[PEN-L:1968] Internet mailing lists: what are they?

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis:

"The Internet Navigator" by Paul Gilster is one of the best-selling
guides to the Internet. In the chapter on "BITNET: The art of the list",
Gilster virtually defines mailing lists on the Internet as being
exclusively the function of BITNET (BIT stands for "because it's
time").

BITNET is actually not, technically speaking, part of the Internet. It is
a network that does not run under TCP/IP, the standard protocol of the
Internet. It was formed as a joint project between IBM and the City
University of New York and was meant to run on IBM mainframes
running the VM operating system. The idea behind BITNET was to
facilitate scholary discussions between academics who were connected
to an IBM mainframe that was part of this network. The software used
to maintain BITNET is LISTSERV. LISTPROC, which PEN-L uses,
is very similar to LISTSERV.

In describing the function of BITNET, Gilster has the following to say:

"BITNET's mailing lists aren't normal computer bulletin boards, nor
should they be treated as such. They provide an opportunity to bridge
the seemingly insuperable gap between an academic community too
often isolated from society and the community of interested *lay people*
who can benefit from their continuing research. BITNET is a
tremendous medium for self-education, for following up on interests
you thought you left behind when you left school. It is a medium for
exploring ideas and keeping up with breakthroughs in both the
humanities and the sciences.

For scholars, the network is a platform for exchanging ideas. Imagine
talking to valued colleagues daily, where as before your conversations
were limited to occasional *academic conferences*. BITNET does
exactly what Ira Fuchs and Greydon Freeman intended; it promotes
collaboration with distant colleagues and distributes news lightning-
fast throughout the research community. The ability to sit in on such a
medium is one of the most remarkable features of your access to the
Internet and its related outer networks.

So use it well. Remember that serious work is being discussed here;
the quality of the ongoing discussion depends directly upon the
willingness of participants to bring new ideas to the table and to follow
basic rules of propriety. As a BITNET *eavesdropper*, you should plan
on listening and absorbing before you leave any messages. In most of
the mailing lists I subscribe to, I'm purely a listener, taking the
opportunity to learn from the ongoing discussions. There's no point in
jumping in unless you have something genuinely useful to add to the
proceedings."

Doesn't this describe PEN-L to a tee? Doesn't this describe Kliman and
Levy's understanding of what a mailing list should be? This was the
character of the Marxism list before it was hijacked by activists,
workers and unruly undergraduates. This is what rankles many of the
academics who have left the list.

The character of these mailing lists is of some importance. If the Internet
is to serve as a democratic communications technology, then some
attention has to be paid to questions of hierarchy, power and
professionalism. (Sorry to sound Foucauldian.) Ultimately, there are
class questions involved in all this, but I know that nobody who's a
professor could possibly entertain the possibility that they are not part
of the working-class.