Article: 4936 of fa.future-culture Path: ifi.uio.no!internet-mailinglist Newsgroups: fa.future-culture Return-Path: <@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU:owner-futurec@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU> Original-Message-Id: <199311072017.21065.ifi@ifi.uio.no> Original-Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 15:19:44 EST Reply-To: Future Culture <FUTUREC@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU> Sender: Future Culture <FUTUREC@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU> From: Meng Weng Wong <mengwong@SAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: Re: . Comments: To: FUTUREC@uafsysb.uark.edu To: Multiple recipients of list FUTUREC <FUTUREC@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU> In-Reply-To: <9311042257.AA16798@mail.sas.upenn.edu>; from "Scotto" at Nov 4, 93 4:52 pm Organization: Internet mailing list Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 20:18:04 GMT Message-ID: <1993.310.201804.21067@ifi.uio.no> Scotto pounds randomly on the keyboard and comes up with | | So what's up around here these days? I'll tell you what, ever since | the Tribe got rolling, traffic around here's really slacked off. | Had a nice long chat with Freeside about this and similar topics, | and I thought I'd check in here to see if we were full of it or not. here's the log, btw, and i'm sorry if you're reading this in a linear format and are forced to scroll through. and just after that Guggenheim thing, too. =) IRC log started Wed Nov 3 20:25 *** Value of LOG set to ON <freeside> mmm. <freeside> ok? <freeside> ok. <freeside> :) <scotto> wow. i'm very confused. <freeside> s'cuse the noise :) <freeside> yeah. <freeside> and of course, i'm logging everything. <scotto> fair enough. everything says "freeside" now; you've taken over the Net, haven't you. <freeside> of course. * freeside laughs evilly. <freeside> ergh. <freeside> hm. <scotto> All right. I want this to kind of be an informal discussion back and forth, rather than an "interview" thingy. <freeside> i don't seem to look as professional as i should. * freeside straightens his tie, and brushes back his mussed hair. <scotto> It's cool, we aren't running any photos. <scotto> So to begin.... <freeside> this reminds me of a thang in ... uh ... a review of a MOO session in which elements of playfulness crept into an ostensibly "formal" situation. :) <freeside> to begin. ----- The Disintegration Of Futureculture ----- <scotto> Tell me about the disintegration of FutureCulture. <freeside> ha! <freeside> welp. <freeside> when did YOU join futureculture? <freeside> i signed up after hearing about it from seeing andy's sig on alt.cp, way back around this time (october) last year. <scotto> Probably...year and a half, two years ago? Don't remember. <freeside> (november), make that :) <freeside> so you've been on it longer than i have. <freeside> from its very inception, then, eh? <scotto> Maybe not that long, who can say. <scotto> Net time always screws me up. <freeside> so i was on, and enjoyed it -- it's where i cut my teeth on mailing lists. <freeside> wow. a year. * freeside contemplates that. <freeside> but anyways. <freeside> i guess it was around february or march that andy grabbed futureculture and dragged it to the trash. <scotto> How so? <freeside> he took everything related to futureculture, and entirely uprooted it. <freeside> wiped out the entire subscriber list. <freeside> wiped out the automated faq server. <freeside> even wiped the faq, come to think of it. <scotto> That was a pretty bold thing to do to an entire community. <freeside> separated himself from futureculture as entirely as anyone could. <freeside> yeah, considering he was one of the pillars of that community. <freeside> more than most people on the list, i suspect, would not have been on futureculture had andy's brilliant insights, experience, humour, rhetoric, etc. not been present. <freeside> then again, we had reached that point of community -- now let me see if i can find a quote -- * freeside burrows into the internet. <freeside> hm, this is odd ... where did i put that ... * freeside sifts through piles of papers on his virtual desktop. <freeside> Further, human communication systems experience at least three stages of evolution: "(1) initiation, in which the system is first formed and comes into being; (2) operation, in which the system performs its behaviors and functions; and (3) termination, in which the system ceases to function" (Emmert & Donaghy, 1981, p. 233). Small groups undergo four stages of evolution: Orientation, conflict, emergence, and reinforcement (Emmert & Donaghy, 1981). <freeside> that's from greller, ipctv1n2. <freeside> from what i could tell, futureculture and its kissing cousins leri and fringeware had just gotten through its nascent stage of orientation, when it was rudely disturbed. the very basis for its existence was deleted -- the membership list was wiped utterly. some staunch members rallied around futureculture (minus andy), and tried to put it back together. we put some old subscriber lists together, and ended up with an old population base. after all the dust had settled, futurec was reestablished on uafsysb.uark.edu. since we'd lost members and didn't know where to find them, we issued a rallying call far and wide for lost sheep to come back into the fold, or whatever your metaphor of choice is :) that had the unexpected effect of bringing in a lot of NEW members. mindy, i think, and john frost, joined around that time. <freeside> from a file i prepared for distribution: <freeside> if you weren't following events closely around april this year, you might have missed the Great Morphing. the old list, future@nyx.cs.du.edu shut down forever. confusion followed, naturally. adamfast valiantly retrieved the old subscriber list, and commandeered fc-nexus to serve as a temporary replacement. after a couple weeks, fc shifted again. now administrated by patrick mckee, the list has found its present and more permanent home at futurec@uafsysb.uark.edu. <scotto> That period seemed like a very noble attempt to keep FC alive, despite efforts to the contrary. <freeside> it was a great time, when the community was forced to reexamine its raison d'etre and its will to continue. i'm using a lot of anthroporphic mumbo-jumbo here, but heck, it's the fashion to describe virtual communities as living things, more than the sum of their parts, right? :) <scotto> Indeed, I dig it. :) <freeside> btw, what's the article about? <scotto> (The article is about email communities in general; the email communities I like in particular.) <freeside> anyways. during that time of turbulent groping, of the struggle to anchor ourselves somewhere, a lot of stuff happened. <freeside> since the demise of future@nyx, futureculture has changed significantly. we now have a spot of our own at MediaMOO, as well as upcoming gopher and ftp sites. we've been getting mentions in billy idol's _cyberpunk_ album, and even in the _utne reader_. <freeside> all this is from the Blurb, which I wrote, in hopes we'd be able to distribute it to recover our lost members. <freeside> (you going to talk to howard rheingold, steal some thunder from _virtual communities_?) <freeside> (btw, ask me later for other places to get info on virtual communities, i'm subbed to a lot of sources.) <scotto> (hell no, I'm just putting a much more personal spin on the subject...) <scotto> How involved were you personally in keeping FC alive? <freeside> i did everything my limited resources allowed me to. besides having just fallen in love with the medium of electronic lists and newsgroups and email, i recognized futureculture as being a particularly potent gathering point for intellectuals and techno-freaks like myself :) ... <freeside> ... and i was so passionately engaged with the "memes" -- oh, there i go, being avant-garde again -- on the list that i could not bear to see it dissolve into the ether. <freeside> how about you, scotto .... were you similarly involved with the list? <scotto> I was involved enough to follow it through its various incarnations. I was curious to see if the memetic attractor behind FC was strong enough to keep those people in place despite Andy's departure. I was also very interested in developing a sense of community, explicitly, between FC and Leri, as it seemed at times that the two were like sparring siblings, unnecessarily so. <freeside> a lot of the old voices stayed; a lot of the old voices also left. most importantly, at the time, i felt that all the new voices were perhaps the best thing to happen to the list. some great thinkers and speakers were attracted to it. <scotto> Still are, although of late, FC seems to be on the sparse side. <freeside> then, at that time, at the time of expansion into mediamoo and the establishment of the ftp site, some unfortunate political events occurred, which i feared might threated the stability of the list. while not vitally important to the continued list, <freeside> (btw, hope you don't mind if i invite erich over.) <scotto> nope. *** NullSet (erich@crl8.cs.tamu.edu) has joined #fwr <NullSet> fwr? <scotto> FringeWare Review. <freeside> the ftp site, for one, was a valuable addition to the community, and would have taken a lot of strain of my robot :) <freeside> what were you saying about tribe, erich? i just wiped all of it for quota. oops. <NullSet> well <NullSet> andy forwarded a message from his sysadmins <NullSet> who basically said: <NullSet> "tone it down or we shut you down" <NullSet> apparently in the last week there have been 869 postings <scotto> there goes the experiment. <freeside> political events, in terms of the faq -- no one person was in charge of keeping it up to date, while some wanted it shrunk, and others wanted it the way it was ... there was a lot of confusion and miscommunication about what the various members of the list saw IN the list, and saw as the FUTURE of the list. <scotto> I remember that well; in the abscence of a "leader" like Andy, the list seemed to swim a bit. <NullSet> with >120 subscribes, that's like 100K email messages in 1 week and it's seriously bogging down the lists server <NullSet> am i interupting something? :) <scotto> Null: conducting an interview, feel free to dive in. <freeside> but anyways, i feel that the list since that time rallied well. you agree, erich? <freeside> how long have you been with futureculture, nullset? <NullSet> my futureculture history: <NullSet> i remember andy's posts to alt.cp well - i didn't join then because i thought his posts rather pompous, actually <NullSet> i decided, for some reason, to end my avoidance of IRC this summer <NullSet> and head heard about #leri (on alt.techno-shamanism, and in Andy's "I am overloaded" post), so headed here <freeside> andy certainly did have a period during which he endeavoured to mark out his territory in cyberspace, which he actually did rather well on alt.cp, leri, and on fc .... until he ditched it :) <NullSet> I joined leri@ and FC@ soon afterward, but left leri@, as drugs and airy philosophy weren't my thing <freeside> what's the time frame on joining fc here, erich <NullSet> so now I am on FC@, and mostly lurk, it seems; that's my style - contribute facts that kill discussions :) <NullSet> joined FC in July, I think <freeside> ah, i see. after nyx. <NullSet> I mostly joined FC because of the people I met here <NullSet> yes, after nyx; Andy rejoined after I had joined <freeside> i think i tend to contribue facts that kill discussions, myself ... one thing that always worried me was that nobody ever seemed to respond to my posts. <NullSet> yes, me too! <scotto> Heh. <NullSet> I don't know if they're (a) so bad no one bothers <NullSet> or (b) so good no one feels they can add anything <NullSet> the worst thing that can happen to you on the net is to be ignored :) ----- The Edge of Talent ----- <freeside> yes -- speaking of people as primary attractors -- in gibson's future, single people are the sources of entire waves of world change. <NullSet> well ... <scotto> Seems that that's the case now as well. <NullSet> there is also the "ghostly teenage dna" which causes fads to surge up and down the sprawls <freeside> i think that's going to become a very important part of this cyberspace future -- information resources will reorganize themselves around "who's particularly spectacular" in a particular field of work. <NullSet> gibson has various people say again and again that individuals are somewhat outmoded as change agents in his future <NullSet> the paradox of josef virek as an individually wealthy man <NullSet> the true form of intelligent life being zaibatsu <freeside> you won't get resource guides organized by specialized subject, but more by "this is andy hawks. this is bruce sterling. this is hiltz roxanne starr" and describe what each one of them does. <NullSet> meng - that may be due to a lack of 'standard references" <freeside> but at the same time, erich, gibson's _count zero_ /revolved/ around the investigation and discovery of ONE INDIVIDUAL who produced UNIQUE art. <NullSet> and that one individual was a machine <scotto> just as most people headed to tribe to see what andy was up to. ----- Tribe ----- <NullSet> scotto - that's why i headed to tribe <freeside> right, scotto. if i may quote someone anonymously, "Only reason i'm joining tribe is because i can't afford not to get in on the ground floor of another andy net experiment." <NullSet> i felt i couldn't miss out on getting in on the ground floor of another andy experiment <freeside> welp, * freeside throws up his hands. <freeside> there goes the anonymity :) * NullSet rips off his mask to reveal - Mr. Smothers, the owner of the haunted amusement park! <freeside> my my, erich, you're suprisingly repetitive :) ... that's the third time i've seen you use that particular turn of phrase ;) <NullSet> i am a hard disk of culture, meng <StenoBot> (laughter from the audience) <NullSet> the information goes in, and gets retrieved in much the same form :) <scotto> What's at stake for you personally, though, if you don't "get in on" Andy's experiment? What do you lose? <NullSet> well ... <freeside> they were discussing tribe on alt.postmodernism. <NullSet> i am somewhat envious of andy's net.successes <NullSet> even though he puts them down a lot <scotto> fs: what were they saying? <scotto> null: envious in what way? <NullSet> i mean, look at the fame and net.fame he acquired with his FAQs <freeside> andy's net.successes are well deserved, though -- he is a genius and a visionary, in his own way. now if only he weren't plagued by such mundane "starving artist" type personal problems ... <NullSet> now I run the alt.cp FAQ, but it's just not the same ... <NullSet> I wish I could be a brilliant visionary, but most days I feel like "merely" a competent technician <freeside> andy had that necessary gift of being a leader, a trailblazer, not a follower. <freeside> but then again, erich, you've got much the same qualities with hypertext and stuff. <scotto> So...being on the ground floor of Tribe is a chance to parlay your presence there into some greater form of recognition? <NullSet> sort of, scotto <NullSet> if tribe had become a big success <NullSet> i could say "yeah, i was there at the beginning, with andy" <NullSet> i want to be a "force for good" on the net :) <scotto> Heh. <NullSet> although I must say, Andy sometimes infuriates me (as he does everyone, I suppose) <scotto> Traffic on FC has slowed significantly since Tribe's inception. <NullSet> I think I played a nontrivial part in causing him to unsub from FC the 2nd time <freeside> eh, really. <NullSet> (although that may just be vanity) <freeside> but he's posted at least twice on fc since, you know. albeit about tribe ... <NullSet> he unsubbed after a very biting article of mine, criticizing what I perceived as hypocracy on his part <scotto> How do you suppose Tribe fits into this semi-sort of community we have between FC, Leri, FringeWare, Aleph, #leri? <NullSet> well, tribe's future is now very much in doubt <NullSet> as is FC's, I think <scotto> How so? <freeside> tribe is our younger sister. and if it goes, i don't think it will garner quite the same visceral response as futureculture's death did. <NullSet> tribe could be a repository for the more chatty stuff <NullSet> how so? <NullSet> well, Andy just recently (within the last hour) <NullSet> posted a message from the sysadmins <NullSet> saying "the load is too great, quiet down or we shut you down" <freeside> damn, you type fast :) <scotto> How is FC's future in doubt? <NullSet> I have talked to andy a bit about this <NullSet> at the time he created FC, cyberculture, raves, etc., were "hot new stuff" in some sense <NullSet> in that they were reaching a peak of popularity but that popularity has sort of died down and it isn't clear how much longer the futureculture people can keep talking about "the future" <freeside> FC right now, i think, is going through a second and ... somehow, internal, demise. <NullSet> i mean, one VR discussion is very much like another <freeside> previously, it was completely unexpected. this time, the very community is voluntarily withdrawing. <NullSet> I must say, though, I was never on "the old FC", so I mostly go by hearsay about what it was like <scotto> Right. Right. But that's just as much do to the cyclic nature of email lists in general. <scotto> And, <scotto> seems as though, currently, <scotto> this withdrawal is due to the sheer amount of time it takes <scotto> to read Tribe. <freeside> the other thing is that most of us on FC have finally hashed out stuff ... there's nothing new to say. <NullSet> I think a list like tribe, but more controlled, for just social interaction, is a great idea <scotto> How would you control it? <NullSet> freeside - ding! exactly the point i was trying to make <NullSet> well, be a bit more discrete about invites <NullSet> have it be a mailing list for a community of friends <NullSet> perhaps make it personal invitation-style <freeside> like in the leonard cohen song: "there's a bar where the boys have stopped talking .. they've been sentenced to death by the blues." <scotto> All right, then, here's an important sort of theoretical thing, then: if FC's primary attractors had more to do with the topics than with the people involved, then its current decline seems natural. On the other hand, if it had been more about the people involved, more about the friendships being created, the word "community" might have been more appropriate. <scotto> (Here I am already talking about FC in the past tense. Ah well.) <freeside> but yeah, at first andy kept the very idea of tribe to a small bunch of personal net.friends, but it seems now that he sowed his wild oats far and wide ... <NullSet> well, a good net.buddy of mine, Michael "mjcpunk" current, said he like the original FC for "Andy's 'join the revolution' style" and I joined FC for the people (I can get the same ideas lots of other places) <freeside> futureculture is at a ... what do you call it ... crux? that word in _dune_ ... <NullSet> nexus? <freeside> ... either it dies now, or some of us pick up the threads and encourage the community to strengthen. <freeside> where all the points come together and a fusion occurs. like a singularity. my english sucks. <NullSet> but how many times have you groaned when another person has logged on and said "gee, what would the impact of VR be..." <NullSet> I think we can just leave all pretense of being topic-oriented behind and just say "we're a group who like each other, let's correspond semi-publicly" <scotto> That would be a *good* thing, of course. <freeside> that's the question facing us all right now ... we could either post a passionate piece, or we could let the thing die. is it worth our effort, though, writing a hundred lines? that's ... the question we must face ourselves with. <NullSet> a kind of asynchronous IRC <scotto> This is ultimately what happened to Leri, for example. <freeside> yeah. asynchronous irc. if tribe@ is like #chat, i want futurec to be like #leri ... <freeside> ... where we all know each other. <NullSet> oh, FringeWare Review, #fwr, now I get it :) <freeside> too bad, countzer0, elitism happens. <NullSet> yes, elitism happens <NullSet> remember my big post about intellectual sophistication? <freeside> see "in defense of elitism", _the reality club_, "ways of knowing". <NullSet> the ignorance of the total newbie and the ignorance of the seasoned veteran are not totally the same <freeside> mmmmmm. yeah. <freeside> there are some on fc whose posts i have read, who have given me a definite mental image of stuf ... <freeside> ... but .............. there's a lot of junk. <freeside> i wish people would consider their audience before posting. <NullSet> what do you two (Scotto and Meng) think of the "personal FAQ" idea <freeside> netiquette isn't something to be dispensed with. <NullSet> (Remember our "Life FAQ" idea, Meng? :)) <scotto> Well, erich, I have no intention of copying you. :) <freeside> in particular, an unnamed friend of ours in australia could ... deal with ... "counting to 10." <NullSet> a FAQ about yourself, which you distribute <freeside> erich, i had my fsfaq out long before you did ;) but then again, true, it wasn't exactly about myself. i think it's nae a bad idea ... * NullSet rushes to credit Meng for the idea :) <freeside> remember my single sole "faq'ing everything" concept? <freeside> i posted to tribe: <NullSet> I haven't written my first novel yet, Scotto :) <scotto> heh. > (freeside talking to andy) > <freeside> the idea of FAQ'ing everything has been coming to me. > <freeside> like. > <freeside> you know. > <freeside> just watching you post for the nth time on how to deal > with the listserv and what to do to sub to tribe and > whatever. you know. all that is a FAQ. now > extrapolate. all that one says, one ends up repeating, > usually. why not just archive everything you say and > point people to it, instead of expending the cputime to > say it again? > <freeside> that, i think, is closer to what we'll see as "uploading" > ourselves to the net: we'll turn ourselves into archived, > stored, copies of original thoughts. <freeside> sorry if that comes out weird looking for you, i've got about 120 columns here :) <freeside> hypertext comes at an opportune time, erich, .... it resonates with my thoughts at the moment very closely. ----- Net.Communities ----- <freeside> but scotto. we're getting a little far away from your attractor ... care to jump-start with another Question? <scotto> I'm looking for one. this discussion seems far reaching at the moment. <scotto> I'm interested in examinging, theoretically, how "community" (which is a very potent meme, not one to be taken lightly) forms and dissipates so rapidly in this environment (the Net, specifically this corner of the Net that we inhavbit). <freeside> community on the net is very, very different from community in real life. let me outline three reasons why i think this is so. <freeside> (btw, i just chose "3" at random, it just kinda seems there are usually 3 of this and 3 of that :) <scotto> heh... <freeside> first of all, net.communities first seem to be drawn around very specific attractors: to wit, alt.mcdonalds.ketchup, or alt.fetish.feet ... <NullSet> Are those really topic based? he pipes in <freeside> in contrast, IRL humans find community through geographical proximity. most of my friends at college now are those who lived on the same floor with me last year -- a wholly random, but effective, sampling. <NullSet> how much is ketchup _really_ talked about there? <NullSet> although I grant places like alt.callahans and alt.sex.bondage seem to have a lot of community spirit <freeside> in _The Great Good Place_ <author> talks about the three places central to human experience: the place where we live and eat and sleep, the place where we work for a living, and the place where we Hang Out. second-wave industrial culture entirely destroyed that third place. <scotto> How so? <freeside> jaron lanier commented in an interview with Biocca (journal of communication, v24 n4) that we spend almost all our time in a fetal position, staring at a rectangle of glass. <NullSet> paolo soleri has claimed civilization's two greatest mistakes were "the suburb and the automobile" <freeside> we work in offices, in front of our screens. <freeside> we drive around in cars. <freeside> we go home and watch tv. <freeside> no wonder there's a painful dearth of interaction with our fellow humans -- sitting on the bus i feel the urge to reach out and say hi to someone, but it's just Not Done ... <NullSet> zoning laws create "places for working" and "places for living" and "places for hanging out" are increasingly "places to spend money" <freeside> with computer and communication networks, we return to the English Commons. <NullSet> IRC is very much "hanging out on the street corner" <freeside> in "computer networks and the emergence of global civil society", frederick says: <freeside> The concept of civil society arose with John Locke, the English philosopher and political theorist. It implied a defense of human society at the national level against the power of the state and the inequalities of the marketplace. For Locke, civil society was that part of civilization--from the family and the church to cultural life and education--that was outside of the control of government or market but was increasingly marginalized by them. Locke saw the importance of social movements to protect the public sphere from these commercial and governmental interests. <freeside> though i'm looking for another quote, actualy .... something more along the lines of the commons ... hm .... <NullSet> well, guys, gotta go <NullSet> talk to you later <scotto> thanks erich. <freeside> later erich. *** NullSet has left channel #fwr <freeside> grr. <freeside> argh. <freeside> where's that quote. * freeside flails about helplessly. <freeside> o Social and Industrial Policy for Public Networks: Visions for the Future Mitchell Kapor and Daniel Weitzner <freeside> o Co-Emulation: The Case for a Global Hypernetwork Society Shumpei Kumon and Izumi Aizu <freeside> o Sailing through Cyberspace: Counting the Stars in Passing Robert Jacobson <freeside> you'll find the quote somewhere in those essays :) <scotto> Probably not, actually. :) <freeside> your piece on virtual communities, though, how long is it, and what are you focuses again? you going to try to be populist, introduce people to the net, or examine some academicable aspects of it ... ? <scotto> There are no "focuses" specifically; it's my column, and I can do what I want. <scotto> I'm exploring the personal side of it, as well as the theoretical side of it, and yes, it's also a semi-intro. <freeside> anyways, that's straying. my second point was that on the net, people tend to open up a lot ... you know the most intimate things about people you have never met, but you know nothing about your next-door-neighbour. <freeside> and the third point, due to the characteristics of the medium, virtual communities are easy to set up -- a mailing list is all it takes -- but it's just as easy to take down. unless you have a subscriber list, or know the addresses of those principally involved, then bad things will happen ... community can vanish as easily as a group of strangers, after bonding during a weekend hiking trip, dissipate. like the end of "breakfast club", for instance. ----- Leri ----- <freeside> i just wrote a paper on the differences between cmc and the traditional mass media ... i'll put it on thesisnet-request in the next few days. <scotto> Hurm. <scotto> You could present said paper at Leri@Con, you know. ;) <freeside> eh? naah, not a big deal ... it's really not worth publishing; it doesn't say anything that each one of its references doesn't say in prose far more concise and creative. <scotto> Yes, well, you could present *something* anyway. Just a nudge. Heh. <freeside> mmm. <freeside> austin, texas. <freeside> bit far away but i could always fly. <freeside> then again, leri@ isn't really my style. <scotto> Or carpool. <scotto> Yah, but, <scotto> there's so much cross-pollination between these lists <scotto> that to many of us, the whole neighborhood here seems like a strong community. <freeside> yeah, true. lotta cross pollination. <freeside> i'm not into the whole recreational pharmaceuticals type of dispensation :) <scotto> (and rec. pharm. are only a small part of Leri these days. :) <freeside> i was on leri for a time, but never really posted. <freeside> what IS leri up to nowadays, then? html thing <scotto> Leri just had a huge fleshmeet in Chicago that once again rocked everyone's worlds. :) <scotto> Consciousness, buddhism, etc. <freeside> Oooh. <freeside> but. <freeside> yeah. consciousness, buddhism, the whole alternative lifestyle. <scotto> but? <scotto> Well, <freeside> like a recent post, i think either erich or john frost, said on tribe, "that's stuff i figured out and dealt with back in eighth grade." <freeside> so. <scotto> despite the memes that flow there, <scotto> heh. <scotto> I don't trust the stuff I "figured out" in eighth grade; I'm a lot different now. <freeside> shrug. i might go. i'm far more into VR and whatnot. <freeside> and i feel that, you know, with religion especially, you've got a lot of open-ended questions and nobody really agrees on basic terminology or anything anyways. <freeside> i've got very scientific views on things like that. logical positivist views. religion is a crock, a meme machine, but nothing more. <scotto> looks like the official "interview" is over. I really appreciate your taking the time to do this. <freeside> eh? <scotto> i agree; <freeside> oh. welp, i'm good to go on if you want ... <scotto> the buddhists are discussing buddhism amongst themselves; I could care less. <freeside> ... i'm just naturally straying :) <freeside> virtual community, yeah ... * freeside muses. <scotto> Well, the "crosspollinization" issue is interesting to me. <freeside> or rather, * freeside memes. <freeside> rez is big on the whole multiple attractors deal. <freeside> you were over at his house last night, you'd know ... <scotto> I am, occasionally, as well. <scotto> There was a time when some of the gang on FC <freeside> ... but personally, i tend to see the attractors as being not the topics -- not cyberpunk, or LSD, or religion, but as the people. You, me. Rez, dwayne, andy, juxlus. <scotto> was into backwards slams directed at Leri, and vice versa. <freeside> indigo. countzer0. that stuff. <freeside> "backwards slams?" <scotto> Correct, *now*. * freeside looks it up in the American Slang Dictionary of Pop Culture. <scotto> What initially brought us together was *not* each other. <freeside> when it really comes down to it, it's the people that matter. <scotto> We didn't gnow each other When It All Began. <freeside> but you Grew to Gnow. <scotto> Right; so, <scotto> look at how we self-selected ourselves to be in those places: <freeside> true, true. that's why i mentioned to andy that tribe would be Different. <scotto> we chose topics we were interested in, and hoped we liked others who are interested. <scotto> And tribe *is* different, EXCEPT <freeside> when andy first whispered the nascent idea of "tribe" to him, freeside suggested, with a doubtful look on his face, that it might not quite ... succeed .... though then again, success/failure would be wholly subjective ANYWAY, right. but what andy was trying to do here, freeside surmised, was to create a community with NO prior, predefined interests. that wasn't looking at some important points, though. like, for instance, consider this: tribemembers would all have this much in common: access to the net, yawn, countzer0 already covered this; and also the fact that they had, to varying extents, been exposed previously to andy, and felt drawn to that strong attractor. ;) and also that they were all interested in the notion of participating IN a virtual community. <freeside> ... except that :) <scotto> Yes. The experiment was already a "failure" in theoretical terms. <freeside> what SHOULD have established Tribe was the people. <freeside> andy's friends, in other words, and those friends' friends. <freeside> unfortunately andy made the mistake of getting all idealistic and non-elitist and posting all over usenet. <scotto> Random usenet invitations, however, skewed that sample. <freeside> you post to usenet, you get usenet. <freeside> yes. <scotto> yes. ----- E.Lists ----- <scotto> And what *I* want to know is, <scotto> what the hell was "wrong" with the original FC to begin with? <scotto> Friendships formed, community happened, what the hell else do you need? <scotto> Seems like, off the record, self-aggrandizement. <freeside> well, a lot of people left. <freeside> nobody *core*, nobody *central*, but nonetheless, andy left, and a number of his groupies followed. <scotto> Nonetheless, wiping the subscriber base is an extreme action. <scotto> When rez and Mitch wanted to trail blaze, they created Aleph without resorting to an "attack" on Leri; the two existed side by side, independent by intertwined. <scotto> but intertwined. <scotto> If Tribe dies now, due to volume, <freeside> gerald phillips has some interesting things to say on the formation and dissolution of virtual community. let me find it .... <scotto> will those folks dissipate amongst the existing lists? Vanish entirely? <scotto> I need to go to the bathroom. I will be *right* back. <freeside> just had three exchanges with the georgetown listserv :) ... let's see ... <scotto> I'm back. <freeside> argh. <freeside> one minute more. * freeside curses. <freeside> hang on, it's coming ... <freeside> don't get bored .... <scotto> groovy. <scotto> too late. :) <scotto> some days I really could kill for windows or some such. <freeside> actually, sorry, it's not even gerald phillips, i don't think. <freeside> edward mabry. <freeside> i think. <freeside> [...] it suggests an interesting question: what is the effective critical mass for a list in order to sustain its presumptive goal of useful information flow-through? I don't presume to have an answer to this question. Yet, I sense that loss of critical mass is correlated with such factors as declines in posting, increases in postings per poster, increased (time) latency between posts, decreased latency in thread reiteration, and so forth. <freeside> (he's discussing minor problems in another list, IPCT-L.) <freeside> The key term is EXCHANGE. Traditional media do not presume an exchange. I simply cannot fathom lists and groups not being defined by it. Which takes me back to the concept of critical mass. An obviously important quality of critical mass for lists and groups must be the level of dialogic exchange that typifies a list (and that it instrumentally supports). Is ipct-l losing its dialogic critical mass? Should folks like Gerry (and yours truly) go to the "silent box" and do penalty time for excess keystroking? Have the "30" folks in the above 100:1 ratio run out of incisive information to pass along? <freeside> so anyways. there you have an extremely academic perspective, incisive as all hell ... <freeside> I sense that loss of critical mass is correlated with such factors as declines in posting, increases in postings per poster, increased (time) latency between posts, decreased latency in thread reiteration, and so forth. <freeside> right there. <freeside> extremely relevant. <scotto> very nice. what's IPCT-L? <freeside> interpersonal computing and technology list. <freeside> lot of attractors in common with fc, but on a different level entirely. membership ranges in the thousands. <scotto> wow. <freeside> i'm also subbed to IRVC, the institute for research into virtual culture. <freeside> those two, i find, are the most relevant to stuff I'm interested in. <freeside> you should join too ;) * freeside nudges you. <scotto> send me sub info and i will. i'm always game for new and exciting email communities to explore. heh... <scotto> So... <freeside> yeah. <freeside> where was i. <scotto> it looks like, then, <freeside> sure. <freeside> mmmm. <freeside> :) <scotto> that if a group gets "bored" with its cuurent set of "topics," that's it for that community...until the next exciting ahawks experiment comes along... <freeside> yeah. <scotto> Wow. <freeside> i think i'm fairly on top of events as far as fc is concerned. <scotto> that's interesting as all hell. <freeside> there's nothing New for me there. <freeside> what's interesting as all hell? <freeside> and one always wants to talk to equals, so ... what with the flood of freshmen on fc, welp, sigh ... <scotto> if a group feels as though it has covered all the bases, memetically, <scotto> (as on FC), their connections dissipate, *or* they replace those topics. simple stuff, really. <freeside> yeah. <freeside> or new stuff comes along. <freeside> we're just in a lull. <freeside> btw, you mind if i repost selected bits of this convo, seeing as it's highly topical? <scotto> Feel free; it's mostly you anyhow. <scotto> :) <freeside> mmm. <freeside> :) <freeside> i'll blame my carpal tunnel syndrome on you. <scotto> heh. <freeside> but yes, it's been fun. <freeside> it's scary that cmc is more my medium than rl ever is. <freeside> i hate speaking irl, i stammer, i mumble, i can't talk right. <freeside> here my fingers fly. <scotto> can you send this to scotto@penguin.gatech.edu instead of my other address, please...) <freeside> Even compared with the electric typewriter, the computer is a "great leap forward:" it liberates the writer from the struggle with the material, as no medium has ever done before. People who can type fast can truly fly! - Brenda Danet, unpublished 1993 <scotto> heh <freeside> so there. <freeside> sure ... <freeside> actually ... <freeside> we ready to stop logging? * freeside holds your hands and chants, "one, two three!" <scotto> seems so. <freeside> stenobot stop logging IRC Log ended *** Wed Nov 3 22:08