This makes me think of some of the material in a paper by Haim Weinberg, entitled: "Community Unconscious on the Internet": http://www.groupintervisual.net/hosting/ga-special-issue/papers/haim.htm Abstract: In this paper from the March 2002 issue of Group Analysis, Haim Weinberg, Israeli group psychotherapist and Internet researcher describes some key phenomena in the dynamics of large groups on the Internet, underlining their deviation from the norm in non-virtual large groups. The paper features as a case study extensive exploration of 'the Unconscious' of a discussion list on the Internet, in order to better understand some of the processes of Internet communities.The transference of the list members towards the moderator and the list as a whole is examined together with the counter transference of the moderator. The claim is made that denial of the boundary-less environment, and formation of sub-groupings, create an illusion of safety, allowing members to assuage their anxiety through constructing a small group type experience, despite the fact there may be many huindreds of people participating. Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rune Dalgaard" <runed@imv.au.dk> To: <air-l@aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 11:38 PM Subject: Re: [Air-l] The Dire State of the AoIR List

Hi

I agree with David Neices' comments on the increasing amount of irrelevant information and personal mails on this list. It has been very useful and still sometimes is, but it would be much better without all the 'by the way' comments, you usually discuss in a lunch room or other small circles - I wonder whether people realize that this list reaches many hundreds of people if not more? I strongly support that we try to follow David's suggestions.

Cheers, Rune

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Rune Dalgaard, MA, Doctoral Candidate Dept. of Information and Media Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark E-mail: runed@imv.aau.dk / Web: http://www.imv.au.dk/medarbejdere/runed -------------------------------------------------------------------------- --

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the list reaches just over 1000 addresses. However, I think it is precisely the 'by the way' comments and small circles of activity that really fosters the research community here. This is a discussion list. These small circles and comments to each other tend to be one of the main areas that people interact here, without that we would become more of an announcement list and that would be a loss. That said, I think people have to take responsibility for their actions and the methods they use to post things. I'd prefer people not to use html or mime encoding, and if they need help learning how to do that, instruction can probably be arranged through many of the list users who have that knowledge. I label this a positive action, whereas rules or moderation to limit peoples action would be a negative action. I think that if you want things to change you probably should seek out ways of becoming positively involved in the list, not negative ways of limiting others. people can lead by setting an example for others in manner of their participation. if someone posts something in a way you don't like and if you have the time, you could write them instructions as to how and why they should do it differently. we have managed to do some things with the list, we've cut down the frequent reposting of the digests, we've cut back on really large postings, we've stopped external spam, but I don't think there is much more that we should do with the software, other than to allow those people who have vision and apply themselves in aoir and on aoir lists and as such set the tone for the list in the future. jeremy hunsinger jhuns@vt.edu on the ibook www.cddc.vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy www.dromocracy.com