and the live blogging makes for brilliant reading

Doesn't it, though? I'm impressed with that – people were talking really fast.

The higher-quality the content, the more cautious new users are about contributing.

Without meaning to sound wanky, that's an issue on PA System. It's a common reason people give for not participating — they're a bit intimidated by what's already there.

Without meaning to sound wanky, that's an issue on PA System. It's a common reason people give for not participating — they're a bit intimidated by what's already there.

That intimidation is quite a difficult thing to get round, especially if you're running the site and you're thinking, __good grief,?

sometimes they're quite happy to just be lurking.

As someone who must be on the gray line between lurker and non-lurker (average of less than 2 posts per month since Nov 06, and the last month has pushed that average up) – I often find that some-one has already said?

excellent jackie

Well see some of those scary bastards are my very dear and special friends.

While I've spent my life amassing useless trivia like the fashion choices of?

Back under my rock now.

Come back!

It seems like every time someone posts along these lines, it turns out that they actually write quite well ..

Luke has put some of his pics up on the Window Scene blog http://window.org.nz.

That's a nice site.

it seems they have a better sense of social tone.

That's an interesting idea.

I do remember dealing with one particular situation last year where we had a writer (female, as it happened) who was making people uncomfortable with her comments. Not only were the (female) staff aware that people?

I tend to use the female contributors as a bellwether. If the women are uncomfortable, then maybe the situation needs intervention.

Canaries in a goldmine?

i wonder if like me, on PA some other women just can't be arsed getting into a heated discussion

Zita was saying, with the ADA mailing list, that having a bit of conflict going gets the level of activity up. Gets people talking. I remember the same philosophy being used?

I often find that some-one has already said what I would have said. Combine that with the reality of work where I try to limit my blog-reading time, the conversation has often moved on by the time the kids are in bed and I get my?

It seems like every time someone posts along these lines, it turns out that they actually write quite well ..

I'm sure there is a connection here, with causality possibly going in both directions.

On the one hand, the type of person that doesn't lurk, but dives straight in and?

She doesn't post, because she remains emotionally attached to her comments, and gets worked up when people disagree with her (or ignore her posts). So she doesn't find the effort worth her while, and is quite happy to lurk, read and enjoy.

I found that quite hard to get over,?

See but i think from this thread there are a few of us who admit that PA is a bit much at?

it's true you do have have an amazingly large number of highly well informed and intelligent people here.

russell, (assuming you notice this comment and read it), any more thought given to that 'cage-match' idea i floated with you when you were drawing up system?

if i remember right,?

Das Modeling clay

TV advertised in my childhood and still around 30 years later, but not well-enough known to have a wiki entry... ?

I wonder if Russell has any thoughts on whether adding system has increased the readership of the straight blogs that?

I completely jumped to a wrong conclusion from the subject of the post...

Das Modeling clay

Well that worked, then. There's some in my daughter's bedroom, I wonder if she'd make a little Russell, and a little David...

whether adding system has increased the readership of the straight blogs

Oh,?

"featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue.

What, so we start listing our qualifications along side our names?

russell, (assuming you notice this comment and read it), any more thought given to that 'cage-match' idea i floated with you when you were drawing up system?

if i remember right, you could have a "featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue. then you have a lurkers?

"Nobody Important" with out the tits?

Unnecessarily coarse, Steve, but whatever did happen to Nobody Important?

The idea of the cage debates was to rope in a half dozen acknowledged experts on a given topic, commit them to at least one post a day for a week, and just watch.

yeah, that was it.

a secondary objective was to capture some of these debates for posterity.?

Unnecessarily coarse, Steve, but whatever did happen to Nobody Important?

Yes I know, I kind of messed that one up a bit.

if i remember right, you could have a "featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue. then you have a lurkers section where they lurk and/or talk about the experts.

I like the idea of selecting a different group of "experts" for different topics, but for all you'd?

Roping in 'outside' experts for a caged debate does sound like fun. Can we lay bets on the outcome? Who's going to sell the popcorn? And will the loser get the thumbs down, permanently?

I have this strange urge now to watch Linux Geeks wrestle.

Roping in 'outside' experts for a caged debate does sound like fun. Can we lay bets on the outcome? Who's going to sell the popcorn?

seriously... try to imagine a week-long debate between tim shadbolt and michael laws about a local body issue of trivial importance, and have it *not*?

As for?

As Adam pointed out in our panel discussion at ADA, when someone of high status in your particular field asks you to write about a specific topic or project you feel much more committed to actually?

honestly easily, it just doesn't feed into my soul because at the end of the date it will devolve into hate and rhetoric,?

I love the idea of informed comparison of policy, rather than the usual tit-for-tat of talking heads from the respective parties.

I suspect finding commentators as knowledgeable and able to write as well as David does ain't going to be easy, though.

have them sub-edited.

it could be the first?