Let me back up both Steve and Luis with my own experience. A few years
ago in another life I got the notion to do an anthology of some art panel
discussions which I myself had written and/or edited in the first place.
That is, they were already in print -- and the small press that had
published the artists' periodical they ran in *owned the copyright* (as is
not the case here).
Rather than the 30 days I had figured for the job, organizing, reviewing,
selecting, proofing, formatting, indexing and filling in gaps, not to
mention 2nd edit and update, took one year plus 30 days -- for two of us
working mostly 7 days a week, 10 or 12 hours a day -- and would have taken
longer if we'd had it.*
In other words, the currently proposed list project, strikes me, with all
due respect, as "hey let's do a manual on our summer vacation." But just
reading the archive would take a month. Who is designated reader? You're
not going to use the archive? You'll omit the golden material that
inspired the notion in the first place? Then, who is designated decision
maker? And will the others follow his decisions? (I say "his" advisedly.)
You wanna lose friends? A lot of them?
The beauty of this list is that it's interactive. Practitioners at every
level supplement and 2nd guess each other and fill in missing links. On
many occasions a virtual newby has had an important piece of information,
or other critical input. A manual, even a series of essays, written in one
voice loses that. Some will not give permission for their words to be
quoted in this format. Paraphrase is risky, legally and practically. (How
often have we read "corrections" of misleading edits done by
*professionals* and not in technical areas, either.) Puleeze -- back to
earth!
Think rather thread-search progrmas. Think edited transcripts of
particular threads. Don't think "the everything manual de novo." It will
almost certainly be a heffalump, tainting our golden material and ruining
our fair name.
But PS: If Bas, for instance, did a pamphlet on the history of paper, as
suggested, and others did individual pamphlets in same format & manner,
many of us would be eager to buy them. But that's not what seems on the
table at present.
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*Known as "Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975-1990,"
the book has in fact received praise from the better sort of list reader.
(Details off-list.)
Judy