ISALTA (International Society for the Advancement of Living Traditions in Art) is an enigma. It is essentially a Moodle Wiki in structure, but appears to be conceived as a Web 1.0 site with interactive participation somewhat limited. Perhaps its origin in the pre-web days in the 1980s is part of the reason. Most of the members are of an era when the emerging web was aimed at web surfers who were essentially consumers. Web authors created information to be read and understood essentially in a text-based context. As images and sound were added, it was largely in a supportive role, controlled by the authors to be consumed by a browsing public.
Visiting ISALTA, I am struck by the lack of participation of its members, but there is no atmosphere for creative input. It resembles a site under tight control rather than a true Wiki where members create knowledge. ISALTA still appears to operate as a site where knowledge is produced by a few to be consumed by its membership and a public that may accidentally Google the site. Although there is a means for commentary, comments are trivialized because they are relegated to the status of comments.
Maybe most of its membership is still stuck in a Web 1.0 mindset. I can’t think of a more appropriate area of concern for a creative, interactive Web 2.0 shared enterprise than living traditions in the arts. ISALTA needs a membership intent on defining and advancing its cause through the creation and sharing of new ideas and knowledge. ISALTA should become a platform for preserving living practices and creating new traditions.
ISALTA seems out of step in its depiction of technology today. On the one hand it regards technology as an enemy, pushing traditions to extinction:
Of special interest to the Society is the recognition and nurturance of artistic traditions at risk of extinction as a result of the impact of technology.
On the other hand, it suggests technology creates future traditions:
What requires examination is not only the processes by which the traditional arts are transformed, co-opted, corrupted and diminished or revitalized and enhanced by the impact of technology, but also the processes by which new traditions are being formed by technology. Photography, film, video, and holography immediately come to mind as examples.
It seems unfortunate that ISALTA maintains such a visual bias, ignoring one of the major contributions of new technologies in creating collaborative dynamics across all media.
ISALTA has a unique opportunity to restore phenomenology as a central process for arts inquiry and criticism. It could also engage in dialogic process, problematizing issues and creating narrative explorations. But even more importantly it needs to encourage the incorporation of media, of images, sounds, musics, videos, in a burgeoning creative atmosphere, where inquiry is an artsmaking qualitative process. Its members are essentially creators. Perhaps they are not engaged in ISALTA because its perceived stance does not really engage its members.
While it is at it, ISALTA might also change Art to Arts in a sweeping gesture of inclusion.
Web Arts Collaborative 
We, as ISALTA members, have to interact more together in a creative process that may be a qualitative problem solving challenge for us. Let’s circulate in a broader way this Web Arts Collaborative page inside/outside the ISALTA network to warm up the process.