Theos-Talk Archives (July 1993 Message tl00005)

Don, I copied this to the mailing list.

( Don and I have been exchanging a fair bit of private email discussing
various aspects of Theosophy )

You wrote : " What's interesting to me is that I've never been on a mail
list before,
like what John is trying to create. Maybe your used to it being on
internet, but there's nothing like them here on Compuserve"

Actually, on the internet, I haven't seen many use mailing lists. They
tend to use USENET
newsgroups and their sophisticated news readers. These news readers
allow one to follow a thread of thought within a newsgroup without having
other thoughts intruding (it rearranges the articles based on special
reference tags which are generated by the news software when someone
replies to an article and knows how to keep the thread together).

I have my doubts on how well a public forum will work when all one sees
are the words of the other people. I fear those who may try to derail the
progress of others. I fear the release to the public of one's inner
thoughts
which can be used against you by those who hold quite different views -
probably the majority of americans not to mention your boss?

On the other hand, it does provide a means for theosophists to exchange
ideas where they might not have the opportunity to do so otherwise. How
does
one weigh how to encourage others on our mailing list to ask questions or
to respond to ideas against the need for some privacy. John's electronic
group
could be a great way to get people thinking about Theosophy. Besides, I
think I've
made some friends.  Will we need to have an esoteric section someday :-)

Tell me, which forums are there related to Theosophy which already exist
on Compuserve? John mentioned setting up a BBS. I can probably set one
up but that would either require long distance phone charges or the
ability to telnet/ftp  over the internet into the BBS. Can one telnet or
anonymous
ftp from a Compuserve account? Is mail the *only* means to share ideas
across
both the internet and Compuserve. Perhaps, we cheap internet
users should bite the bullet and get a compuserve account?

-Mike Grenier
mgrenier@mhs.sp.paramax.com