Participate in "Virtual Ashkenaz"

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One of the exciting features of the Ashkenaz festival was "Virtual Ashkenaz," a set of discussion forums that began even before we all gathered for our week-long celebration of Yiddish culture in Toronto this past summer. What this means is that the Ashkenaz Festival online can continue so long as there are people online to discuss New Yiddish Culture. (Those of you not online will have to wait until 1999, when the next edition of the non-virtual festival will take place.) "Virtual Ashkenaz" is currently hosted on donated server space, using the "Motet" conferencing software. We thank the Motet folks profusely for both use of the software and the server space.

Confused about what a "virtual festival is? Read on. Otherwise, log in to "Virtual Ashkenaz" right after this paragraph.

by Brian Zisk

Online conferencing not only allows people to exchange information, but it also automatically builds an up-to-the-minute text-based knowledge base for future visitors to consult. Because the information doesn't fade away as users come and go, structure and flow within the conferencing system become very important.

One of the strengths of Motet is that it provides both a comforting, logical structure as well as convenient shortcuts around that structure. The hierarchy of conversation spaces makes it easy for visitors to navigate efficiently to and through interesting areas, while nonlinear trapdoors make it easier to jump around within the structure.

• The conferencing system is clustered into conferences, each of which is devoted to a general idea. Within each conference, you'll find a whole array of individual topics, where participants can pursue different lines of conversation relating to the conference. And they are "lines" of conversation--they're completely linear, so whatever you want to say will always be added at the end, not necessarily where it's most relevant.

• If you'd like to remark on one of the existing topics, simply type into the response box for that topic. When you're done, select "Post" and your remarks will be added to the end of the thread. To spare your comrades' time and attention, try to keep your postings concise (under a screenful, i.e. 27 lines at most) and relevant. And because your tone may not translate well into ASCII, you can keep in other members' good graces by making it clear (with "smiley" icons or other enthetical clues) if you don't wish your words to be taken literally.

• If you'd like to bring up something that doesn't fit into one of these threads, you're welcome to introduce a new topic (the topic listings page offers this option).

• If you want to read only certain selected topics within certain selected conferences, you can customize your account by using the menu options to edit your conference hotlist or to select specific topics to ignore or include when you visit from now on.