, in a private conference on BIX, we conduct an ongoing virtual staff meeting in which we exchange information and shape the editorial product.
-- It's global.
Global public conferencing means we can find people all over the world who bring information and ideas to the magazine. Global private conferencing means that BYTE staffers everywhere--in Peterborough, New Hampshire; New York, New York; San M
ateo, California; Frankfurt, Germany; and elsewhere--are equal participants in the virtual staff meeting.
-- It's threaded.
A threaded discussion organizes messages as a set of topics, each of which can grow a subtree of responses.
-- It's platform-neutral.
Even in private space, it's hard to settle on a single client OS or application. BYTE editors are a stubborn bunch with eclectic tastes in software. In public space, a homogenous software substrate would be impossible to achieve.
-- It's capable of replication.
Two forms of replication matter. Server-to-server replication can move conference data to places where it's in high demand and ensure availability by eliminating dependence on a single host. (BIX doesn't do this today; it's a single-host system.) Server-to-client replication enables mobile participants to read and post even while off-line. Many of us at BYTE use Galahad, an off-line reader for BIX, to replicate conference
data to laptops.
WHAT CONFERENCING ISN'T
-- It's not E-mail.
E-mail and conferencing are so closely related that it's tempting to use them interchangeably. DON'T! E-mail is best for one-to-one or one-to-many communication; senders push messages to recipients. Conferencing is best for many-to-many communication; receivers pull the messages. These are fundamentally different modes. Sure, you can use cc:Mail's "Reply to all addresses" option to emulate conferencing, but the ensuing mailbox overload will drive everyone crazy.
-- It's not list-server-based discussion.
List servers such as majordomo and listserv create the Internet version of cc:Mail's "Reply to all addresses" mode. I don't dispute that many useful list-based discussions thrive on the Internet today. One key benefit is privacy. You can make a list that users must ask to join. Another is archival storage. Mail-to-Web converters such as hyperm
ail can turn list-based discussions into navigable Web collections. Add search capability and the discussion can become a high-quality information resource.
Despite these advantages, list-based discussion is awkward. A site-specific newsgroup, by contrast, supports richer and more interactive discourse. And it retains the list's advantages. It can be made private. And since its messages use the same RFC 822 format as do regular mail messages, it can also be made into an archive (see
http://www.byte.com/art/netcol/conf.htm
).
What Conferencing Is and Isn't
