From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Thu Nov 11 2004 - 07:23:41 EST
Gary and Michael P, Reasons have been suggested to me, but I don't know the whole story. Although the server at CSF was retired (as Michael noted), I doubt that was the only reason. After all, Ric Holt -- the former Editor of PKT -- should have been able to find another server to distribute PKT posts if he wanted to. He could, for instance, have approached Hans E about having the list hosted by the Utah server (which would have made sense since Utah hosted a duplicate site for the PKT archives). The closing down of PKT, I have been told, coincided with Ric taking off to work on the Kerry campaign. Someone also suggested to me that Ric was tired of dealing with mountains of spam that he needed to filter, there had been a gradual depreciation of the more intelligent and knowledgeable people on the list, and an increasing domination by "various monetary cranks and lunatics". (The person who suggested these reasons to me cc'd Ric and he did not then reply which suggests to me that there was probably some truth to these claims.) Also, if you look at the quantity of posts in the months leading up to the closure, you will see that it slowed down to a trickle. There was, I have been told, no discussion on PKT about the ending of the list or a public announcement. That was most unfortunate. The demise of PKT illustrates some of the problems in maintaining a healthy and serious discussion on an open list (see Bill Mitchell's 1996 article on PKT which discusses some of those problems). Even on closed lists, like OPE-L, there can be problems. In solidarity, Jerry
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