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New program?
by Ellis Godard 18 Mar '05

18 Mar '05

I'm told that Stanford is considering creating a department of online community studies? -eg

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Re: Cfp: Cultures of eBay conference, Registration is now open
by Ellis, Rebecca M 18 Mar '05

18 Mar '05

Registration is now open. Please send expressions of interest by 21st March 2005 and abstracts by 31st March 2005. Apologies for cross-posting. Please disseminate widely. This is a call for papers, posters, and expressions of interest in attending a two-day conference at the University of Essex, UK: *************************************************************************** Cultures of eBay: making sense of social and economic aspects of the eBay 'phenomenon' August 24th-25th 2005, Colchester, University of Essex http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/culturesofebay.html *************************************************************************** Conference background This is the first independent UK conference which aims to look at the cultural, social and economic aspects of eBay. As such, this e-mail asks for early expressions of interest in attending, as well as being a call for papers and posters, in order to gauge the demand for this one-off conference. The idea for this conference originated from an ongoing ESRC project (RES-000-23-0433) at Chimera, a department of the University of Essex, which began in February 2004 and is due to end in January 2006. Results of this research project will be disseminated at the conference. The overall aim of this conference is to bring together academics, and practitioner groups from both business and the voluntary sector, to explore and 'make sense' of the cultural, social and economic aspects and implications of eBay, the Internet auction site. Important dates Expressions of interest in attending (for non-presenters only), no later than: 21st March 2005 Abstracts and posters no later than: 31st March 2005 Acceptance notification: 22nd April 2005 PowerPoint presentations no later than: 29th July 2005 Formal registration for all no later than: 16th May 2005 Conference dates: 24th and 25th August, 2005. Who should attend Academics in the fields of (but not exclusively): new media, e-commerce, cultural studies, sociology, human geography, HCI Practitioners in relevant fields Research students Industry consultants Conference themes The conference themes have been written in order to accommodate the interests of both academics and practitioner groups. See the conference website (Conference themes and scope section) for a full and detailed outline of potential research questions that could be addressed under each theme. Meta themes: eBay and identity: the presentation of self/ others and knowledge performance eBay and social capital eBay, consumption and consumer lifestyles Collecting in an e-society eBay and employment effects eBay, competition and the 'perfect market' eBay and the 'real' economy eBay and website design eBay and the consumer Representations of eBay Guidance for authors of papers It is not intended for authors to submit full papers for the conference. Presenters will be chosen by a panel on the basis of their submitted abstracts. Abstracts should be no more than 400 words. If you are interested in participating, please email your abstract to the conference administrator by 31st March, 2005. Please e-mail Mr Martin Hicks (hicksm and add @essex.ac.uk to create full e-mail address) using the title 'eBay Conference.' The submission must include: . A title and abstract (400 words) outlining the work to be presented . Name(s) & contact details for each of the author(s) . Whether work is completed or on-going . Whether partly or wholly a student project . If work is subject to external constraints, (e.g. commercial sensitivity) Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 22nd April 2005. PowerPoint presentations will be required by 29th July 2005. Guidance for poster submission Poster submissions addressing any of the areas identified in the conference topics are invited. If you would like to present a poster, please send details to Mr Martin Hicks (hicksm and add @essex.ac.uk to create full e-mail address) using the title 'eBay Conference poster.' The deadline for poster submission is 31st March, 2005. The submission must include: . A title and brief abstract (250 words) describing the contents of the poster . Name(s) & address(es) of author(s) . Name of presenter of the poster, address, email, telephone and fax number (if available) . Whether work is completed or on-going . Whether partly or wholly a student project . If work is subject to external constraints, (e.g. commercial sensitivity) . A brief note indicating how the space afforded for display of the poster will be used, including any innovative suggestions for display or observer involvement. Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 22nd April 2005. There is no predefined layout and content format for poster presentations. A standard A1 poster board (approx 23 x 33 inches or 61 x 45.7cm) will be provided to display your work. For additional information on poster presentations, please refer to the conference website. More information For more information on any aspects of the conference, please see the conference website: http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/culturesofebay.html Additionally, please e-mail Mr Martin Hicks (hicksm and add @essex.ac.uk to create full e-mail address) using the title 'eBay Conference' for early expressions of interest, or any queries you may have. To go to this e- mail address automatically, please go to the conference website. ____________________________________________ Rebecca Ellis Chimera http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/index.html Institute for Socio-Technical Research & Innovation University of Essex ________________________________________ _______________________________________________ The Air-l-aoir.org(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org/airjoin.html

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Re: BlogTalk books availability
by Thomas N.Burg 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

Hi, Please go here http://wiki.randgaenge.net/BlogTalks/TableOfContents2 and try to contact the email-addresses. It's almost impossible to convince amazon.com. Except if lots of people (flash-mob) ask for the book. Thomas ----------------------------------------- Thomas N. Burg Head of the Center for New Media Danube University Krems http://randgaenge.net http://blogtalk.net http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/znm AIM:thomasnburg Jabber:thob@jabber.ccc.de PGP http://randgaenge.net/gems/Files/pgppublickey.txt Am 16.03.2005 um 22:14 schrieb air-l-aoir.org-request(a)listserv.aoir.org: > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:14:06 -0500 > From: Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt(a)indiana.edu> > Subject: [Air-l] BlogTalk books availability > To: air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org > Message-ID: <1111007646.4238a19e6a3d9(a)webmail.iu.edu> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Are there American retailers for the BlogTalk books? I've been > looking but I > only seem to find European vendors. I wanted to try to find a > domestic source > if possible to save on shipping and to get them into my hands as > quickly as > possible. If domestic is not possible does anyone have a > recommendation for a > site that a non-German speaker can navigate? > > Thanks in advance > > Lois Ann Scheidt >

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BlogTalk books availability
by Lois Ann Scheidt 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

Are there American retailers for the BlogTalk books? I've been looking but I only seem to find European vendors. I wanted to try to find a domestic source if possible to save on shipping and to get them into my hands as quickly as possible. If domestic is not possible does anyone have a recommendation for a site that a non-German speaker can navigate? Thanks in advance 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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2nd. webconference on Electronic document TOMORROW
by Niels Windfeld Lund 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

************ SUBJECT : RTP DOC Live webcast [Electronic document : Author, Convergence], ************ RTP-DOC research network (http://rtp-doc.enssib.fr/rtpenglish/index.html) is pleased to announce its second Webcast conference on the thematics of electronic document. The conference will start on Thursday, March 17, 2005, from 10:00 AM (New York) to 1:00 PM. Live Webcast link can be accessed on http://rtp-doc.enssib.fr/webconf/index.php You may use realplayer (http://www.real.com/realplayer.html) The conference is bilingual (French/English). French, American and Norwegian researchers will present their work as followed : Webconference on "Auteur" and convergence, March 17 Lyon, Pennsylvania and Tromso. Program : 16h30 - Quelques mots de bienvenue... 16h40 - Présentation des axes de recherche de l'atelier-auteur par Evelyne Broudoux et Estrella Rojas 17h05 - Introduction par Jean-Hugues Réty de Nick Montfort, chercheur au Department of Computer and Information Science Université de Pennsylvanie, E.-U. Conférence de Nick Montfort : "authorship and electronic documents from the standpoint of electronic literature and blogging" 17h30 - Questions-Réponses avec Nick Montfort et débat avec la salle (en présence de Laura Borràs et à distance avec Niels Windfeld Lund) 18.00 - Presentation by Niels Windfeld Lund, Documentation Studies, University of Tromso, "Convergence - only one side (and less interesting) side of the coin than divergence ?" On convergence and divergence and their different impact on the documentation and documents 18.30 - discussion in the studio in Tromso and with colleagues in Lyon and US, Pennsylvania and California. It all ends 19.00, Norwegian time, 1pm New York, 10 am California time. welcome to the second webconference on electronic document To know more about RTP DOC Workshops, follow http://rtp-doc.enssib.fr/rtpenglish/workshopsen.html. To know more about The Document Academy and DOCAM http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no/ *** RTP DOC also supports collective writing under the signature of Roger .T. Pédauque. Document: Form, Sign and Medium, As Reformulated for Electronic Documents. Roger T. Pédauque. Article. 12 septembre 2003. Working paper. http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00000594.html To know more about Roger's work, follow : http://rtp-doc.enssib.fr/rtpenglish/pedauque_en.html. Best regards, Roger T. Pédauque -- Niels Windfeld Lund, professor, Dokumentasjonsvitenskap - Documentation Studies Institute of Culture and Literature HUM-FAK, Universitetet i Tromsø/University of Tromsoe Breivika, N-9037 Tromsoe, Norway tlf. +47-77646284, fax + 47-77644239 http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no/ansatte/niels.lund/index.html http://thedocumentacademy.hum.uit.no/ansatte/niels.lund/dokvitnwl/dokkenind…

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Lecture on Internet research ethics, cross-cultural comparisons on privacy - online
by Charles Ess 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

Dear AoIR-ists, I was honored to speak in early March at the 2005 national conference of Canada's National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR)/Conseil national d'éthique en recherche chez l'humain (CNERH), on the topic of "International Restrictions Affecting Internet Research: Conflicts, Risks, Resolutions?" The obligatory (and helpful, I hope) PowerPoint is available: www.drury.edu/ess/NCEHR_CNERH/ESS.htm The first part is a bit of an overview of Internet research ethics, following the AoIR guidelines, with some more recent literature and cases referenced. The second part examines notions of privacy and data privacy protection laws cross-culturally, starting with (now familiar) U.S. / Canada / E.U. / Scandinavian comparison, but then extending into an "East-West" (still useful shorthand, despite the colonialist dimensions?) comparison that includes attention to Japan, Thailand, South Korea, and China - initially with a view towards Buddhist and Confucian influences on notions of privacy and its relative importance (and/or lack thereof). Roughly, it is clear that Western attitudes towards privacy are largely affiliated with modernity, industrialization, and conceptions of the individual vis-à-vis democratic polity. National interests in many Asian countries in developing e-commerce, however, are forcing the development of data privacy protection, even if absent Western-style justifications grounded on individualism/democracy - though perhaps notions of the the latter, as transformed appropriately within specific cultural contexts/traditions/histories, may be discerned as emerging as well. In any event, I argue that a pluralism between Western and Eastern nations regarding notions of privacy and implementation of data privacy protections can be discerned - one that shows resonance, if not close agreement, on basic notions and values, alongside the multiple and irreducible differences that mark diverse national/cultural traditions/values/histories. As I happily acknowledge at the beginning of the lecture, this work represents a collaborative dialogue among many, many colleagues in Japan, China, Thailand, and Korea - especially as fostered by the invaluable work of my colleagues at Trier University, Karl-Heinz Pohl (Chinese Studies) and Hans-Jürgen Bucher (Media Studies), and made possible by a Fulbright-sponsored stay last fall at Trier. A more complete synopsis of the lecture will be published on the NCEHR/CNERH website (<http://ncehr-cnerh.org/>). If anyone would like to see it more immediately, please contact me offlist and I'll happily send it along. Comments, criticisms, and suggestions welcome! Charles Ess Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/ Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23

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Command Lines Conference -- April 29-30, Milwaukee, WI
by jeremy hunsinger 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

>> The Center for International Education at the University of >> Wisconsin-Milwaukee is pleased to announce >> >> Command Lines: The Emergence of Governance in Global Cyberspace >> >> a colloquium at the Hefter Conference Center, University of >> Wisconsin-Milwaukee, April 29-30, 2005, organized by Sandra Braman >> (communication) and Thomas Malaby (anthropology). The colloquium is >> free and >> open to the public. >> >> The transfer of many realms of social life to the global domain of >> cyberspace presents numerous challenges to formal governance through >> law and >> law-making – while increasing the relative importance of other >> approaches >> to "the conduct of conduct." While governments struggle to develop >> and >> apply laws to cyberspace, the producers of the internet (its users and >> programmers) create their own parameters, norms, practices, and rules >> that >> control life online. Experience within cyberspace, whether building a >> virtual world, making or participating in games, or learning how to >> communicate congenially and productively in a listserv, is becoming >> the most >> important training in political life for many. Governance systems >> being >> developed within cyberspace in turn are providing models for, or >> interact >> with, the laws of governments. This colloquium will examine the >> diverse >> ways in which governance is developing within cyberspace and the >> effects of >> such approaches to governance in the off-line world. Sessions will >> cover >> the entire range of types of governance mechanisms, from the formal >> laws of >> government through the formal and informal governance mechanisms of >> both >> state and non-state actors to the cultural practices of >> governmentality that >> sustain and enable both governance and government. >> >> >> Participants and Contributions: >> >> Richard Bartle >> "Why Governments aren't Gods and Gods aren't Governments" >> >> Ian Bogost >> "Playing Politics: Videogames for Politics, ACtivism, and Advocacy" >> >> Sandra Braman >> "From Governance to Government to Governmentality: The Regulatory >> Roles of >> Cyberspace in the Post-Law Era" >> >> Edward Castronova >> "The Social Question: Games for People Left Behind" >> >> Leopoldina Fortunati >> "User Design and the Democratization of the Mobile Phone" >> >> Alexander Galloway >> "How Machines Govern" >> >> John Horrigan >> "Pew Survey Research Findings Related to Internet Governance" >> >> Rob Kitchin >> "Code, Everyday Life, and Mundane Governance" >> >> Hans Klein >> "System Architecture, Geography, and Global Internet Governance" >> >> Marwan Kraidy >> "Inter-Media Dynamics and Reality Television in the Arab Region" >> >> Greg Lastowka >> "The Jurisdiction of Play" >> >> David Levy >> "More, Faster, Better?" >> >> Thomas Malaby >> "Coding Control: Ethics and Contingency in the Production of Online >> Worlds" >> >> Helen Nissenbaum >> "Values at Play: Method and Application" >> >> Christiane Paul >> "Digital Art/Public Art: The Networked Commons" >> >> Jonathan Sterne >> "Command Tones: Acoustic Space and the Ordering of Motion" >> >> T.L. Taylor >> "Beyond Management: Participatory Governance in Emergent Player >> Culture" >> >> Edward Valauskas >> Facilitator: Dangling Thoughts Discussion >> >> Deborah Wheeler >> "Digital Politics, Responsive Governance, and Cyber Freedoms Meet >> Authoritarianism in the Arab World: Results still Emerging" >> >> Michele White >> "Guest Work: The Use of the 'Other' in Producing Rules and Identity >> Norms in >> Internet Settings" >> >> Guobin Yang >> "Networks of Power, Links of Resistance: How Online-Offline >> Connections >> Challenge Internet Control in China" >> >> Website: www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/CommandLines >> For more information, contact: Sandra Braman (braman(a)uwm.edu) or >> Thomas >> Malaby (malaby(a)uwm.edu) >> >> >> ---jeremy hunsinger jhuns(a)vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu jeremy.tmttlt.com www.tmttlt.com () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments

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7 new papers on opensource.mit.edu
by Karim R. Lakhani 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

Dear All, Hope everyone is doing well. I am pleased to have posted the following 7 new papers to our website. Our community now has over 200 working papers! Current count is at 207. Wow! Many thanks to all the authors for their submissions and in keeping the community growing and vibrant. Here is to an enjoyable spring/fall! Warmly, Karim Paper 1 Author Sandeep Krishnamurthy Title The Launching of Mozilla Firefox- A Case Study in Community-Led Marketing http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/sandeep2.pdf Abstract: Mozilla Firefox is a Free/Libre/Open Source (FLOSS) browser supported by the Mozilla Foundation. This browser was recently released and has met with considerable success- it has been downloaded more than 20 million times and has already taken considerable market share from its prime competitor- Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. In this paper, I chronicle how the efforts of 63000 volunteers led to a community successfully competing with a powerful corporation. I identify four factors as the key facilitators to Firefox’ success- complacent competition, product superiority, presence of marketing leader and volunteer support. Paper 2 Author Martin Michlmayr Title Managing Volunteer Activity in Free Software Projects http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/michlmayr-mia.pdf Abstract During the last few years, thousands of volunteers have created a large body of free software. Even though this accomplishment shows that the free software development model works, there are some drawbacks associated with this model. Due to the volunteer nature of most free software projects, it is impossible to fully rely on participants. Volunteers may become busy and neglect their duties. This may lead to a steady decrease of quality as work is not being carried out. The problem of inactive volunteers is intensified by the fact that most free software projects are distributed, which makes it hard to quickly identify volunteers who neglect their duties. This paper shows Debian's approach to inactive volunteers. Insights presented here can be applied to other free software projects in order to implement effective quality assurance strategies. Paper 3 Author Stefan Behringer Title The Provision of a Public Good with a direct Provision Technology and Large Number of Agents http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/behringer.pdf Abstract This paper provides a limit result for the provision of a public good in a mechanism design framework as the number of agents gets large. A canonical example for a public good that is produced with a direct provision technology is Open Source Software. Paper 4 Author Geroge Dafermos Title The critical delusion of the condition of digitisation http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/dafermos_ccc.pdf Abstract This essay analyses how digital media prosthetics, institutionalisation (in particular the manifestations of copyright and patent law which lurk behind vested interests in controlling the transition to a vastly more powerful new world), and the imperatives of corporate planning have come into a conflict so fierce that shared lived experience, increasingly, is forced to undergo a rapid process of commodification. This struggle, which can no longer be defined through the lens of geography or class alone, in turn, points to a not too distant future in which commons-based peer production/consumption is exploited within the context of intense social taylorism and digital fordism with the ultimate goal to turn culture into a paid-for experience, and hence moving the terrain of struggle away from the surplus value of labour to the legitimacy of knowledge sharing and pervasive networking, and how the latter can be monetised and controlled in accordance with anarcho-capitalist agendas. Obviously, the question which we ought to pose to ourselves is how the revolutionary demands of hacking can be guided, assembled, and reproduced, so that this process of commodification is consciously resisted by technology developers and users alike, artists, and all those whose creativity and desire for socially conscious technological innovation and emergent social co-operation have been enhanced by the digital condition we're increasingly in the centre of. Paper 5 Authors Cristina Rossi and Andrea Bonaccorsi Title Intrinsic motivations and profit-oriented firms in Open Source software. Do firms practise what they preach? http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/rossi_motivations.pdf Abstract A growing body of economic literature is exploring the incentives of the agents involved in the Open Source movement. However, most empirical analyses focus on individual developers and neglect firms that do business with Open Source software (Open Source firms). This paper contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the incentives of firms that engage in Open Source activities. Data on firms’ motivations were collected by a large-scale survey conducted on 146 Italian companies supplying Open Source (OS) solutions and show that intrinsic, community-based incentives do play a role. Nevertheless, these positive attitudes towards the values of the OS community, which are quite surprising by profit-oriented firms, are not in general put into practise. Discrepancy between attitudes and behaviours is a widely investigated phenomenon in social psychology literature. We explore its pattern in our sample, find that it does not concern all the respondents, and single out a group of firms adopting a more consistent behaviour. Our results are in line with the literature on individual motivations in organisations and Open Source business models. Paper 6 Author Matthias Stürmer Title: Open Source Community Building http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/sturmer.pdf Abstract Building an active and helpful community around an open source project is a complex task for its leaders. Therefore investigations in this work are intended to define the optimum starting position of an open source project and to identify recommendable promoting actions by project leaders to enlarge community size in a healthy way. For this paper eight interviews with committed representatives of successful open source projects have led to over 12 hours of conversation about community building. Analysing the statements of these experienced community members exposed helpful activities that led to the presently prospering communities of their projects. Summarizing the conclusions of this qualitative research a table with conditions for successful open source project initialisation and a subject-level promotion matrix of community building could be created. They include suggestions on how to start a new open source project and how to improve and increase the community of an already advanced open source project. Paper 7 Author Norbert Bollow Title: Webservice Protocol Design for Economic Liberty and Observability http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/bollow.pdf Abstract One big potential benefit of the webservices paradigm is in reducing the costs of inter-firm business transactions. That should allow small and medium-sized enterprises to compete successfully with big firms. This paper considers specifically the economic needs of peer-to-peer business alliances, defined as multiparty business alliances which are not under the control of any single firm or any small group of alliance members, so that each participating firm has full economic liberty. This organisational form is appropriate for example for Free Software businesses. The main conclusions are that achieving economic observability of business transactions is of great importance, and that this is difficult to achieve with the Remote Procedure Calls paradigm of JINI or XML / HTTP / SOAP based webservices. The problem can be overcome by using the SXDF / QQP / QRPC suite of webservice protocols,

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Reminder: Please fill out survey for Undergrad research
by Becky Singson 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

Hello air-l list members, This is a reminder for you to please fill out my survey for my undergraduate thesis. The survey is regarding Web development and specifically the type of research used when doing Web development. It is very quck (only 12 questions!). If you have done any type of website development, please fill it out! Thank you in advance for your time! You can find the survey at: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2246MSXMJ28 If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at singsora(a)muohio.edu. Thanks! Becky Singson

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Re. utopian / dystopian
by Philipp Budka 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

Re. Utopian / Dytopian I am not sure if Pierre Lévy (1999) and his book Collective Intelligence has been already mentioned. In this volume he outlines his vision of a new anthropological space: the knowledge space which is closely related to new media and technologies. There is also an article - in German - of Manfred Kremser dealing with Lévy's anthropological spaces in relation to cyberculture: (1999)CyberAnthropology und die neuen Raeume des Wissens. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien (MAGW), Vol. 129, pp. 275-290. Best, Philipp -- Philipp Budka philbu(a)gmx.net Rustengasse 5/10 A-1150 Wien, Austria http://www.philbu.net http://www.lateinamerika-studien.at -- SMS bei wichtigen e-mails und Ihre Gedanken sind frei ... Alle Infos zur SMS-Benachrichtigung: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/sms

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