With regard to a weekly or monthly KeelyNet Chat Session, you hit the
nail on the head when you wrote;
> the threat of dozens of giggling masses invading the conversation
> and turning intelligent discussion into useless banter is too
> great a risk...
The script I saw is a bit limited and I'm just beginning to study this
Perl stuff....but there are some functions that are necessary;
Ideally; 1) anyone can log on for the chat session with a user
assigned handle & their email
2) I would be the moderator
3) there should be a way to kick off offenders that would
prevent them from logging back in based on their email
address
4) the session could be captured or saved for archive
The chat session notification as to rules and date would be posted on
the website and relayed to the KeelyNet-L list. This would allow people
to schedule for it if they wanted to participate.
Estimated average duration of one hour though it could be shortened or
extended depending on activity and interest level. Suggestions for
guest speakers could be posted to the list and they could be contacted.
Initially, we should pick one or two related topics and stick to them,
until a guest is scheduled.
Glen Rein would be interesting as would Dan Davidson, Dr. Henry
Monteith, Dr. Hal Puthoff, Gene Mallove, Hal Fox, Toby Grotz, Scott
McKie, Patrick Flanagan, David Hudson (I don't know if he is yet
online), and many, many others. Get an anticipated speakers email
address, send them a sample of how the chat session works (an archive
URL of a past session) and let them decide if they want to participate.
These chat sessions would be way cool for many, many topics and might
turn up information which is not generally known...though I love the
list because it has hardcopies and different viewpoints.
-- Jerry W. Decker / jdecker@keelynet.com http://keelynet.com / "From an Art to a Science" Voice : (214) 324-8741 / FAX : (214) 324-3501 KeelyNet - PO BOX 870716 - Mesquite - Republic of Texas - 75187