<nettime> brother, can you spare a rhizome digest [calin, bowman, hwang]

["nettime's_tin_cup" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

"calin" <calin@xs4all.nl>
     Re: Your Rhizome.org membership has just expired
"Brice Bowman" <brice@bricebowman.com>
     Re:<nettime> Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: One Day Left
Francis Hwang <sera@fhwang.net>
     Re: <nettime> Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: One Day Left

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From: "calin" <calin@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: Your Rhizome.org membership has just expired
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 12:23:57 +0100

Dear Rhizome Crew!

i do not know how did i started to get Rhyzome in my mail box. but i am
pretty sure i din't ask for that honor. still, it was good to keep up with
things....

but i vaguely remember that years ago it crossed my mind to send some info
for publication on your list. it was about some media activities goig on in
Romania, i presume, nothing special. probably that is why it never made it
on Rhyzome.

no problem, you people are too far from such places .... probably that is
why you keep coming back at me asking for subscription fees and so forth. i
am a very strong advocate of a fee-for-service policy in the field of
culture. and i keep myself from the too loud advocates of copy-left, free
acess etc., just because i do not have the time to cut a clear line between
the implications:  the ripping off of people like me and the anihilation of
public access to information.

but at the same time i find rather pathetic the attempts more and more
people, artists and institutions make at using the corporate wooden language
while claiming to belong to some obscure post-avantgarde resistance
movement. you want to make money, go somewhere where it is made (as New York
residents you should know better - at least that is the impression we get
about this while watching CNN). but please do not bother the marginals of
the economic pyramid in order to support your daily allowance.

or if you think that getting community money in order to support a noble
task is feasable and right, then beg nicely for our attention by explaining
what is going on, why do we have to give money and what are we going to get
from it.

as for the thank-you gifts, i heard and expression which - as a non-native
speaker of English -  i tend to like, without understanding clearly its
functioning:

stuff them!


----- Original Message -----
from: "Rhizome.org" <registration@rhizome.org>
to: "Calin Dan" <calin@euronet.nl>
sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 11:30 PM
subject: Your Rhizome.org membership has just expired


> Hi Calin,
>
> Your Rhizome.org membership has just expired. :-(
>
> Please  renew your one-year membership now by making a contribution of
> $5 or more. As usual, we offer cool thank-you gifts for contributions of
> $10 or more.
>
> We accept contributions online via secure credit card transaction or
> PayPal at http://rhizome.org/support.
>
> We also accept checks, money orders or cash mailed to Rhizome.org,  180
> Varick Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10014.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Rhizome Crew
>
> + + +
>
> Rhizome.org is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. For U.S.
> taxpayers, contributions to Rhizome are tax-deductible, minus the value
> of any goods or services received, to the extent allowed by law.

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From: "Brice Bowman" <brice@bricebowman.com>
Subject: Re:<nettime> Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: One Day Left
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 09:41:49 -0800

In my view Rhizome carelessly expanded beyond their means and should not be
bailed out by it's users for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is
that there will be no end to request for fees the dollar amount.  We all,
including Rhizome, need to keep our viable economic parameters insight. I'm
sorry as much as I enjoyed Rhizome, they are acting greedy and narcissistic.
Consequently I ended my relationship with Rhizome.

Brice Bowman


----- Original Message -----
from: "m e t a" <meta@meta.am>
to: <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 12:30 AM
subject: Spam Alert: <nettime> Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: One Day Left

> At 9:32 AM -0500 1/15/03, Mark Tribe wrote:
> >
> >this isn't about profit. it is about survival. rhizome is a nonprofit
> >organization. nobody is getting rich.
>
> 'survival' & 'rich' are relative terms.
 <...>

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Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 13:46:12 -0500
From: Francis Hwang <sera@fhwang.net>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: One Day Left

I find this sort of formulation strange. When people contribute to an 
online discussion forum, whether that's Nettime or Rhizome or 
Slashdot, are they doing it out of a sense of altruism? Are they 
"donating" content out of the goodness of their own hearts? I don't 
think that's why most people do it. Most people give their content 
away for free out of self-interest. They have an opinion they want to 
advance, or they just want people to think they're smart, or they 
just want to talk with others because it's fun.

I made a post a few days ago to the Rhizome list, comparing Rhizome 
to a bar. You don't go for the drinks; you go to be around lots of 
other people. All the customers are the ones, collectively, who 
contribute to the experience of going out. Nobody at a bar complains 
that the bar-owners are exploiting them because they're not being 
properly compensated for showing up. Going out is understood to be a 
reciprocally beneficial transaction: You contribute to a scene by 
showing up and being around, but you also get something out of it, 
such as attention, stimulation, etc., etc.

If there were, in fact, a tremendous amount of volunteer work 
happening at Rhizome, then this sort of formulation would make more 
sense to me. If people were doing things like writing FAQs, writing 
essential code, etc. -- that stuff is a lot less fun, and it's done 
more out of altruism. But I don't consider basic participation 
volunteer work. Participation is just participation.

Now, you can argue that the $5 is still too much, because maybe the 
Rhizome site doesn't run well, or everybody on Rhizome is pretentious 
as fuck-all, or whatever. Basically, the $5 goes towards supporting a 
community experience, and if you think the community experience is so 
lousy that it's not worth $5, well, maybe you shouldn't pay it.

But it's important to realize where that $5 goes. It doesn't go to 
induce people to talk. It goes to support things that actually cost 
money because people don't like them giving them away for free: Rent, 
our massive hosting fees, salaries, etc. It doesn't go to support 
talk. Talk, as they say, is cheap.

Francis

>Being the first to acknowledge how little I know of Rhizome or any of the
>underlying issues behind this recent spate of posts; the scenario of an NFP
>seeking financial contributions from volunteer contributors has been
>replicated many times in the past (and by a great number of NFP's), almost
>always to their peril and subsequent ruin.
 <...>


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