CDS Chronicles

[Danton Sideways]

After an absence of about half a year from CDS, I've been reading the transcripts of old RA meetings to try to catch up on what has been happening.

I've started a series of blog posts summarizing the RA meetings from last semester. The first post is now up, at this link:

http://dantonsideways.blogspot.com/2009 ... art-1.html

The post starts with a long background section, and then only covers the first two RA meetings of July 2008! You may consider this to be an exercise in CDS history. However, my long-term intent is more journalistic. The CDS forums are much too dense to be used to keep abreast of current events. (Keeping abreast of the forums is practically a full-time job, and is beyond my own personal capacities.) If I manage to continue this project, I hope one day to catch up with the present, and thus to constitute a sort of independent CDS newsletter.

I invite anyone interested to glance at these posts and to offer your reactions or corrections, either as comments on the blog, or in this forum thread.

[Rose Springvale]

Nice recap Danton, and nice to have you back!

You have hit the core of one of our primary issues in CDS with this:

This is an example of how any system, and CDS is no exception, tends to develop hierarchies of knowledge which leave ordinary citizens in a state of relative ignorance. Insider groups coalesce among those who have the time to follow the legislation, the committees and the social events. Knowledge is power.

I've never been a forum fan, and would very much like to work with you to increase the availability and accesability of knowledge to our citizens. Looking forward to what you have in mind.

[Cindy Ecksol]

Wow, great! A real recap without recriminations -- what a concept!

I'm looking forward to part 2....

Cindy

[Danton Sideways]

Rose and Cindy, thanks for the encouragement. And thanks to Jamie for his long comment on the blog.

And yes, my goal is to give a balanced presentation that presents both sides of the issues. I think the only way to get close to that goal is by admitting one's own bias, and then recognizing that there is another point of view. It was thus challenging to start with the Commerce Commission dispute, since I had such strong personal feelings about it. I nonetheless tried to present MT's arguments as best I could.

I'm going slowly with this series, due to real life constraints, but I hope to get a second installment up soon. I see this work of catching up with CDS as a one-avatar project, but I agree with Rose that it could interesting to make some sort of group newsletter. These could be two complementary projects: a group newsletter would start with today's events, while I continue to struggle with the past...

[Timo Gufler]

An interesting project, Dante. Putting all the pieces together in the CDS history must not be an easy job.

[Danton Sideways]

Thanks Timo. This is turning into one of the those bizarre Second Life projects, with me getting all hung up on the details of what happened in chat logs from six months ago.

The second installment is now up at the following link:

http://dantonsideways.blogspot.com/2009 ... art-2.html

This post covers only two more RA meetings, in late August and early September 2008, plus the Oktoberfest. I could take bets on when - or if - I will ever catch up to the present.

[Danton Sideways]

The third and fourth installments are now up at the following links:

http://dantonsideways.blogspot.com/2009 ... art-3.html

http://dantonsideways.blogspot.com/2009 ... art-4.html

Part 3 covers the RA meetings of 14 September 2008 (which had been left out of Part 2 by mistake) and of 28 September 2008. Part 4 covers the RA meetings of 12 October 2008 and 26 October 2008. Incidentally, the meeting of 26 October was the high-water mark for the discussion of Arria's Monastery Sim. On the following day, 27 October 2008, Jack Linden announced the big changes to the OpenSpace (void) sim policies, which drastically changed the pricing of such sims.

Each installment seems to cover two RA meetings, and I seem to be able to write about two installments a month. This means I can write up four RA meetings per month. Since normally about two RA meetings are held each month, I should theoretically be able some day to catch up to the present....

[Danton Sideways]

The fifth instalment, covering only the RA meeting of 9 Nov 2008, is now up at this link:

http://dantonsideways.blogspot.com/2009 ... art-5.html

I recognize that this getting ridiculous. My real-life professional duties have been taking up all of my time, and I'm just falling further and further behind on this project.

I'm going to have to do some sort of fast-forward up to the present day....

[Sonja Strom]

Thank you for your work on this, Danton. Your summaries are valuable and a lot easier to follow than the RA transcripts.

I hope it is fun for you.