It is not an accident that the WELL has a uniquely high quality of conversation. We still know very little about the facilitation of online conversations. It is a subject well worth further formal study and experimentation. Some problems have to do with the unrefined and immature format and structure of the discussion medium itself. Compare this with the typical multiplicity of type fonts, varied layouts, images, and pictures of the printed page.
New media take time to develop and to be shaped.
Reading text on a terminal reminds me of looking at the Gutenberg Bible. The modern book took a century to develop after the invention of printing with movable type and the first Western printed books. Aldus Manutius and the inventions of modern typefaces, pagination, the table of contents, the index, all of which gave the book its modern form, came later, were done by different people, and were of a different order than the invention of printing with movable type itself. The new electronic media are undergoing a similar evolution. Key inventions are occurring slowly, for example, development of software tools that will allow the dissemination of audio and video across the Net.