You have asked many questions. I shall try to answer them as best as I can.

However, allow me to emphasize that I am a neutral party and contrary to popular belief, I am NOT part of the brotherhood.

Yes, I do work with them, but I am not part of their fraternity. Besides my independence is guaranteed by their constitution.

Q: “Why isn’t the Brotherhood helping out AIMS?

A: Firstly, let me just emphasize, it’s not something malicious.
I understand it is very easy to take Harphoon’s statement out of context and label him as anti-social i.e “no help or assistance of any kind will be offered….we want nothing to do with this exercise.”

Allow me to say the brotherhood have always considered the internet to be a no man’s land.

The best metaphor to describe this is to consider the case study of Antarctica – it’s a domain that belongs to every nation and yet it belongs to no specific nation; and this is very well reflected in the spirit and intendment of The Antarctic Treaty; to date, forty-eight countries are signatories this non interference pact. The treaty effectively imposes a moratorium prohibiting military activities, hunting and mineral mining and renews the support for maintaining the continent’s ecozone.

This doesn’t mean, no one has a right to conduct experiments there. In fact there have been over 50,000 research interests in Antarctica.

Only all parties agree it should be left as pristine as possible for the greater good of mankind.

The reason why I mentioned the case of Antarctica is because as childish as it seems this is how the brotherhood actually see our net.

Don’t ask me why they see it that way. I don’t know, but I can assure you even they don’t want to fool around with the internet.

They believe it is not their right to do so. They believe the internet should be allowed to evolve without encumbrances, interferences or dabbling.

Doesn’t matter whether it is the blogger 13 or even the Aga Khan foundation or Yahoo or the government – they don’t want anything to do with anything that interferes with the organic trajectory of the internet.

Q: “It is well known Darkness opposed the whole idea of community moderation. Does the brotherhood see the recent decision of AIMS to turn down the idea of community moderation as an act which was politically motivated or do they view as a vindication of Darkness position? What is the general sentiment in the brotherhood concerning this development?”

A: No comment.

Q: “It is known the brotherhood has “stopped” all publications for the last two months. And since then the only publications has been the ones “reconstituted” from past publications by the FILB. Can we know whether this recent development concerning community moderation will restart the writers guild protest action in the brotherhood?”
A: I don’t believe many people really know how complex the BP really is as an institution. Usually when we see an article, it just carries Darkness as the main writer, but behind the scenes there is a whole lot of things going on behind the curtain.
Just to give you a peek of how complex it actually is; for example, in a strategic report, it could run cumulatively over 200 pages and over 50 annexures, 25 appendices and probably include over a hundred over detailed comments. All this is squeezed into just four sheets of A4!
This is what you see. You never see the rest.
So there are countless networks, linkages and virtual bridges that unite not only writers but also researchers. Many of these relationships are tacit. Many of them anonymous.
Some of these networks through the years are so highly specialized, that I really do not see how they can even be replicated. I think what we may need to grasp here is the intellectual capital required to drive many of these virtual hubs.
Unfortunately, with the recent writers guild protest many of these networks have fallen into a hiatus. Many of the volunteers who used to man these sites have just logged off and these sites or lines as the brotherhood calls them have all fallen into a chronic state of disrepair – I don’t think conservatively, its even realistic to expect the BP to return within one or even five years time, there is a lot of work that is first required before the machine can start up.
It’s not simply a case of one man saying, OK, today, I will write – there is a whole ecology that first needs to be there to provide a conducive environment to motivate writers, reward researchers and generally thrust up the whole structure. We can certainly speculate no end how or why this lamentable state of events occurred, but I don’t see the mileage of doing so for the time being.
FYI, I am currently organizing a team of people to rehabilitate many of these dead zones. Perhaps in the near future, we will see them writing again. Meanwhile we would have to make do with reconstituted articles.

“Q: Is there any way for us to get in contact with Darkness?”

A: No comment.

Thanks

Y2K

I just wish to ask a few questions.

a. Why isn’t the Brotherhood helping out AIMS? I understand based on the last statement released by Harpoon, he expressly mentioned, “no help or assistance of any kind will be offered….we want nothing to do with this exercise.”

b. It is well known Darkness opposed the whole idea of community moderation. Does the brotherhood see the recent decision of AIMS to turn down the idea of community moderation as an act which was politically motivated or do they view as a vindication of Darkness position? What is the general sentiment in the brotherhood concerning this development?

c. It is known the brotherhood has “stopped” all publications for the last two months. And since then the only publications has been the ones “reconstituted” from past publications by the FILB. Can we know whether this recent development concerning community moderation will restart the writers guild protest action in the brotherhood?

d. Is there any way for us to get in contact with Darkness?

Many thanks. I hope this line of question receives a favorable reply. We have in the past tried to contact the BP with mixed results. We hope the FILB will be more accomodating to our request.

Juliana

What kind of summary leaves out mention of a two metric ton white elephant standing in the living room? The short answer is a conceited one.

Never ever forget while history can certainly be written in infinite ways. Nonetheless it can ONLY be recounted in a number of LIMITED ways.

You could even say. Every historian understands this limitation only too well. If he doesn’t, then you as the consumer have every right to ask of him: how is he dedicating himself to his craft?

Trust me, he would be hard pressed to give you a satisfactory answer.

Every historian worth his salt understands the sine quo non of capturing the essential element or condition that makes up a historical account.

You could say, choice does not even feature in this transaction. Not even once. He simply has to dedicate himself scrupulously to the fidelity of the account without fear or favor. If a historian, librarian and archiver cannot even do that one simple and needful thing: What does that say about his judgment? What does it say about the organization that he belongs too? What does it say about his commitment to his craft?

I leave that to you. But trust me, it says a lot.

Yesterday was the day; when the accounts were finally squared once a for all. It came, it too will past, but not before, it was well recorded by the Free Internet Library Board.

I recorded all this before, during and after.

Regards

Y2K

This

Perhaps it will be different from the NLB account. Bear in mind to them blogosphere = 13 blogs.

Community moderation was once proposed. It was subsequently considered an impractical idea by AIMS.

This is how it will be written in FILB history.

The rest is mere commentary. It’s not important.

Y2K