- Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Aftermath of flame war
by Ingbert Floyd 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Disclaimer: This email is *not* a criticism of the list, or of individuals on the list, please don't take it as such. I gotta say, I was very surprised by the length and intensity of the flame war on a list devoted to people who study such things. (Frankly, I ignored most of it, so I'm not in a position to take sides.) But I'm quite fascinated by the aftermath. I mean, I've seen messages of all different types, and some really interesting patterns are emerging: * paranoia - people (on both sides) seeing attacks where there weren't any (as far as I could tell); * reactive behavior - classification of human beings into clear categories (e.g., troll, academic, etc.), usually negative, and the consequential seeming inability to interpret text composed by the categorized person as being anything besides the stereotyped behavior of the category; * gang mentality vs. it's-me-against-the-world mentality, and how they seem to feed and nourish themselves on the other; * concilliatory behavior by people who want to see the dispute end ** and the outright rejection of the concilliatory behavior; * expressions of disgust and threats to leave as a different strategy for trying to end the disputes. ** and the disregard for (ignoring of) the negative attempts at trying to end the dispute; * and all kinds of attention-getting behavior in order to keep promoting the person's particular side of the argument--an inability to let go. More importantly, I see this as a wonderful opportunity. We have a list full of people who study this kind of online behavior, and we have both observers/outsiders who had no part in the flame war, and we had participants from both sides, who can provide their insider perspective, and all of it will be informed by academic (in the non-pejorative sense) knowledge. How much better of a research opportunity is this? And we have the venue for collaboration already here: the AoIR list itself. We don't seem to have lost any of the main participants (I could be wrong here), and we could go off-list to contact those people who did leave (we have their email addresses in the archives, no?). I mean, we talk about collaboration a lot, well, here's a chance to explore a new type of academic publishing model (hey, at least anybody with tenure can afford to try it out), loosely based on the wikipedia model of massive participation and many eyes to capture all perspectives, except all the participants are academics. What do you think? People always criticize academics for being behind the trends, struggling to catch up. By developing a truly community-wide/community-inclusive research methodology we'd be ahead of the trend. And, who knows, the community-wide participation in such a positively oriented/constructive activity might just be the type of behavior we need to start the healing process ;) Ingbert 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.

1 0

Air-list
by Matthew Allen 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Dear all There have been some vibrant and important discussions lately on air-list and I, and am sure many others, have been following them with interest, appreciating the time and effort people put into free scholarly discussion. This has always been the case with air-list and I hope that it continues in that vein. All of us will be aware, after more than a decade's research into online communication, that from time to time, the freedom of the means of communication and the lack of co-presence can limit the effectiveness of the overall communicative process or produce unexpected and counter-productive damage to that process. As has been pointed out recently on the list, air does, like most lists, have a stated etiquette (http://www.aoir.org/?q=node/5) The etiquette is deliberately open to interpretation so as to enjoin each list subscriber to think carefully about the manner and content of their communications via the list as well as their reaction to others' communications. Balancing enthusiastic, engaged and productively antagonistic discussion with respect for others and their views does not happen because of the etiquette but because of people's commitment to those outcomes, guided by the etiquette. May I ask subscribers to utilise this guidance please. I would also remind subscribers that air-list is a service provided by the Association as one of the primary means of achieving the Association's primary objectives concerning scholarship of the Internet. Management of the conduct of the list, including permission to subscribe, conditions under which subscription is permitted, conduct of subscribers etc., remains at all times the prerogative of the Asssociation whose affairs are conducted by the Executive. Finally, the Executive is currently reviewing the etiquette statement and will be discussing whether or not it should be revised and if so, in what manner, at the Brisbane Executive meeting. Best wishes Matt Dr Matthew Allen Associate Professor in Internet Studies President Association of Internet Researchers Faculty of Media Society and Culture Curtin University of Technology CRICOS Provider Code 00301J http://smi.curtin.edu.au/NetStudies/allen.htm +61 8 92663511 (v) +61 8 92663166 (f)

15 29

Re: [Air-l] list behavior
by Stephanie Jo Kent 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

As someone who tunes in only periodically, and has no history with the main players, I am fascinated by this exchange. I think Christian has a point in making parallels between this discussion and ftf interaction, but on a deeper level of how we as humans deal with disagreement and difference. Tolerance tends to lose out. steph Stephanie Jo Kent, M.Ed, CI Group Discourse and Dynamics Consultation American Sign Language/English Interpretation Doctoral Student, Communication, UMass-Amherst kentcon(a)sover.net http://www.reflexivity. us

1 0

list behavior
by Christian Nelson 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Another aspect of list behavior I find interesting is some folks' tendency to respond to a troll. Why do it? Despite Cornwell's truly abysmal behavior on the list, some folks insist on looking for a silk purse in his messages, and responding as if he were just another internet scholar, and thereby legitimize his presence and previous behavior. I've seen this before. I find it bizarre. Can anyone explain? Has anyone seen or done any research on this? (BTW, to the list member who find's Cornwell's stuff on education and technology so groundbreaking and insightful: Its not. It may be new to you, but that ground has been broken for some time and is being tilled by lots of other folks.)

3 2

Re: [Air-l] air-l Digest, Vol 26, Issue 23
by Kathy Mancuso 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Hi everyone, Speaking of Netiquette, could we please play nice and delete the messages we're responding to (except for snipping things we'd like to talk about)? Over half this most recent digest (which was the third in under 24 hours) was copies of previous messages that one had to scroll through. This is especially difficult for people who may use screenreaders or magnifying devices, but is hard for the rest of us too. thanks, kathy -- . . . connection in an isolating age . . . Katherine Mancuso, graduate student, Emory University Web 2.0 research, life, and meta: http://museumfreak.livejournal.com http://del.icio.us/museumfreak "Whenever anyone says 'You are,' they mean 'I want you to be.'" --Anais Nin

1 0

Re: [Air-l] Air-list
by David M Silver 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

i agree (and i bet most listmembers agree) with Richard Forno when he says: > I agree with Jeremy...on my lists, if someone gets too far off-topic or > keeps breaking the list rules, I pull them aside to warn them. If it > continues, they get removed straight away -- that's the only time I > exercise my "iron hand as listdad." (That has rarely happened, as most > folks tend to be respectful and responsible when warned, at least on my > lists.) Rasputin and Dr. W. Reid Cornwell: both of you have a lot of interesting ideas and you certainly enjoy sharing them! instead of pooping all over this list, you should blog. david silver

4 3

Avatar interactions in virtual spaces: just mechanics?
by Sarah Brooke Robbins 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Some of you may have read this article. I'm very curious about the findings here. I've always held that conventions and social mores in virtual environments are more dependant on the mechanics of the environment (what's possible dictates what is done). It also seems the user skill wasn't really taken into account. If I don't know how to perform that actions required to display social interaction with another avatar does that mean I'm not interacting? In case you missed it: Title: Concept of 'personal space' survives in virtual reality Sub: Psychologists find real-world social rules mirrored in 'Second Life' interactions. By Jim Giles (Published 11-SEPT-06) http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060911/full/060911-3.html<https://webmail.bsu.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nature.com/new…> -- Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins http://www.intellagirl.com http://secondlife.intellagirl.com Yahoo: Intellagirl Skype: Intellagirl SecondLife: Intellagirl Tully

1 0

recent discussion on relevance
by Carol Perryman 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

"I wouldn't say we all have the 'have to' impulse, having deleted a number of these recent emails outright rather than wade through them all while hoping for something list-relevant :)" I would appreciate it very much, myself, if people did not feel the need to include the entire previous message when responding. I can track back if I want to, and sometimes do (in my digested list). -- Carol Perryman MSLIS TRLN Doctoral Fellow School of Information & Library Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill It has taken me all of sixty years to understand that water is the finest drink - Taha Muhammad Ali

1 0

Dr. Aristotle
by Dr. W. Reid Cornwell 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

If I am so out in left field why have so few addressed the "truth of the assertion?" Why does this produce such anger? Do you see your name on any of this or do you have such a powerful group identity that a criticism of the group becomes personal? Both of these articles were part of an Encyclopedia Britannica editorial series by request. You should look at the comments on Gather to the same editorials. http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976788155 and http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976781580 I welcome your comments. I truly intended to leave quietly, but Jeremy and Charles seemed so intent on pinning the tail on Rasputin I said what the heck. Reid ________________________________ Dr. W. Reid Cornwell The Center For Internet Research P.O. Box 6369 Breckenridge, CO 720.212.0719 (phone) 970.485.5109 (mobile) wrc(a)tcfir.org http://tcfir.org

2 1

Re: [Air-l] Open access publishing (was a modest proposal)
by William Bain 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

On Elija's post of "In the circles of "digital humanists" or "technorhetoricians", it is fairly frequently discussed that the common currency of a humanities tenure case is frequently the *book*, rather than the article. Books are, of course, [or perhaps *not* of course...] less frequently OA or released 'gratis' than journal articles or entries into conference proceedings are.... : points taken and thanks very much! When I sent my original question I hadn't seen the Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/) . 85 hits for languages and literatures, 58 for llinguistics; journals represented in different languages (as you're probably already aware). Thanks again, William William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.

1 0