in favor of more developed texts, including much more extensive use of visual and sound material. This is not a plea for long-winded blather, but of laying the groundwork for serious discussion and coauthorship.
critical mass
Very glad to be seeing indications of renewed interest in n.e.w.s. Here are a few thoughts to get the discursive ball rolling again.
I would personally be happy to see the "cultural diversity poll" disappear. I know it's tongue in cheek and makes light of both culture and pseudo diversity, but I think we can do better. The kind of diversity we should be working toward is not cultural but a constitutive diversity of our collective personality, our embryonic "we".
Which leads me to my main point: I don't think we have anything like attained the "critical mass" necessary to move things onto a new tack, or to seriously envisage collectively authoring texts. I'm willing to try, but in my opinion our entries to this point are themselves little more than expanded tags. We are tackling big issues with little text bites, which is uncomfortably typical of members of our informal curatorial guild. There are fascinating insights a-plenty, but frustratingly little detail or sustained argumentation. I have implicitly shown my disagreement with word-count guidelines by posting texts well exceeding the recommendations -- perhaps ensuring that no one reads them! -- but would explicitly argue in favor of more developed texts, including much more extensive use of visual and sound material. This is not a plea for long-winded blather, but of laying the groundwork for serious discussion and coauthorship.