<nettime> rhizome, counterrhizome digest [whang, brace]

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

Francis Hwang <sera@fhwang.net>
     Rhizome
{ brad brace } <bbrace@eskimo.com>
     Re: Rhizome

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Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 11:15:11 -0500
From: Francis Hwang <sera@fhwang.net>
Subject: Rhizome

A few factual clarifications to what Don Cameron wrote:

>2/ Rhizome seemingly has developed a fairly solid community-base; and
>assuming that amongst this community $5.00 doesn't matter, the community is
>likely to remain fairly constant - however is Rhizome seeking to grow and
>develop? - Charging for access to a web site is hardly likely to foster new
>visitations, for who would pay to visit something completely unknown amongst
>the myriad of competing (and free) alternatives?

The site gives you 30 days for free when you first sign up. Hopefully 
this will be plenty of time for new users to get a taste for the site 
and see whether or not they like it enough to donate.

>3/ Artists whose works appear on Rhizome are presumably seeking wide
>exposure (otherwise they would not place art on the 'net) - yet by charging
>a viewing fee I suggest that a great many casual visitors will now abandon
>Rhizome... artists will no longer have access to the main-stream viewing
>public... Placing  a charge on public access severely restricts the size of
>the available audience. Once again this may be something that is desired (to
>reduce bandwidth overheads etc.) however without a clear explanation of the
>reasons behind these new costs, who is to know?

There's a somewhat complex referrer scheme in place, in response to 
these concerns. Basically, if you're pointed to a Rhizome page (or 
piece of net-art, or whatever) from another site or page, the system 
should let you through. It's only in interlinking -- from Rhizome 
page to Rhizome page -- that users get asked to register, and then 30 
days later to donate. This sounds quite complex in theory, but in 
practice it seems to work out okay.

(The technical caveat to the above scheme is that it depends on 
browsers to send referrer values with its HTTP requests, which I 
believe most mainstream browsers do, but then you never know. It's 
not like there's some browser consortium out there enforcing 
standards.)

>I'm sure there are a great many additional concerns to these... yet lacking
>a clear explanation of the underlying policies and the alternatives sought
>to achieve financial sustainability, how is anyone to know if the charge has
>any basis other than to increase the wages of the NFP administrators? (and
>of course we are all entitled to ask because this is a registered charity we
>are talking about) - IMHO we will all have to make up our own minds and
>choose to use the service (or not) depending on our own determinations.

Rhizome is a registered not-for-profit organization. As such, we are 
required to make our financials available to the public, and we do so 
by supplying them here:

http://rhizome.org/financials/

Francis
-- 

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Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 09:41:46 -0800 (PST)
From: { brad brace } <bbrace@eskimo.com>
Subject: Re: Rhizome

Rhizome has devolved into just another old art-world
institution: abusive, greedy, hierarchical, imperialistic,
dishonest... It too will be destroyed.



The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project                >>>> since 1994 <<<<

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