December 2005 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-l] World of Warcraft 'funeral' virtual wills
by GTa3411203＠aol.com 15 Dec '05

15 Dec '05

>Something that I have not seen that much discussion of in respect of >current virtual world technology is what one does with the avatar of >someone that has died and in what way the person might live on >virtually. We had a brief discssion on this topic on TerraNova >earlier this year: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/07/ >after_me_after_.html. Interesting issue and something that has crossed the mind with regard to having virtual identities that span the globe in various forms. In organizational settings, dead leaders are memorialized by adorning hallway and office walls with their paintings or photographs. Talk of doing the same for the avatars of the deceased? I keep a record of all online identities (i.e. email, listservers, groups, etc.) so that a loved one or friend can notify the administrators to bring closure to this part of life. It would be interesting to do a study to determine how many other people have establised what might be considered as a virtual will. How about those of you reading this posting? Do you have a virtual will? -- Gail ------------------------- Gail Taylor, M.Ed. Human Resource Education Ph.D. student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant University of IL Urbana-Champaign

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Internet encyclopaedias go head to head
by Philipp Budka 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

Dear List, A "Nature" investigation finds that the Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of accuracy. More at: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html Best, Philipp -- -- Philipp Budka philbu(a)gmx.net Rustengasse 5/10 A-1150 Wien, Austria http://www.philbu.net http://www.lateinamerika-studien.at -- 10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail +++ GMX - die erste Adresse f�r Mail, Message, More +++

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Re: [Air-l] World of Warcraft 'funeral'
by Ren Reynolds 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

I just thought I might add, for those that do not look a the world of virtual worlds too often, that rituals such as funeral's and marriages are common within virtual spaces, so much so that they are now part of the tradition and in part an element of the service that is offered (in fact I've met at least one researcher specializing in ritual in virtual spaces). I'm thinking here of the Events Team on Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies who created a Wedding Guide: http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/en_US/players/content.vm? page=Wedding%20Guide%20Intro&resource=features and who, on request, would do things like create Storm Trooper guard's of honor at Imperial events. There is some discussion about the validity of such event as they break the notion of virtual worlds as separate spaces. While many events can be integrated into the fiction of a world i.e. marrages and deaths of warriors etc occur within the fiction of most virtual spaces; there are issues when physical world events are commemorated in world e.g. 911 or when players 'game' the who notion of the real / physical divide such as in the case of 'Who Killed Miss Norway' (see some discussion of this here http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/ 2004/03/sacred_spaces.html). Something that I have not seen that much discussion of in respect of current virtual world technology is what one does with the avatar of someone that has died and in what way the person might live on virtually. We had a brief discssion on this topic on TerraNova earlier this year: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/07/ after_me_after_.html. ren terranova.blogs.com www.renreynolds.com

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iCS Webcast 16 Sept
by bl506＠york.ac.uk 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

air colleagues may be interested in joining a live webcast on Friday 16th at 5.00 p.m. UK time which is being given by Professor Frank Webster (Professor of Sociology, City University, London. Entitled 'Understanding The Information Age: The Uneasy Relations Between Sociology And Cultural Studies' it is part of a series of webcasts by the journal 'Information, Communication & Society'(www.infosoc.co.uk) This will be a live webcast from the Oxford Internet Institute and can be accessed from the OII website (http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/) An embedded video will be available on the Oxford Internet Institutes page 30 mins before the event starts. A short time after the event is finished a streaming archive video of the event will be available at the site along with a high quality MP4 download. A downloadable pdf version of Frank's paper is also available: Abstract: As a leading scholar in debates about the Information Age, Professor Frank Webster is well placed to provide a polemical commentary in this webcast about the respective merits and limitations of sociological anaylsis and cultural studies as a way of understanding socio-technical change. -- Brian D. Loader, Co-Director, Social Informatics Research Unit, Department of Sociology, Wentworth College, University of York, Heslington, YORK YO1 5DD. United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0) 1904 432639 Fax: +44 (0) 1904 433043 email: bl506(a)york.ac.uk

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Re: [Air-l] wikis and restaurants
by Dan L Burk 14 Dec '05

14 Dec '05

> Wikipedia, and other web-sites with community contributed content, are > not responsible (nor should they be) for the contributions of their > users (at least in the US). Mostly, but not entirely, correct. OSPs, presumably including Wikipedia, are not responsible for third-party contributions that are not intellectual property violations. Copyright violations, or defamation by the principals of Wikipedia, are not covered by the CDA safe harbor. DLB Dan L. Burk Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor University of Minnesota Law School 229 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA *************************************** Voice: 612-626-8726 Fax: 612-625-2011

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wikis and restaurants
by Barry Wellman 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

Re the analogy between restaurants and wikipedia by Jimmy Wales: All the restaurants in Toronto must pass health inspection (food storage, etc.) and must post their pass certificate prominently near the outside door. While health inspections are always problematic (inadequate measures, bribery, etc.), they do give some assertion that the steak will be steak and will actually be stored in a fridge with proper temperature. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________

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Re: [Air-l] Wikipedia and defamation
by Ken Friedman 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

Friends, Barry puts his finger on the issue that bothers me here. I agree with most of the posts on scholarly and theoretical issues, and certainly the posts on pedagogical issues. My strong stand on this case is simple. There seems to be no good way to correct seriously damaging information in a swift, rapid manner. My goal is to see some clear action taken that will enable this kind of information to be caught and corrected without the kind of lengthy process Seigenthaler's correction took, and I want to see it done in a way that allows for rapid flow-through correction to the sites and services that use Wikipedia. In that sense, you can consider this a kind of stubborn "sit-in" or a non-violent "fast." As to the rest of it, I agree, and I spend a great deal of time on many of these issues -- at least to the degree possible in courses that sometimes seem to have more required content than the semester allows while students are also overloaded with cases and projects in other courses that militate against the reflective, critical thinking many of us encourage. Yours, Ken -- Barry Wellman wrote: the current AOIR debate about Wikipedia highlights another problem. It is quite easy to make legally defamatory statements on Wikipedia. Normally, the remedy is a law suit for civil damages. But if the author is anonymous, whom does one sue? And yes, I know that defamation law suits are expensive and hard to do. But at least the legal remedy is there in principle -- when the author is known. But the Wikipedia approach is like someone flooding the mail with anonymous defamatory photocopies. -- -- Ken Friedman Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language Norwegian School of Management Design Research Center Denmark's Design School email: ken.friedman(a)bi.no

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World of Warcraft 'funeral'
by Rowin Young 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

I thought this may be of interest to some - an ingame 'funeral' / commemoration for a player who died in real life: http://forums.worldofwar.net/showthread.php?t=358754 rowin

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Re: [Air-l] Making gender complicated on Friendster
by Ingbert Floyd 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

I get these emails digested, so forgive me if I'm repeating something someone has already posted. However, the gender being talked about here is self-identified gender, not gender of the person one might be interested in, correct? Though, I guess if you change one, the other will have to change as well. I like the "it's complicated", because it provides a space not only for hemaphrodites (sic?), but for transgenders, and androgynous people as well, and it doesn't force them to define themselves, when in fact, many people in such a situation are constantly struggling with what they are and how to self-define. The reason I make the distinction above, is that a person who self-identifies or is looking for someone in the "it's complicated" category is one thing, a person who is bisexual is another. A bisexual often self-identifies as clearly male or female, but is simply interested in partners of either sex, while a person who is interested in the "it's complicated", is not interested in bisexuals, but interested in someone whose self-identified gender boundaries are not so clearly defined. Though, this brings up a usage problem with the "it's complicated" category. When self-identifying gender as "it's compolicated", it is pretty clear what the person is saying. When looking for "it's complicated", it is not so clear--it could represent an indecision about being bisexual as well as a clear decision about wanting transsexual (say). Thus, for the "seeking" usage, it might be better to label the category, "other", though that particular word could have a negative overtone. Ingbert Floyd PhD. Student Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign -- ========================================== Check out the unofficial GSLIS Wiki: http://www.gslis.org/ Tell me what you think, if you find it useful, or if you have any ideas for how to organize it better. And if you feel comfortable doing so, I heartily encourage you to contribute content! This GSLIS is the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

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ANN: BlogTalk Reloaded Call for Papers
by Thomas N. Burg 13 Dec '05

13 Dec '05

Hi, just to let you know. BlogTalk's call for papers http://blogtalk.net/ call.html is out since an hour or so. It's a unique conference that brings together scholars, developers, and practitioners to discuss social software. The conference will be held from Oct.2-3, 2006 It's co-organized by Jan Schmidt from the University of Bamberg and me, Thomas N. Burg, former Head of the Center for New Media at the Danube University Krems. Thomas

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