The Critical Café:

07-Feb-2002: Regrettably, the Critical Cafe forum is currently suspended, until further notice.

Information for Participants

(Last Modified: 07-Feb-2002)

What is it?

The Critical Café is an email based open forum, operated by The Karl Popper Web.

It provides a meeting place for those interested in Popper's ideas to converse on an informal level. This may be especially useful for East European thinkers developing personal contacts with others in the West interested in Popper's idea of an Open Society--but the Café is open to all interested participants, and for the discussion of all aspects of Popperian philosophy. Not everyone with a genuine interest in Popper's work has the time to contribute serious articles, but would nevertheless like to be involved in the life of philosophical debate. He or she can do so in the Critical Café.

The Café can also be a place for trial-balloons or brainstorming sessions, where the emphasis is on free expression of even half-baked, incipient ideas that need a little cultivation before being developed into a substantial article.

The Café may be used for the dissemination of notices of interest to the community--such as announcements of relevant meetings or conferences, calls for papers, availability of preprints etc. However, we request that any given meeting or conference should be notified here at most twice--first with the initial call for papers, and then a final reminder with the programme.

Finally, The Critical Café can (and should) be used for discussion of The Karl Popper Web itself. Specifically, news of new services etc. will be announced here, and we encourage subscribers to provide feedback (critical or otherwise!) about any and all of the facilities provided by TKPW. We will be especially interested in suggestions for additional services, or enhancements of existing ones.

How To Join

To join the forum, simply
1. send a message to this address: Majordomo@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie with the subject left blank, and the following text in the body of the message:

    subscribe Critical-Cafe
    end
2. Once your subscription has been approved you will receive a confirmation message to that effect. You may then make submissions to the Café simply by mailing them to the address Critical-Cafe@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie .

Should you wish to unsubscribe from the Café please send a message, with the subject left blank, and the following text in the body of the message, to the address Majordomo@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie:

    unsubscribe Critical-Cafe
    end

If you are not already familiar with the notion of Internet based email conferences, you may wish to read the document Internet Email Conferences--A Brief Primer.

Subscription requests (and other administrative functions) for The Critical Café are handled by a software robot called Majordomo. The "standard" way of interacting with Majordomo is via email messages to the special address Majordomo@mjmail.eeng.dcu.ie.

For more detailed information on what commands you can use with Majordomo, please consult the Majordomo Help File. Alternatively, you can also interact with Majordomo via the Web based Gateway to Majordomo. Note, however, that this simply emails appropriate commands to Majordomo on your behalf--so all Majordomo responses will still be delivered to you by email rather than via your Web browser.

Moderators

The moderators of The Critical Café are Ray Percival and Barry McMullin.

Sponsors

The Critical Café is a service of The Karl Popper Web. TKPW receives generous support from the School of Electronic Engineering of Dublin City University, and from The Open Society Institute.

Conditions of Participation

Subscription to The Critical Café is open, but subject to approval by the moderators. There is no charge for participation. However, by subscribing, you agree to abide by all conditions of participation established by the moderators, and as varied from time to time at their sole discretion.

For detailed instructions on how to subscribe, and how to make submissions, please refer to the section on How to Join.

Submissions may be made by any subscriber, once the subscription has been approved.

We invite submissions on any topic related to the philosophy of Karl Popper--including, or perhaps especially, criticisms. We expect and encourage the development of serious and challenging debate.

Submissions are not moderated. We do respectfully request participants in The Critical Café to conform to normal standards of civilized discussion. This does not rule out heated debate--but it does rule out submissions which are personally abusive, insulting, or otherwise qualify as "flaming" or "spamming".

The moderators reserve the right, at their own sole and exclusive discretion, to remove from the archives any submissions which they deem to be unacceptable for any reason, and/or to disqualify the originator(s) from making further submissions.

Copyright

All participants retain copyright in their own original submissions.

However, they grant a non-exclusive right to The Critical Café to archive such submissions indefinitely, and to make them freely available for access and copying by individuals for purposes of private study. They also grant the right to other participants to quote their submissions, in whole or in part, in further submissions to The Critical Café.

All other rights are retained by the original authors, specifically including rights of republication in any other forum.

Please be aware of the possibilities of copyright infringement in any postings to the Café. Participants are reminded that it is their responsibility not to infringe the copyright of any third party. Quotations--other than of prior, original, contributions to the Café--are subject to the normal conditions on fair use. If you are in any doubt regarding the use or quotation of third party copyrighted materials, please seek explicit copyright permission before making any such posting.

If the moderators are advised that postings to the Café have infringed third party copyrights, such postings will be removed from the archives immediately.

Hypertext Archives for The Critical Café are automatically generated by the MHonArc package. You can also use the TKPW full text search facility to search these archives.

Legal Notice

Every reasonable effort is made to ensure the reliability and continuity of The Critical Café.

However, the provision of the facility is subject to the condition that neither the moderators, nor the sponsors, nor any of their employees or agents will be held liable for damages, including any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the facility (including but not limited to loss of data or data being rendered inaccurate or losses sustained by you or third parties or a failure of the facility to operate in any particular manner).



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