[Sigia-l] community

[Brett Ingram]

I have to agree with Jan. We can't vote on it. If we do, we risk too 
narrowly defining what IA is. 

I have found increasingly over the last couple of years that the most 
useful discussions that have (rarely) occured on the list focus on the 
library science view of IA. Which is useful for me because that is 
where I am weakest. However, discussions of indexing, taxonomy, 
controlled vocabularies, thesauri, etc, make me feel more and more 
disconnected from the idea of IA being a profession. For me, it is a 
skillset. A subset of what I need to do to design and build great 
sites. This could be a reflection of my bias (I have a degree in 
capital "A" architecture). Building architects have to understand a 
whole host of things to be able to effectively design buildings 
(physics, structural engineering, HVAC systems, lighting design, 
business, history, art, culture, the American's with Disabilities 
Act....)

My point is this - the stuff that seems valuable to me about the list 
currently also seems narrow. If we vote on what the subjects allowed 
are, I think we risk defining it too narrowly. As Jan alluded to, it 
is still in its infancy. As such, we need to tolerate a lot of crying 
and crabbiness until the thing matures and becomes what it wants to 
become.

> At 01:55 PM 3/18/2004 +0000, CD Evans wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think we need to vote on the content of the list. I usually 
lurk 
> and don't post, and it's been because I've been feeling like I've 
been 
> making "mud huts on a very windy beach." And making them by 
committee 
> decisions in meetings. Thank you for summing that feeling up so 
perfectly!
> 
> I came to the conference this year to find out if that's what 
everyone felt 
> like, or was I missing some key core technique that kept projects 
from 
> turning into these mud huts. The conference helped me figure out 
that yes, 
> it is often like this, and I came away with some ideas for keeping 
the dang 
> straw from blowing away before you actually get it into the mud and 
on the 
> walls. That was a good thing.
> 
> There aren't clear borders on what we are doing. If there aren't 
clear 
> borders, I don't think voting is an option. What would we vote on?

Thanks,

Brett Ingram
User Experience Architect