Open Space / Open List / The Public Domain

[Therese Fitzpatrick]

I think of my online list serv communications on a par with verbal
communication.  Things I post online are akin, in my thinking, to things I
say with my voice in face to face conversations.  I do not control my words
once they are verbalized and I do not control my thoughts/ideas once they
are posted.  We can come up with  many structures  to attempt to control how
our ideas/words/thoughts are interpreted by another. . . but no matter what
structures we adopt, the mercurial quicksilver reality of ideas will remain
ephemeral.  Even if we privatize the archives of this list, something I do
not think we should do, we will not control the combustion of thinking or
the context of another person's use of our ideas. I don't quite think of
open space as a technology. . . I think of it as an explanation for how
things actually work, as opposed to the illusion that form and structure
could control the nature of reality.  If open space is a good explanation of
how things work then efforts to privatize thinking is, in the very big
picture, and in my humble opinion(IMHO), absolutely futile.

Given my beliefs about the nature of reality and the relativity of time and
space, I don't think it matters if the archives for this list are open or
closed BUT I have a suggestion.  Would it be possible to give people the
ability to delete their posts?  A delete function might give people a
different sense of safety on this list. . . and such a function would be,
IMHO, akin to the law of two feet.

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