Ahh, Amigo...I must disagree with you on many counts for this is where I
live. You have accidentally sewn the wind, and I ask that you realize
that this isn't directed at anyone in particular. .

My body is in Trinidad and Tobago, and my mind involved in many virtual
communities. In fact, my friend, that is how you originally found me as
I recall. You must afford me some levity. I may sound a bit egotistical
- but this I definitely know. I can provide references. While we speak
of the diversity of culture, you must forgive me - because I am deeply
steeped in the advancing technological culture of the internet. I'm also
going to give away a few trade secrets to make a point. Fortunately,
this is a mailing list and the leakage from mailing lists is
inefficient. That's the point.

I've been doing this since 1998 - did it professionally since 1999, when
BrainBuzz.com (later to become CramSession.com, where I did similar
things) paid me to answer questions in forums... moved on to weblogs
when they came about... and moved on to Content Management Systems as my
writing increased, and required more classifications and
subclassifications. The whole time, I was using mailing lists as well. I
still administer Xeebra.com in my spare time.

First, I must dispel a myth. The myth is that a weblog, or blog, is not
for discussion and rather for broadcast. As such, I shall point you at a
few online communities which, in fact, use the same weblog concept:

http://www.slashdot.org -- 4-6 million page hits a day, quite active
discussions as you can see. There's about 50,000 people plus in that
community. Really.
http://boingboing.net/ is another one.

The basis of these are - weblog software. Weblogs *can be* broadcasts -
some people do not allow comments. And yet, if even you look at
WorldChanging.com, (check my signature) you will see that there is the
capacity to add comments. But that's only one layer. The next layer are
links to other weblogs. Technorati.com tracks who links to who -
http://www.technorati.com

What is the significance of that? Easy. Search Engine rank (what shows
up first in a search engine when you search for something) is partly
determined by 'Link Popularity'. And Link Popularity is determined by
how many sites with similar content link to it. Thus, the 'blogosphere',
which is what Ethan Zuckerman talks about as the '2nd Superpower'. I
pointed people at that article on WorldChanging.com as well.

But Content Management Systems take this to another level, as many other
sites will show. In fact, I recently got hired as Editor for
LinuxGazette.com and A42.com, though that news is not public yet. I'll
talk about that at another time, because the plans for those sites goes
hand in hand with a lot of the things I am trying to do. That was the
condition under which I accepted. The pay is OK, but it lets me do what
I want to do... and that's what's important to me. If I wanted to get
rich, I wouldn't be sharing all of this with you. Consider that.

Then there is the Wiki - such as http://www.wikipedia.org - and other
uses of it.

We spoke of Open Content in CARDICIS. But is a mailing list truly 'Open
Content'? I made it a point to post a link to a definition of Open
Content - and here it is again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Content

If you are in the majority, you can find on the sidebar links to your
native language, or one spoken in your country. English, of course, is
the minority on this list.

So there are options. But why is it that I prefer communities that are
not on discussion lists? This is simple, really. You see, on a mailing
list, the content may be considered 'open', and yet - only people ON the
list have access to it. If you recall my last comments with microphone
in hand, you should remember that I made a point that 'ICTs aren't using
the very people who don't know what ICTs are'. ICTs need to be grounded,
need to be transparent... and mailing lists tend to be RSVP.

But a website with a 'content management system' allows anyone to
participate. Consider the eGov4All conference, which was done well (with
software that didn't impress me much, BUT...) - http://www.egov4all.org
- allowed anyone, by simply registering, to participate in a live, round
the world discussion on eGovernment. Another one is planned for this
year, according to Andy Carvin.

Mailing lists have their place. But if we want to talk about culture...
why compartmentalize it, hide it from people and search engines such
that it appears elite, despite what we on the mailing list may think? Do
you realize just how many mailing lists the WSIS has by itself? Do you
realize that the general population of the world has no clue what is
going on at the WSIS because - frankly - their websites suck and there's
too many mailing lists? Mailing lists are like geography. Before they
united people, but as the internet became more diverse with content,
they segregate people by their very nature.

There's so much technology out there that the developED world is only
beginning to use, and I'm one of the people that they hire to do it for
them. I'm giving this to the CARDICIS community. I've been trying to
give it to people for quite some time; it's part of the reason I quit
teaching at The University of the West Indies School of Continuing
Studies. Teaching people how to use Frontpage is antiquated. Teaching
people how to troubleshoot and building computers to me seems senseless,
because I honestly think every secondary school student in the WORLD
should know how to build their own computer.

One cannot accept and tolerate the cultures within the Caribbean by
compartmentalizing it. Mailing lists have their purpose, but their
purpose is mainly for discussion - and it's hardly as organized as it
could be on a website with a content management system.

Here's something else - http://www.easylum.net/freeculture - Lawrence
Lessig wrote this book - and he gave it away for free on the internet as
well as selling normal books. And the *licensing* he used (which is
another topic which I have hinted at), and allowed people to change it.
Amazing things happened, and there was an audio book recorded almost
immediately because Lessig's license permitted it. The eAsylum remix
made the New York Times. Really:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/technology/circuits/29less.html?ex=1398571200&en=55b55302e650a131&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
(2nd paragraph)

And that 'remix' was done by Irina - a French woman in Canada, Robert,
an American in the Midwest, and myself. And the funny thing is that the
book itself is about Open Content, and we linked it to the Wikipedia,
which is Free Content.

I really don't know how many foreign victories people like myself will
have to claim before we gain credibility in our own geographical region.

This is one of the reasons that I bit my tongue a lot at the conference.
This is why my eyes were smiling so much when I heard 'Open Content'.
Myself, and others like me, have ideas we would like you to have to help
things catch up to the developed world - and even pass it.

When a poor man holds his hand out, people think he wants something.
When a rich man holds his hand out, people think he's giving them
something. These days, it's usually the poor man trying to give you
something, and the rich man trying to take something away. So I must ask
this: How do you perceive me?

You say I owe you another beer. I only ask that you explore it, because
if the requirements of the ICTs take this into account and hire local
people to do things, then you create jobs. I won't be sickened by
diploma mills churning out graduates so that our countries can have
highly educated vagrants. I can move forward and explore new things,
which is what I enjoy most and what people pay me to do. I mainly do
research and development related to these things. In the South of a
country that the UN considers part of the 'South'.

I say you owe me a Bombay Sapphire Martini, because if you look at what
I just wrote above, there's a world there for you all to explore. I'm at
the disposal of CARDICIS members at no cost for this sort of
information, because there's just not enough people doing it.

My friends... the technology is waiting on your imagination. It's
waiting on your culture. It's waiting on your content. It's waiting on
you. And if we're all representative of what ICT is supposed to be
about, then there's some catching up that needs to be done. If we're
involved in ICTs, I must wonder why we're not using the technology
available. It drives me insane. Perhaps it already has. And the scariest
part for me is that this is only one aspect of what I do.

There it is. That information is as close a snapshot as you will get for
the next 2 months. It will change by then, and the latest technologies
will be a step up. But the community needs to get involved, and to do
that, we need more than mailing lists. And when that happens, you'll
have to stand out of the way as the community unfolds itself in ways
that we haven't even begun to comprehend. Is it a coincidence that
everyone who is running for President of the United States has a weblog?
Meanwhile, our countries have sites that are candles compared to the
personal sites of people around the world.

Just wait until the funding comes through for the next R&D project. -
but it's going to build on what I'm already telling you is out there.

So please, don't be too hasty :) Sometimes I actually know what I'm
talking about. That's usually when people think my eyes are smiling.

-- 
Taran Rampersad