Eva reminds me to keep this conversation public, and which is something I
remember Christoph suggesting. decentering/centering, something I have not yet
figured out what it means.
Eva is right too about the persistence of the pattern for either graph. a
couple of quick checks of other lists show similar zipf-like graphs. there are
some tradeoffs in either type of graph -- sorted by email size brings the
mandelbrot and zipf work closer, the derivation more relevant: (1) independence
(2) size, and the analysis less personal. but one of the ways to analyze the
data (and the way I model) is to consider time as the renewable resource on the
individual -- and this might be more concordant with an analysis of individual
and context, and with a graph sorted by individual contributions, as eva has
done.
either brings useful insights and I'm not arguing for one over the other. also,
i'd like to think of the graphs and mathematical models as mediational of fresh
insights, and not something to beat people over the head with, as sometimes has
been done.
--- Eva Ekeblad <eva.ekeblad@goteborg.utfors.se> wrote:
> At 17.50 -0700 01-08-13, Bill Barowy scrobe:
> >I don't make this reference casually. There are aspects of the common
> >space of
> >xmca, that exchanges take up, that are very similar to the human
> >consumption of
> >other renewable resources.
>
> Let me see, Bill.
>
> The distribution pattern of postings over contributors, as we have charted
> it, is pretty unshakeable (here and elsewhere) - even as particular people
> migrate between slots, viewed over a longer period. And this pattern that
> persists can be described as fitting a Zipf distribution - EXCEPT for the
> few heaviest contributors, who post less (a LOT less) than Zipf would
> predict. Since I don't know what other models math would have to offer,
> it's good enough for me to describe the pattern as Zipf with an important
> modification.
>
> What you are saying is that this pattern indicates that we are dealing with
> a system of "consumption of renewable resources". The question becomes:
> what ARE these resources. Time? Or some more intangible matter of social
> practice? Or...
>
> Really, the strange thing is that these exchanges DO show properties of a
> system with limited renewable resources - considering how electronic group
> communication is often supposed to remove a lot of the constraints that
> keep people from speaking in face-to-face group discussions (like the
> cultural bias against more than one person speaking at the same time - an
> Argentinian friend of mine finds Swedish seminars utterly alien and stiff
> because of this).
>
> cheers
> Eva
>
>
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 01 2001 - 01:02:09 PDT