Discordia || Comments || Communal histories

Information InFiltration. Tech<=>art<=>tactical<=>media<=>culture++

Communal histories - fact or friction? | 4 comments

[new] blogging a dead horse (Avg. Score: 2.00 / Raters: 1) (#4)
by paullloydsargent (enolagrey@hotmail.com) on Mon Nov 10th, 2003 at 05:11:15 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME
(User Info)

This may be a dead thread by now but it raises some points i've been thinking about while observing this site:

I've known about Discordia for some time now and I very much enjoy checking up on what people are posting, but I rarely have the time to read, much less post in blogs/lists/etc such as this. Not that I'm not interested, just busy with so many things and to some degree, hesitant to join in heated debates for the world to read. I've been a part of various other lists in the past and watched as my cycles matched those of the list itself. And here I go again, so to speak: I read a bit, step back and watch, finally post a few rabbid times, don't check for awhile, post some more, then often disappear.

But there are always those who find these sites almost a lifeline to communication. I imagine it is this type who will wind up writing the online open forum history, giving a very different perspective of the process than that of the occassional poster. Or for that matter the massive amounts of people who can argue their lives haven't been changed a bit by open forums because they have no access to the online world in the first place.

I'm interested in how the MoveOn.org book, to be written by its own members, will portray the movement of online political communities in the US. I've been frustrated many times in the past by the trappings of self-congratulatory documentation of failed tactical media strategies and electronic Utopias. I think I've even lost friends over discussions about just how these attempts and events should be portrayed.

Sometimes it's not so bad to have a force from outside the process come along and develop history and critique, with which I assume most here would agree with. But how does one best measure the reaches of the online open forum process unless one includes the perspective of those who've been left out?

signs, signs, everywhere signs...
[ Parent ]

[new] who... (Avg. Score: none / Raters: 0) (#2)
by joerabie on Sun Oct 19th, 2003 at 03:52:27 PM EURODISCORDIA TIME
(User Info) http://www.magelis.com/joezone/

Amy, the question that you raise about "who..." is very interesting, and my own empirical experience is that only a small minority of internet users actually participate in forums, mailing lists, chatrooms, and the like. I think that one could probably draw up psychological profiles of users drawn to these various forms of discourse, that would be a useful tool in actually analysing opinions people express, and how they express them.

For example, I am amazed in how I keep on encountering the same people in different lists and forums that I participate in. As if I have a sort of intrinsic profile that sends me to particular places and prevents me from "breaking the circle".

Concerning the collaborative writing of history: perhaps all we have to to is programme a metahistorian that will trawl the web for "facts" relating to a particular subject, then write them up in contradictory fashion.

[ Parent ]

who + what by amy, 10/20/2003 06:24:52 AM EURODISCORDIA TIME (2.00 / 1)

Communal histories - fact or friction? | 4 comments

Sort:
Display:

[- CREATE ACCOUNT
so you can post & vote!

[- how to post and vote
[- faq (discordia q&a)
[- faq en espa�ol
[- search
[- send feedback

[- sick of english?
[- multi-lingual babelfilter

Stories, articles, images and comments are owned by the Author. The Rest � 2003 The Discordants under the Gnu Public License

submit story | create account | faq | search