January 3, 2001 (idea)

     I'm not so sure what is wrong with me. Maybe I just have an upset stomach, and it is tainting my entire mood. Maybe it's something more. To be honest, I really don't know.

     Much like I don't really know what I am doing writing in the daylog. I'm not so sure about whether or not I have something worthwhile to say. I'm a newbie to the core in a lot of areas, and E2 is definitely one of them. When I stumbled across this place by accident (so many noders come here that way, don't they?) I had no idea what I was in for. What lay before me was a vast matrix of ideas and facts. There was so much here, I felt that I could be lost forever, just reading the nodes that people write here - checking back with ENN often to devour new information or ideas.

     Yeah, so I spend most of my free time here - what about it? I'm not ashamed of what I choose to do with my life in my free time. This place is so much fun. You can lose a span of so many hours here, without even realizing it. I've always searched the internet for something like this - informative and entertaining. I've always wanted a legitimate forum to share my ideas and babble with others. When I came here, I thought that I had found what I was looking for.

     E2 is in a state of flux right now. On the one side, you have the people that think that this place should contain only (or mostly) factually-based nodes. There are others who believe that E2 should be used to store ideas as well, because ideas in some ways are more timeless and precious than facts themselves. The latter argument makes more sense to me. Why the negativity towards writeups that contain prose, poetry, or original ideas? Can't the two - fact and fiction - exist in conjunction with each other here? Why can't there be both? Why can't Everything be just that -- everything? What is the constraint? Is it hardware related? Is E2 running low on hard disk space? I doubt it. I just think that different noders have different ideas about what E2 should be. Some think it should be Utne Reader - some think it should be Britannica. I think it should do everything it can to be both.

     I guess my main concern can be voiced this way: Recently someone said to me in the Chatterbox "The people that own E2 have to make sure that their site contains a certain level of quality." This one threw me for a loop. People own E2? I wasn't really aware of that. I mean, sure, it took scrilla to come up with the hardware. It also costs money for the server to be connected to the T1 line. You have to factor in other things as well, such as InterNIC registration fees, development-time, and maintenance. I understand all of that, but I was still under the impression that E2 was a community project. I know there is a (fine) editing staff here, and that different levels invoke different privileges, but ownership? I thought E2 was a free-form exchange of ideas. I had no idea it was someone's science project.

     Someone once asked me if I believed in Heaven. I thought about my answer for a long while, and then came up with the conclusion that in order to be granted admission into Heaven (according to Judea-Christian philosophy) you had to be accepted by God into His kingdom. This meant that you had to live your life a certain way and make certain "Christian" decisions so that you can be deemed worthy of eternal life. Not everyone goes to Heaven. By this rationale, you could say that there is a certain degree of classism employed by those who believe in Heaven. I decided, and told my friend who asked me, that if going to Heaven meant pandering to the whims of a group consciousness and not being able to make decisions for myself, I was not interested. If Heaven were a club, I did not want to join.

     The same applies here. I'm not interested in a popularity contest. I don't want to be a part of some clique. I want to come here, meet people, and exchange ideas. I don't want to say that someone's idea is bad. I want to encourage those whose writeups aren't so good to node more and more (and edit the nodes that need them) until they get the hang of it - the quality of their nodes will improve over time. I don't want to constantly have to worry about a good writeup with a negative reputation just because it's deemed "Human Interest". I don't want to compare my node-fu with you. I don't want to boss people about in the Chatterbox and tell them they are stupid or annoying. I want to exist with you, peacefully, and open-mindedly. I want to learn from you, because you can learn something from everyone that you meet. I know that there is at least one thing that every single noder can teach me. I have a thirst for knowledge - it's what I'm all about. I want to support you, as you support me - positively.

     Yes, I'm discouraged. That doesn't mean that I am going to stop coming, or come any less for that matter. I'm just seeing a little more clearly that everything may not, in fact, be for everyone. I still think that it's for me, but that may change. Like I said, E2 is changing, and as the editorial restraints become more and more obvious, coming here becomes less and less fun. Who can say for sure what E2 will evolve into? I'll be here as long as I can, reading the wonderful nodes and writeups. I'll post when I feel I have something to add. I'll always look forward to reading what you have to say.

     When I logged on to E2 earlier, I was greeted by big letters at the top of the page which read "This place needs more actual content. Let's begin." I hope that was a joke. This place has content, more content that any one of us could likely get through in a lifetime of sitting in front of our computer screens.

     And that is more beautiful than any one specific person or group's idea of what this place should be.