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

Gulf Coast Disaster
by Lois Ann Scheidt 06 Sep '05

06 Sep '05

I am curious those of you that are teaching this semester, are you using what is happening along the U.S. coastline in your teaching this week? If so how? Thanks for the information. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Future Faculty Teaching Fellow (2005-2006) - School of Informatics, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indianapolis IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com

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Supporting AoIR's systems
by Jeremy Hunsinger 06 Sep '05

06 Sep '05

A few days ago our president elect Matt Allen posted a call for volunteers for AoIR to take over the jobs that Charlie and I have been performing for the last few years. I suggest that if you have any inclination in the arena of unix-based systems, web design, list management, etc. that you volunteer, it is a great way to get involved with AoIR and you will be appreciated for the work that you do. for me, working in this capacity in AoIR has been an enjoyable and rewarding professional and academic experience. It also should be said that as members of the executive committee, that both position have voting rights and can voice their opinions on a myriad of issues involving the future of AoIR. Matt's posting said: Dear Air-listers Having just elected a new executive, it is now time to seek expressions of interest from members (or people who will become members) to serve as the Systems Administrator and Systems Manager for AoIR. Formally, "the Systems Administrator is responsible for the association's technical systems on which its Web site, e-mail list and other means of Internet communication operate. The Systems Manager is responsible for the content and appearance of the association's Web site and other means of Internet communication (except its e-mail lists)." (by-laws). However the exact split in responsibilities will depend on who we appoint and what skills/ interests they have. Both of the current, wonderful people doing these jobs - Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Briendahl - are moving on to other things and we will miss them dearly for all the great work they have done for AoIR. However, it is also a new beginning, allowing others the chance to become involved. These two officers will be appointed by the executive and are full members of the executive. Here are the kind of skills we are looking for General Skills: Server maintenance; SSH and Unix command line; Ability to work with remote support; Current System Specific Skills: Dreamhost Panel and linux via ssh including: Mailman -Mailing Lists; SMTP/POP/IMAP Email System; jabber server; php/mysql WWW apps. Skills in managing email lists, dealing with interfaces such as that used for the AoiR website etc We use the following installed web systems Open Conference System; Mediawiki; Drupal; Forums Ability to: troubleshoot php/mysql; install and upgrade web applications; to read and troubleshoot SQL and database systems. For further information, and to express an interest in these two positions, please email m.allen(a)curtin.edu.au . Jeremy Hunsinger Center for Digital Discourse and Culture () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments http://www.aoir.org The Association of Internet Researchers

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100 Billion Texts Sent in the UK
by Alla Genkina 06 Sep '05

06 Sep '05

Dear Aoir: I first spotted this: http://www.text.it/mediacentre/default.asp?intPageId=847 interesting report on the Smart Mobs blog, and thought it was relevent to the list and might be helpful to someone's research. Here is a small snipet, "July 2005 marks another major text messaging milestone. Just as we spend 100 billion annually on food, there are 100 billion neurons in the average human brain and 100 billion stars make up the Milky Way Galaxy, we have now sent more than 100 billion text messages in the UK." Sincerely, Alla Genkina

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Re: ssage: an Ess-ian Q: when does the personal becomes public?
by stuszyn＠bgnet.bgsu.edu 06 Sep '05

06 Sep '05

>Jeremy Hunsinger jhuns at vt.edu >Mon Sep 5 10:32:31 PDT 2005 >therefor, i think people should always tell people when things are >meant to be private or held in confidence, otherwise you have to >expect people to interpret the situation on their perceptions. So, in other words, none of us has any expectation of privacy whatsoever, unless we make a disclaimer at the start of a every single interaction? That seems like a fast way to break down all communication in a society. If I have to preface every single interaction, face to face or not, with "this is private so don't quote me or repeat this to anyone" people who I talk to are going to think I've become so paranoid as to be completely non-functional. A dinner table conversation is a private interaction between the people at the table. Yes, it's in a public space and there are (or can be) more than two people involved and yes, other people who are not supposed to be hearing the conversation can overhear it. But they know that's "eavesdropping" and not something they are intended to be hearing. Everyone in that restaurant knows that what they overhear from another table is a conversation they are not supposed to be hearing and aren't part of, and, one assumes, even if they repeated it later, they would be unable to repeat with names attached since they are outside of what was a private interaction. Apparently in this case someone at the actual dinner table in question missed the memo. To take the contents of that dinner conversation and put it in a blog is rather like going around not just to every table in that one restaurant but a whole bunch of restaurants advertising what was formerly a conversation between a limited number of people and giving their names out. It takes something confined to a specific sphere of interaction (with the requisite expectations of that sphere) and puts it on a stage, altering the expectations entirely. I've seen a number of issues lately on various blogs regarding linking to other blog discussions and what happens when a post that, while open to the public, is suddenly thrust into the spotlight by being linked and garners a lot of attention. When the author is completely unprepared for it, the results have in every case been not pretty. The authors have no apparent defense because they were speaking in public, but the fact that their expectation was different from the reality doesn't seem to justify for a lot of people their discomfort. In other words, this is an issue spreading far and wide beyond just academics worried that every conversation they have could suddenly become a matter of record. Stephanie Tuszynski ----- "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value. Rather, it is one of the things that give value to survival." --C.S. Lewis.

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Re: Comparision Web pages with blogs
by Kaye Trammell 06 Sep '05

06 Sep '05

For studies doing direct comparisons of Web pages & blogs, try also: Trammell, K.D., Williams, A.P., Postelnicu, M., & Landreville, K.D. (2005). ?Evolution of online campaigning: Increasing interactivity in candidate Web sites and blogs through text and technical features.? Mass Communication and Society, forthcoming. Williams, A.P., Trammell, K.D., Postelnicu, M., Landreville, K.D., & Martin, J.D. (2005). ?Blogging and hyperlinking: Use of the Web to enhance viability during 2004 U.S. campaigns.? Journalism Studies, 6 (2), 177 ? 186. Kaye ____________________________________ Kaye Trammell, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Manship School of Mass Communication 212 Hodges Hall Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803-7202 trammell(a)lsu.edu Office 225/578-7380 Fax 225/578-2125

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an Ess-ian Q: when does the personal becomes public?
by Barry Wellman 05 Sep '05

05 Sep '05

Every once in a while, I Google recent and high page-ranking references to me. I was surprised when I did this recently to find my name mentioned in two blogs: -- A purported quotation from me from a dinner table conversation a few years ago. -- A side comment that I purportedly made to the blogger who claims to be sitting next to me at another conference. This has gotten me to thinking. 1. Is it ethical to publish private conversations without the speaker's approval? 2. Or has the nature of networked community become such that just as the public has become personal, the personal has become public? Secret police types would concurr: If you have nothing to hide, why worry? But I have had enough experiences in America, China, Russia and Bulgaria to know I don't want to live that way. And neither do my friends who have lived in these countries. Surely there is a matter of private discourse among friends and colleagues. Or has blogging by scholars merged with gossip columns? My own feeling is that my papers, lectures and perhaps even public conference utterances are publishable. My side comments over dinner and in informal groups are not -- unless I explicitly agree. Or am I just an old fuddy-duddy who doesn't understand the new world of blogs -- even those by scholars? 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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expectations at a conference
by Barry Wellman 05 Sep '05

05 Sep '05

I'm glad that I started such an interesting debate. But Jeremy, I don't believe you really think that every utterance at the AOIR should be treated as a public utterance, even if 1:1 over coffee or sitting next to each other at a session, or 1:dinner table at banquet. I know you and I have had chats that should remain just that: chats. Moreover, I don't believe that we should warn everyone when we speak informally that netiquette means that you can't publish what I said. I will not go around and get waivers at every coffee break, nor will I expect bloggers to wear cautionary yellow armbands. While I am at it: Note that the custom of archiving listservs has bifurcated email. There is private email -- which is tacky to pass around, altho almost all of us do some of this with discretion -- and there is publicly accessible email -- such as this archived list that is available to all on the web. While archiving is valuable to go bck and get some info on conferences and bon mots, I often wonder if: the potential for harm from indiscriminate comments is greater than the gain. archiving holds back some frank discussion. 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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blogging and privacy
by andrea baker 05 Sep '05

05 Sep '05

Interesting comments. Thanks, Barry for starting this line of thought. I agree with people who say one-to-one conversation is private, even if overheard in a relatively public venue. I've had conversations with researchers about when to ask for permission. A conference is not a park, for example. Do we have to say now, "This is off the record", as potential sources say to reporters? Is this a result of the blogging world? How about each of us making a lapel badge which says, "Anything I say is for (not for) quotation elsewhere", with the exception of statements about my family or my sex life, for example? The point raised by Eszter works when you know the people around you, which is much less likely in professional settings than person. Seems that some bloggers may have a looser set of ethics than researchers. Un-attributed words are different from those identified with a name too. I like Charles' point that the ethics committee, of which I'm a member, consider ethics of blogging along with internet research. --andrea (andee)

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Re: blog ethics
by herring＠slis.indiana.edu 05 Sep '05

05 Sep '05

Regarding blog ethics, from the bloggers' perspective, there is a piece on CyberJournalist called "A Blogger's Code of Ethics": http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php Blog ethics was also a hot topic of debate on www.dailykos.com, a left-leaning political blog, early this year, and probably on other blogs as well. >From a scholarly perspective, Andy Koh et al. recently posted a summary report of a survey they conducted on weblog ethics at: http://weblogethics.blogspot.com/2005/07/ethics-in-blogging-2005.html And Fernanda Viegas has a recent article in the Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication on bloggers' expectations of privacy: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html I hope this is helpful. Regards, Susan

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Katrina PeopleFinder Project
by Deborah Elizabeth Finn 05 Sep '05

05 Sep '05

Dear Colleagues: This is just a heads-up about the Katrina PeopleFinder Project. Here's the pitch that's currently circulating: ================================================= Donated money? Please donate a little time. Join the Katrina PeopleFinder Project. It's easy. All you need is an internet connection and the ability to copy data into a form. http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php/Help_Needed#Katrina_PeopleFinder_Proj… After Katrina many friends and family members have been separated and left with no clear way to find each other. Hundreds of internet web sites are gathering hundreds, and probably thousands, of entries about missing persons or persons who want to let others know they're okay. The problem is: the data on these sites has no particular form or structure. So it's almost impossible for people to search or match things up. Plus there are dozens of sites - making it hard for a person seeking lost loved ones to search them all. The Katrina PeopleFinder Project NEEDS YOUR HELP to enter data about missing and found people from various online sources. We're requesting as little as an hour of your time. All you need to do is help read unstructured posts about missing or found persons, and then add the relevant data to a database through a simple online form. To get started please click here: http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php/Help_Needed#Katrina_PeopleFinder_Proj… Questions? Email katrina-people (at) activist-tech.org Thanks!!! The Katrina PeopleFinder Team ================================================= This would make a great research topic for someone who is interested in online volunteerism and social capital in the wake of a humanitarian crisis. Best regards from Deborah Deborah Elizabeth Finn Boston, Massachusetts, USA deborah_elizabeth_finn(a)post.harvard.edu http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog http://public.xdi.org/=deborah.elizabeth.finn

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