Yes they are real. Today I read the blog post by Mark Frauenfelder of boingboing on Mexican jumping beans. I have heard of these before, but never knew exactly what made them jump. In the blog post, Mark mentions that he discovered Mexican jumping beans when he was at Burbank airport.
He didn't mention what made them jump, but when I read the comments a member of the blog posted that it was the larva of a Spanish fly. I liked how the communication of the blog helped me discover this. I explored more of the blog today and noticed that they had two other sub blogs called Boing Boing Gadgets and Boing Boing TV. The bbgadgets sub blog featured posts on unique creations they have found. The bbtv featured videos of episodes that they made for the viewers of their blog. This shows that they cover many different audiences within their blog.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Boing Boing First Look
For my fourth class essay the task is to observe and participate within a blog community. The blog I chose for this task is Boing Boing. I found this blog using the Technorati blog finder, which made it easy for me to find a blog that interested me. BoingBoing is a blog that displays a wide range of topics. For example, I read a blog on the most recent episode of 60 minutes pertaining to the E-waste issue and another talking about the current economic crisis we are in. The blog is ran and edited by five people, which are Mark, Cory, David, Xeni, and John. They are the owners of the blog and are the only ones who may post on this blog. They do offer interaction within their blog through comments, which can be made by any user who signs up for this blog.
After going through the relatively easy and quick process of signing up for the blog, I decided to comment on the blog about E-Waste. I was particularily interested in this post because I watched the episode of 60 minutes tonight. The blog post by Xeni summed up the E-Waste situation and provided a video clip of the 60 Minutes segment.
After going through the relatively easy and quick process of signing up for the blog, I decided to comment on the blog about E-Waste. I was particularily interested in this post because I watched the episode of 60 minutes tonight. The blog post by Xeni summed up the E-Waste situation and provided a video clip of the 60 Minutes segment.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Reaction to Chapter 2 in Blogging @merica
For today's reaction I read Chapter 2 in Blogging @merica: The Public Sphere by Aaron Barlow. In this chapter called "The Blogs in Society," Barlow talks about how common the blog has become throughout the world and especially in America (p.35). With the development of the online blogging communities, the potential for anyone to become an author or journalist through the Internet is now a reality. Barlow mentions that the community is what makes blogging work. In the blogging community or also known as the blogosphere, people can maintain conversations with one another and exchange ideas in topics of their choice (p.37).
In this chapter, Barlow brings up the point that while participating in a blogging community, you can become vulnerable to threats and a lack of privacy. With personal information easily accessible through the Internet one must be careful of what they say while blogging (p.41). In the reading, Barlow gives a specific example of the threats that a blogger can encounter. He used a girl named Sierra that had her life threatened from a blogger who posted on her blog (p.38). Barlow also brought up the point of not blogging about things that might offend your coworkers or friends. He did this by using a writing by Chris Harris in the School Library Journal. In the article, Harris mentions the vulnerability of blogs and how they can be found easily through the Internet (Harris, 2007). In the rest of the chapter, Barlow brings up the issue of plagiarism in blogs. He mentions the differences between "hard plagiarism, which is copying and pasting one's work and soft plagiarism, which is expressing one's idea through your own words" (p.55).
In this chapter, Barlow talks about how plagiarism in blogs is not possible (p.56). This is because there are no laws against non-printed work, such as blogs. The copyright law covers people copying the work of others that have had their work published and copyrighted. I believe the law needs to be changed now that online writing through blogs is becoming a major form of media. For example, I participate in fantasy sports on the Internet and every day I glance at sports writer's blogs for useful information. This information needs to be protected because their ideas are unique and anyone shouldn't be able to copy them and take credit. The way people are writing is changing and because of this the laws must change too.
Bibliography
1. Barlow, Arron. (2008). Blogging @merica: The New Public Sphere. Westport: Praeger.
2. Harris, Chris, "Five Reasons Not to Blog," School Library Journal, April 2007, Vol. 53, Isue 4, 24.
In this chapter, Barlow brings up the point that while participating in a blogging community, you can become vulnerable to threats and a lack of privacy. With personal information easily accessible through the Internet one must be careful of what they say while blogging (p.41). In the reading, Barlow gives a specific example of the threats that a blogger can encounter. He used a girl named Sierra that had her life threatened from a blogger who posted on her blog (p.38). Barlow also brought up the point of not blogging about things that might offend your coworkers or friends. He did this by using a writing by Chris Harris in the School Library Journal. In the article, Harris mentions the vulnerability of blogs and how they can be found easily through the Internet (Harris, 2007). In the rest of the chapter, Barlow brings up the issue of plagiarism in blogs. He mentions the differences between "hard plagiarism, which is copying and pasting one's work and soft plagiarism, which is expressing one's idea through your own words" (p.55).
In this chapter, Barlow talks about how plagiarism in blogs is not possible (p.56). This is because there are no laws against non-printed work, such as blogs. The copyright law covers people copying the work of others that have had their work published and copyrighted. I believe the law needs to be changed now that online writing through blogs is becoming a major form of media. For example, I participate in fantasy sports on the Internet and every day I glance at sports writer's blogs for useful information. This information needs to be protected because their ideas are unique and anyone shouldn't be able to copy them and take credit. The way people are writing is changing and because of this the laws must change too.
Bibliography
1. Barlow, Arron. (2008). Blogging @merica: The New Public Sphere. Westport: Praeger.
2. Harris, Chris, "Five Reasons Not to Blog," School Library Journal, April 2007, Vol. 53, Isue 4, 24.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Essay #3 - Searching and Determining Quality of Information
The development of Web 2.0 has given people a new way in communicating with each other across the Internet. This new use of the Internet has sparked the creation of many social networking sites, such as Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. All of these sites have their own unique properties, but have the common theme of sharing information between networks of people. The medium I chose to conduct research on is Youtube, which is recognized as a social networking site with the main purpose of sharing videos.
During my initial research of YouTube, I examined three different search engines that included EBSCOhost, Google, and Yahoo. Within these search engines I looked to see which one brought back the most useful and relevant information. Google proved to be the best and most effective search engine out of the three.
My research process for Youtube began by determining which search engines to use. As I already mentioned, EBSCOhost, Google, and Yahoo were the three search engines I chose to use. EBSCOhost was the first search engine I examined and it turned out to be quite useful. This search engine is a library database that contains a mass amount of information including journal articles, news prints, and newspaper articles. The information coming from EBSCOhost in credible because the information is reviewed by the library before it is entered into the database. This is the main reason why I chose to use EBSCOhost as one of the search engines for my research. In EBSCOhost it contains three search fields, which give you the option to add more than one keyword to your search. In my searches I used two of the keywords at a time to try and retrieve more specific results. These consisted of YouTube and politics, and Youtube and history. By using the second keyword option, Ebsco gave me four specific, credible sources to use towards my research. The problem I encountered with EBSCOhost was the lack of articles that came up in the searches and the relevancy of them. In EBSCOhost some articles aren't available online and while searching I found an article that was unavailable both online and in the library. This could cause problems for people who don't have time on their side.
The next search engine I used was Google. This search engine was used in my research because it is known as the most popular search engine on the Internet. The familiarity of Google also made me decide to use it, as I use this search engine frequently. Unlike EBSCOhost, Google uses a page rank system which brings back the most linked web pages relevant to your keywords (Whitaker, 2002). When using search engines, Boolean Logic can be extremely useful in finding what you are looking for. As mentioned by Kaye and Medoff (2001) "Boolean logic consists of operators, such as AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR" (para. 25). The objective of these operators are to make the search more narrow and give you specific results in the topic you are searching for. While using Google, I entered a combination of Boolean logic and keywords into the search field. They were "YouTube" AND "history", and "YouTube" AND "famous". These keywords paired with the Boolean logic left me with three relevant sources to my topic. The process of finding the sources wasn't too long, as the page rank system clearly made it easy to sort through Google's vast database of knowledge (Kaye and Medoff, 2001).
The last search engine that I used is Yahoo. This search engine had a more cluttered interface than that of Google's. The search field was at the top of the web page, but underneath was full of news and all different sorts of information. I chose to use this search engine because I have some experience using it. As mentioned by Kaye and Medoff Yahoo uses a hierarchical search database which arranges it's information into categories. This type of system tends to give you more specific information which was also an influence on my decision (2001). While searching on yahoo I found three sources with specific information pertaining to YouTube. I again used the Boolean logic along with two key words and entered "YouTube" AND "history" into the search field. One thing I noticed while using the Yahoo search engine is that more of the information was from people posting relevant information on blogs and other information sharing sites, such as Wipeout44.com.
After evaluating the three different search engines, Google came out on top as the best search engine. While generally using the same Boolean logic and keyword terms for all three search engines, Google returned the most relevant and topic specific information. Google is as simple as it gets when it comes to a search engine, which is a beneficial characteristic. Instead of wasting time with the more complicated search tactics of EBSCOhost or the cluttered Yahoo search engine, Google proved to be simple and quick. The page rank system and Googles massive database were also far more superior than those of EBSCOhost and Yahoo. These characteristics are what makes Google the best search engine on the Internet.
While performing research through the search engines I found ten sources that seemed helpful towards my final essay. Using EBSCOhost I found four articles from journals. Two of these articles were not online and in print form only. They included an article in the journal Newsweek by Breslau and Skipp, which talked about the popularity of YouTube and how the 2008 presidential candidates were using this medium for relaying their campaign to the users of Youtube (2007). This was one of the sources that I will include in my final essay because of it's relevance to my topic and it's political influence on society. It also contained the credibility I was looking for in a source, as it came from a library index (Tensen, 2004). The other print source was the article "YouTube to Offer TV Shows With Ads Strewn Through," by Stelter. In this article, Stelter mentioned how YouTube had made a major deal with Discovery and other networks to show episodes of their television shows via YouTube (2008). I also found this to be relevant and credible which deemed it as another keeper.
While using Google, I decided to keep articles found in Time Magazine and BusinessWeek, which both talked about YouTube's history and important events that have occurred. While using search engines you receive both credible and non-credible information. This occurs because anyone can be an author through the Internet. Boolean logic helped me be more specific in my searches and filter out some of the non-credible sources found while using non-academic search engines (Tensen, 2004). The sources I decided to discard from my research were two I found via Yahoo. The common characteristic found in Wipeout44.com and Rev2.org were that they didn't have any citing and contained advertisements. This left their information non trustworthy and gave it the possibility of being non-credible (Tensen, 2004).
In conclusion, search engines are helpful resources to use while looking for information. Each one has a different technique, whether it being Google's page rank system or Yahoo's heirachial database. When using these different search engines you must be aware of the credible and non-credible sources out there. The internet contains a vast amount of knowledge, but at the same time some of this can be fictional (Tensen, 2004). This is why one must be aware of this fact and be prepared to take responsibility in which information they use for research.
Bibliography
1. Breslau, K., & Skipp, C. (2007). How to Run for President, YouTube Style. Newsweek, 151, 69-69.
2. Kaye, Barbara K. & Medoff, Norman J. (2001). The World Wide Web: A mass communication perspective (chapter 2). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.
3. Stelter, B. (2008, October 11). YouTube to Offer TV Shows With Ads Strewn Through. New York Times, p. B2.
4. Tensen, Bonnie L. (2004). Research strategies for a digital age (chapter 5). Boston: Wadsworth.
5. Whitaker, Jason. (2002). The Internet: The basics (chapter 1). New York: Routledge.
During my initial research of YouTube, I examined three different search engines that included EBSCOhost, Google, and Yahoo. Within these search engines I looked to see which one brought back the most useful and relevant information. Google proved to be the best and most effective search engine out of the three.
My research process for Youtube began by determining which search engines to use. As I already mentioned, EBSCOhost, Google, and Yahoo were the three search engines I chose to use. EBSCOhost was the first search engine I examined and it turned out to be quite useful. This search engine is a library database that contains a mass amount of information including journal articles, news prints, and newspaper articles. The information coming from EBSCOhost in credible because the information is reviewed by the library before it is entered into the database. This is the main reason why I chose to use EBSCOhost as one of the search engines for my research. In EBSCOhost it contains three search fields, which give you the option to add more than one keyword to your search. In my searches I used two of the keywords at a time to try and retrieve more specific results. These consisted of YouTube and politics, and Youtube and history. By using the second keyword option, Ebsco gave me four specific, credible sources to use towards my research. The problem I encountered with EBSCOhost was the lack of articles that came up in the searches and the relevancy of them. In EBSCOhost some articles aren't available online and while searching I found an article that was unavailable both online and in the library. This could cause problems for people who don't have time on their side.
The next search engine I used was Google. This search engine was used in my research because it is known as the most popular search engine on the Internet. The familiarity of Google also made me decide to use it, as I use this search engine frequently. Unlike EBSCOhost, Google uses a page rank system which brings back the most linked web pages relevant to your keywords (Whitaker, 2002). When using search engines, Boolean Logic can be extremely useful in finding what you are looking for. As mentioned by Kaye and Medoff (2001) "Boolean logic consists of operators, such as AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR" (para. 25). The objective of these operators are to make the search more narrow and give you specific results in the topic you are searching for. While using Google, I entered a combination of Boolean logic and keywords into the search field. They were "YouTube" AND "history", and "YouTube" AND "famous". These keywords paired with the Boolean logic left me with three relevant sources to my topic. The process of finding the sources wasn't too long, as the page rank system clearly made it easy to sort through Google's vast database of knowledge (Kaye and Medoff, 2001).
The last search engine that I used is Yahoo. This search engine had a more cluttered interface than that of Google's. The search field was at the top of the web page, but underneath was full of news and all different sorts of information. I chose to use this search engine because I have some experience using it. As mentioned by Kaye and Medoff Yahoo uses a hierarchical search database which arranges it's information into categories. This type of system tends to give you more specific information which was also an influence on my decision (2001). While searching on yahoo I found three sources with specific information pertaining to YouTube. I again used the Boolean logic along with two key words and entered "YouTube" AND "history" into the search field. One thing I noticed while using the Yahoo search engine is that more of the information was from people posting relevant information on blogs and other information sharing sites, such as Wipeout44.com.
After evaluating the three different search engines, Google came out on top as the best search engine. While generally using the same Boolean logic and keyword terms for all three search engines, Google returned the most relevant and topic specific information. Google is as simple as it gets when it comes to a search engine, which is a beneficial characteristic. Instead of wasting time with the more complicated search tactics of EBSCOhost or the cluttered Yahoo search engine, Google proved to be simple and quick. The page rank system and Googles massive database were also far more superior than those of EBSCOhost and Yahoo. These characteristics are what makes Google the best search engine on the Internet.
While performing research through the search engines I found ten sources that seemed helpful towards my final essay. Using EBSCOhost I found four articles from journals. Two of these articles were not online and in print form only. They included an article in the journal Newsweek by Breslau and Skipp, which talked about the popularity of YouTube and how the 2008 presidential candidates were using this medium for relaying their campaign to the users of Youtube (2007). This was one of the sources that I will include in my final essay because of it's relevance to my topic and it's political influence on society. It also contained the credibility I was looking for in a source, as it came from a library index (Tensen, 2004). The other print source was the article "YouTube to Offer TV Shows With Ads Strewn Through," by Stelter. In this article, Stelter mentioned how YouTube had made a major deal with Discovery and other networks to show episodes of their television shows via YouTube (2008). I also found this to be relevant and credible which deemed it as another keeper.
While using Google, I decided to keep articles found in Time Magazine and BusinessWeek, which both talked about YouTube's history and important events that have occurred. While using search engines you receive both credible and non-credible information. This occurs because anyone can be an author through the Internet. Boolean logic helped me be more specific in my searches and filter out some of the non-credible sources found while using non-academic search engines (Tensen, 2004). The sources I decided to discard from my research were two I found via Yahoo. The common characteristic found in Wipeout44.com and Rev2.org were that they didn't have any citing and contained advertisements. This left their information non trustworthy and gave it the possibility of being non-credible (Tensen, 2004).
In conclusion, search engines are helpful resources to use while looking for information. Each one has a different technique, whether it being Google's page rank system or Yahoo's heirachial database. When using these different search engines you must be aware of the credible and non-credible sources out there. The internet contains a vast amount of knowledge, but at the same time some of this can be fictional (Tensen, 2004). This is why one must be aware of this fact and be prepared to take responsibility in which information they use for research.
Bibliography
1. Breslau, K., & Skipp, C. (2007). How to Run for President, YouTube Style. Newsweek, 151, 69-69.
2. Kaye, Barbara K. & Medoff, Norman J. (2001). The World Wide Web: A mass communication perspective (chapter 2). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing.
3. Stelter, B. (2008, October 11). YouTube to Offer TV Shows With Ads Strewn Through. New York Times, p. B2.
4. Tensen, Bonnie L. (2004). Research strategies for a digital age (chapter 5). Boston: Wadsworth.
5. Whitaker, Jason. (2002). The Internet: The basics (chapter 1). New York: Routledge.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Privacy Issues Brought by Search 2.0
The emergence of Web 2.0 has brought change to the way we retrieve information through the Internet. In the article "The externalities of search 2.0: The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0," Michael Zimmer mentions that search engines are now trying to achieve Search 2.0 capabilities (pg. 2). These capabilities consist of accessing an almost unlimited amount of information for the user and personalizing this information when retrieved by the user (Zimmer, 2008). In this article, Zimmer recognizes these two important qualities as the "perfect reach and perfect recall" (pg. 3).
These two key qualities of search 2.0 can be extremely beneficial to the user, but they do bring some baggage along. For search engines, such as Google, obtaining this customized aspect within search results requires them to know some personal information about the user (Zimmer, 2008). As mentioned by Zimmer, these search engines do this by recognizing you as a certain IP address. They then tag information, such as browsing history and demographics to achieve their goal of personalization (pg. 3). The amount of information that search engines can obtain is the main worry of the search 2.0 technology. In the rest of this article, Zimmer gets into this personal information flaw and recognizes that it can be used by employers and even the government to pry into people's personal lives (pg. 6).
This article was quite concerning to me and helped me realized in more depth, on how vulnerable the Internet can make you. Zimmer mentions that the search engines keep this flaw of search 2.0 pretty well hidden (pg. 7). I agree with this, as I was one of the many who didn't know the true complications of this issue. I didn't realize that by having a GMAIL account, Google can take your demographic information and use this to personalize searches. The fact that they can hand over emails and this personal information to the government is without a doubt a privacy breach (Zimmer, 2008). I believe it shouldn't be possible for a search engine or company to have that amount of power in their hands. The fact is that these companies do have this information and it should be controlled. Laws need to be passed that regulate the flow of user's personal information and a remedy needs to be put in place. As mentioned by Zimmer, I agree that the cure of this privacy problem should consist of giving users the option to what information is accessed by these companies and the search engines (pg. 8). If this is not dealt with, the possibility of a bigger privacy issue could be on the horizon.
Bibliography
1. Zimmer, Michael. (2008). The externalities of search 2.0: The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0. First Monday, 13. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2136/1944.
These two key qualities of search 2.0 can be extremely beneficial to the user, but they do bring some baggage along. For search engines, such as Google, obtaining this customized aspect within search results requires them to know some personal information about the user (Zimmer, 2008). As mentioned by Zimmer, these search engines do this by recognizing you as a certain IP address. They then tag information, such as browsing history and demographics to achieve their goal of personalization (pg. 3). The amount of information that search engines can obtain is the main worry of the search 2.0 technology. In the rest of this article, Zimmer gets into this personal information flaw and recognizes that it can be used by employers and even the government to pry into people's personal lives (pg. 6).
This article was quite concerning to me and helped me realized in more depth, on how vulnerable the Internet can make you. Zimmer mentions that the search engines keep this flaw of search 2.0 pretty well hidden (pg. 7). I agree with this, as I was one of the many who didn't know the true complications of this issue. I didn't realize that by having a GMAIL account, Google can take your demographic information and use this to personalize searches. The fact that they can hand over emails and this personal information to the government is without a doubt a privacy breach (Zimmer, 2008). I believe it shouldn't be possible for a search engine or company to have that amount of power in their hands. The fact is that these companies do have this information and it should be controlled. Laws need to be passed that regulate the flow of user's personal information and a remedy needs to be put in place. As mentioned by Zimmer, I agree that the cure of this privacy problem should consist of giving users the option to what information is accessed by these companies and the search engines (pg. 8). If this is not dealt with, the possibility of a bigger privacy issue could be on the horizon.
Bibliography
1. Zimmer, Michael. (2008). The externalities of search 2.0: The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0. First Monday, 13. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2136/1944.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Essay #2 - The Early Internet
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) communities have been around since the beginnings of the Internet. These communities have given people a way to share common interests with each other through asynchronous and synchronous chat. There are many different options available to the user, such as IRC, MUDs, Usenet and email lists. The medium I chose to observe for five days was the asynchronous email list. An asynchronous chat means that there is a delay between the time a message is sent and received between users. The specific email list I chose to observe is the "Rumormillnews," which was located through Yahoo groups. This group was created on December 28Th, 2002 and currently has 1,296 members. An email list works by someone sending a relevant topic to the specific group email, which is then distributed to every group member's email account. It then gives you the option to reply to group members post, create your own or just observe.
A common problem found within computer-mediated communities is the act of free riding and trolling. Defined by Kollock and Smith, free riding is when a user posts an irrelevant topic to the group, leeches off group member's information without providing any of their own and "asking questions to the group without answering questions from anyone else" (pg. 116). Trolling is when a user replies to a post in a rude way to create a rise out of that member (Kollock and Smith, 1996). Another activity that is made possible and performed in CMC communities is gender masking.
In the article "Text as mask: Gender, play, and performance on the Internet," Danet mentions that text serves as a mask in CMC communities because there is no face to face contact involved. This allows users to create a general name to hide their gender and thus allow them to act as a male or female within the community (Danet, 1998). In the email list I observed "Bush Buster," "Lefty," and "Tufrmone" were a few regulars that had non-gender associated names. After reading some of their posts, I couldn't find anything in their writing that tagged them as a male or female. This proves that Danet's reference of "text as a mask" is a valid one (pg. 129). With gender shoved to the side, CMC communities allow users to communicate and debate with each other on an even playing field with all gender bias aside (Danet, 1998).
As I mentioned before, free riding and trolling are two common problems found with a CMC community. They disrupt the flow of the chat and community by causing everyone to stray off topic (Kollock and Smith, 1996). While observing the "Rumormillnews," I was quite surprised that I only came across one instance of both free riding and trolling. I believe the lack of disruption in the group was a result of the rules it had in place. The two main rules that stuck out were that messages require approval from the moderator and that no one could hide their email address. These rules gave the group a sense of control because if someone tried to post a disruptive comment it could either not be posted or the users email could be banned from the group. Another popular way for Yahoo groups to sift out the free riders and trolls is to require a membership to join a group. To obtain a membership you must give the group moderator your information and provide a short summary of why you would like to join that group.
The only instance of free riding that I came across in "Rumormillnews" was an advertisement. It was quite ironic that the advertisement was about an advertising agency. This post is a good example of free riding because it is totally irrelevant to the group's discussion and goals of providing late breaking news (Kollock and Smith, 1996). This example of free riding didn't seem to disrupt the members of the group too much, as there were no replies or complaints to the post.
The next instance of disruption was surprising because it came from the group's most common poster. This case of trolling was performed by the user John Stroebel, in the thread "McCain Has SERIOUS POW Problems." In the thread, the trolling occurred when Stroebel replied to the user "Tufrmone" and finished his reply by saying "And assholes like you spit in the memory of the men never accounted for." To me this instance of trolling happened because Stroebel was offended on a personal level in what Turfrmone wrote. The understanding is there on why this happened, but I believe it was an unnecessary response to it. Stroebel could have understood nothing was meant by it and kept it to himself, keeping the emotion out of the discussion. This post is actually the last one that I observed in the group, which generates some interest for me to see if any other member became offended by the post.
By observing "Rumormillnews" for the past five days, I have witnessed the different type of interactions that occur within CMC communities. Throughout the five days there was superb discussion and articles posted on news topics. These topics ranged anywhere from political and financial news to science related news. The idea of text removing gender bias association was also seen within this email list and proves to be bringing everyone onto a gender equal level (Danet, 1998). The advancements of the Internet and the CMC communities are proving to bring the world closer together, creating global communities. If the effort continues to filter out the problems of free riding and trolling, we may soon see a virtual world where everyone can contribute equally without receiving any gender or culturally biased opinions from others.
Bibliography
1. Danet, Brenda. (1998). Text as mask: Gender, play, and performance on the Internet. In Steven G. Jones (Ed.), Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting computer-mediated communication and community (pp. 129-158). Thousand Oaks, NJ: Sage.
2. Kollock, Peter & Smith, Marc. (1996). Managing the virtual commons: Cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In Susan C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 109-128). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
3. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RUMORMILLNEWS/
A common problem found within computer-mediated communities is the act of free riding and trolling. Defined by Kollock and Smith, free riding is when a user posts an irrelevant topic to the group, leeches off group member's information without providing any of their own and "asking questions to the group without answering questions from anyone else" (pg. 116). Trolling is when a user replies to a post in a rude way to create a rise out of that member (Kollock and Smith, 1996). Another activity that is made possible and performed in CMC communities is gender masking.
In the article "Text as mask: Gender, play, and performance on the Internet," Danet mentions that text serves as a mask in CMC communities because there is no face to face contact involved. This allows users to create a general name to hide their gender and thus allow them to act as a male or female within the community (Danet, 1998). In the email list I observed "Bush Buster," "Lefty," and "Tufrmone" were a few regulars that had non-gender associated names. After reading some of their posts, I couldn't find anything in their writing that tagged them as a male or female. This proves that Danet's reference of "text as a mask" is a valid one (pg. 129). With gender shoved to the side, CMC communities allow users to communicate and debate with each other on an even playing field with all gender bias aside (Danet, 1998).
As I mentioned before, free riding and trolling are two common problems found with a CMC community. They disrupt the flow of the chat and community by causing everyone to stray off topic (Kollock and Smith, 1996). While observing the "Rumormillnews," I was quite surprised that I only came across one instance of both free riding and trolling. I believe the lack of disruption in the group was a result of the rules it had in place. The two main rules that stuck out were that messages require approval from the moderator and that no one could hide their email address. These rules gave the group a sense of control because if someone tried to post a disruptive comment it could either not be posted or the users email could be banned from the group. Another popular way for Yahoo groups to sift out the free riders and trolls is to require a membership to join a group. To obtain a membership you must give the group moderator your information and provide a short summary of why you would like to join that group.
The only instance of free riding that I came across in "Rumormillnews" was an advertisement. It was quite ironic that the advertisement was about an advertising agency. This post is a good example of free riding because it is totally irrelevant to the group's discussion and goals of providing late breaking news (Kollock and Smith, 1996). This example of free riding didn't seem to disrupt the members of the group too much, as there were no replies or complaints to the post.
The next instance of disruption was surprising because it came from the group's most common poster. This case of trolling was performed by the user John Stroebel, in the thread "McCain Has SERIOUS POW Problems." In the thread, the trolling occurred when Stroebel replied to the user "Tufrmone" and finished his reply by saying "And assholes like you spit in the memory of the men never accounted for." To me this instance of trolling happened because Stroebel was offended on a personal level in what Turfrmone wrote. The understanding is there on why this happened, but I believe it was an unnecessary response to it. Stroebel could have understood nothing was meant by it and kept it to himself, keeping the emotion out of the discussion. This post is actually the last one that I observed in the group, which generates some interest for me to see if any other member became offended by the post.
By observing "Rumormillnews" for the past five days, I have witnessed the different type of interactions that occur within CMC communities. Throughout the five days there was superb discussion and articles posted on news topics. These topics ranged anywhere from political and financial news to science related news. The idea of text removing gender bias association was also seen within this email list and proves to be bringing everyone onto a gender equal level (Danet, 1998). The advancements of the Internet and the CMC communities are proving to bring the world closer together, creating global communities. If the effort continues to filter out the problems of free riding and trolling, we may soon see a virtual world where everyone can contribute equally without receiving any gender or culturally biased opinions from others.
Bibliography
1. Danet, Brenda. (1998). Text as mask: Gender, play, and performance on the Internet. In Steven G. Jones (Ed.), Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting computer-mediated communication and community (pp. 129-158). Thousand Oaks, NJ: Sage.
2. Kollock, Peter & Smith, Marc. (1996). Managing the virtual commons: Cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In Susan C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 109-128). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
3. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RUMORMILLNEWS/
Day 5 Observations
This is my last day of observations for the Rumor mill news group. The group has a total of 1,296 members and was created on December 28, 2002. The group is under the category of conspiracy theory. After observing for the last five days, I have concluded that this group strays away from this categorization and mainly provides different angles on current events. The few rules to this group are email attachments are not acceptable, members cannot hide their email address and messages require approval from the moderator of the group. The yahoo group site has a history of messages per month since the group was created. This group seemed to be the most active in 2003, after it was first created. The Rumor Mill News contains its own web page separate from the yahoo group page. I visited this site and discovered that it is cluttered with advertisements up and down each side of the page. The site has its own reading room and other than that seems quite useless. In the past 5 days I have noticed there has been few accounts of common problems usually found in a CMC community. I have only seen one account of possible trolling and free riding. Gender masking is also a possibility in this group because I saw quite a few general names.
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