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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Blending Oral and Written Traditions by Electronic mail.
Message-ID: <1834@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Fri, 15-May-87 19:16:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.1834
Posted: Fri May 15 19:16:34 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 17:09:58 EDT
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Organization: CAE Systems Division, Tektronix Inc., Beaverton OR
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Approved: taylor@hplabs

"Slow motion conversations" are not new to E-mail, but it does provide an
interesting enhancement.  Conversations at a distance before the advent of
the telephone required paper mail, and a "man of letters" spent much of his
time in literary conversations.  But the effort of including more than a few
correspondents quickly became prohibitive.  With the broadcast facility of
net news, this impediment has been shattered.

Reducing the cost of adding correspondents has made it easier to involve
larger groups in the conversation, but it has simultaneously destroyed the
selectiveness of private literary exchange.  Neither has the technology
provided any inducements to reflection.  Newsgroup partitioning and the
shear volume of electronic mail has provided some insulation, but the
exchange between correspondents of net.bizarre and the "net-police" have
shown that the problem does exist, as does the continual battle over new
newsgroups and appropriate posting.

Still, there are benefits which should not be discounted.  This current
conversation is certainly an example, and many others can be found.
-- 
Robert Reed, Tektronix CAE Systems Division, bobr@zeus.TEK