After i read this post i thought about how the limitless white expanse of the post box invites confession. Perhaps the poster is alone, late, setting off bravely like a cross country skiier into that white space.

It calls for epiphanies and revelations.

The idea that this is a somewhat closed space allows for a deeper level of trust and disclosure.

There's a strong desire for secure borders and intimacy, that goes hand in hand with the desire to be transparent, widely read and completely understood.

More and more sites are allowing hybrid models now, so some things are private and some public. Or some open to members of one group and some to another. Making that easy to visualize, so you know what room you're in and who's there with you, is simple at first then harder and harder as your network becomes more complex.

For WELL members (and TTers perhaps) there is a desire for new tools for "just our broad community members," "just our subgroup gang," and also the stuff you want your boss and mom to find. Fortunately each has value, though the use of the new tool in an intimate space formed by long association, common software experience and social understandings...

So this is the challenge. What are the different ways to mavigate these valid desires -- things people pay us good money for -- in relation to the new thing, without impinging on it or calling for too much development work.

Very interesting indeed!

( Now...  does my linking to you alert you to the fact i was responding? )