Ah yes, unstated but "just under the surface" and in what you have seen her
also unexplored. INHERENTLY more democratic: well that's what we get in
central bureaucratic rhetoric. I think NOT here on the xmca. Potentially,
yes, I think many of us here try to realize that potential, here and
elsewhere in Electronia.
Faceless: well THAT is the closest we get to an INHERENT characteristic,
isn't it. For me personally this is both worrying and safe...
Title-less, on the xmca: not really, not with the selfdescriptions. I'd
rather say we cultivate some active forgetting of titles in the xmca
practices. The techniques would certainly be analyzable. (Time is the
scarce commodity).
>Although it is clear that institutional
>hierarchies elevate some and marginalize others, and thus create
>inequalities in discourse, with some speakers granted greater status,
>more opportunity, institutionally-sanctioned credibility, and so on,
>positions and titles (Dr., Prof., etc.) alone do not account for such
>conversational patterns as frequency and length of contribution or
>volume of response to contributions.
Yes. My conjecture is that the institutional hierarchies external to the
list play a very indirect role in the on-list power distribution: as the
habitual framework for our "outpourings" -- yes:
>There are dynamics within
>conversations that create hierarchies, establish power relations,
>silence some and sanction others.
And there are also dynamic effects of the temporal ecology of
contributions, I'm thinking of what happened to the recent ZOPED
discussion, which was an accelerating jam session that spent itself, or
rather the resources of its time substrate. I happened to be away for one
day, came home and read it all thinking WOW! but it was simply too much for
me to find ONE aspect to respond to. I do not think I was alone in this,
although other modes of silence are also conceivable.
>List contributors, especially
>oldtimers, can display familiarity or knowledge that makes newcomers
>cautious and quiet.
I _think_ this is a bit of a "newcomer illusion" -- I think it is a lot
about having the STYLE of displaying that you know what you are talking
about, both in the sense of being well acquainted with it and in the sense
of being sure of it. It may be the facelessness, but I think a newcomer
COULD barge in and have a lot of attention just by sounding very confident
(not that I did...) I suspect the trick is to go in and do your thing, and
not listen too much to what already goes on -- if you listen you will
probably project much more homogeneity into the local culture than is
warranted, and lose confidence. (Haha: I'm sounding like Emily Postnews -
the netiquette parody that gives advice that is sure to make you a very
impopular figure if you follow it! Hmpf.)
Nevertheless:
>Even informal discourse, over time, develops rules
>and conventions that are invisible to oldtimers but must be discerned
>and learned by newcomers.
Agreed. (One thing: the informal, developed, techniques we use here will
certainly not be as obvious as those of the Usenet jungles)
>Long membership means a considerable amount of
>shared background knowledge, a list-memory or history that confers a
>certain status.
Yes and no. A list is a very forgetful entity even if it has a continuous
existence. This is why I have been curious about the turnover rate of the
xlists. But... so far my understanding is not very coherent. Better not say
anything now, even though we have this tradition of sharing halfbaked ideas.
>When I first joined the list - a couple of weeks ago - I
>thought I'd walked into a bar room brawl.
Ah yes, you opened the door in a difficult moment. And as for erudition and
a bent for theory: yes, without THAT the xmca would not be what it is. But
what I personally like best is when we manage to link theory to stories:
concrete examples from our research, our educational practice, our life
experience
Finally at 12.19 -0400 97-10-16, Anthony Pare asked:
>Have I stated the baldly obvious?
If something ever is read as baldly obvious it is because it is read out of
context. We try not to. We theorize reasons why not.
>Has this or a
>similar point already been discussed?
Probably. But it is also probably long ago, in a somewhat different
context, with a somewhat different audience and from somebody speaking from
a different background experience.
>Have I made myself clear?
Do we ever????
Who makes me clear?
Eva
eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se