[atlarge-discuss] "Freedom to flame" and some comments on ways and means

[espresso@e-scape.net]

Thanks to Steve Cisler of the WSIS-e-consult list (List-Subscribe: <mailto:sympa@vancouvercommunity.net?subject=subscribe%20wsis-e-consult>)
for this item which deals with why chat and Web-based forums are not necessarily the best means for democracy-building or the best place to look for reasoned participation.

I myself find it reinforces my belief in lists with liberal but explicit rules, which is due in part to the experience of getting to know fellow-subscribers over time even without the face-to-face contact and non-verbal cues of physical meetings. I would speculate that there is a difference between engaging in ongoing interaction with a knowledgeable group; the kind of hit-and-run posting by the "Visigoths" can obviously occur on lists, too, but a firm application of the rules of civilized discourse makes it less likely such things will disrupt the real purpose.

On the other hand, the article again raises doubts about the kinds of online polling mechanisms commonly used for informal polls. One relatively urgent need is a better-structured online voting process (ideally with special provisions for those with e-mail-only access or whose safety might be at risk through participating in such votes) which would turn membership votes from "too much trouble" to genuine participation in the business of this group.

Regards,

Judyth

--


>  From the Boston Globe --
><http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/286/focus/Freedom_to_flame+.shtml>
>
>Freedom to flame
>Online political chat is an insult to democracy. Can it be fixed?
>By Nicholas Thompson
>
[big snip]
>
>And the problem goes well beyond big sites like Yahoo! Just three
>years ago, Internet chat and political discussion boards were
>supposed to help usher in an electron-based Jeffersonian idyll,
>''delivering democracy to your desktop, '' as the logo of the
>prominent and well-funded site voter.com proclaimed. Venture
>capitalists tossed around sacks of money and some of the brightest
>minds in politics, such as Carl Bernstein and Clinton press secretary
>Mike McCurry, joined online projects aimed at helping the masses
>deliberate on political issues and hold their leaders accountable - for >example, by making it easier to contact your representative.
>
>Unfortunately, as we now know, the masses generally don't want to
>deliberate or hold anyone accountable online, least of all
>themselves. Once behind our keyboards we want to rant, belittle, and
>hoot about sex. The major democracy start-ups of the late '90s have
>long since closed shop, and many of the top general political sites,
>including CNN, have shuttered their discussion boards, too.
>Journalists rarely bother venturing into the swamp to look for tips
>or insight. In a recent survey by George Washington University's
>Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet, a mere 2 percent
>of journalists in Washington described chat rooms and message boards
>as useful to their work.
>
>One problem with Internet conversation, of course, is the lack of
>nonverbal cues. In face-to-face conversation, empathy comes more
>naturally than it does online or over the phone. Consciously or not,
>we watch our conversational partners' body language, pick up on
>changes in their tone of voice, and sense their emotions from signals
>that are both more subtle and more powerful than exclamation points
>or screaming capital letters. In-person communication builds trust;
>Internet communication often fuels alienation. The anonymity that
>most boards allow only compounds this problem.
>
>Political Internet boards tend to attract people with unusually shaky
>conversational skills. According to Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a
>professor in the communication department at the University at
>Albany, SUNY currently studying the sociology of political bulletin
>boards, most users rarely discuss politics elsewhere. The see the
>boards as outlets, not as places to learn and discuss. Fredefrekl, a
>Yahoo! user who contributed to the Iraq debate with a message titled
>''mommy, my butt itches,'' backs this up. When I asked him via e-mail
>why he bothered to post drivel, he responded, ''I think people who
>post on message boards are a special kind of breed. We are angry and
>feel impotent in normal situations. Message boards are our only means
>of expressing ourselves and feeling validated at the same time.''
>
>It's relatively hard to identify experts or sort out reliable facts
>in online political discussion. Discussion boards devoted to
>technological and scientific subjects - most notably the popular
>computer programmer and hacker site slashdot.org - break into far fewer shouting matches; in large part, that's because one can quickly tell whether >a poster has a clue. This not only helps users filter out gibberish but >also provides disincentives for spouting off. It's vastly easier to rant >about even obscure topics related to Iraq - the expected role of the >Shiites in the southern city of Basra, for example - than to rant about the >Unix underpinnings of the new Macintosh operating system. If you don't
>know anything about Unix, you can't really say anything. If you don't
>know anything about Basra, you can still announce that all
>right-wingers are armchair commandos. And, boom, once a few people
>have disrupted a political thread, the more level-headed of the
>original debaters quickly abandon it. ''You can have a good
>discussion going on, but it's a fragile thing. It only takes a couple
>of Visigoths coming in and breaking chairs and the discussion goes to
>hell,'' says Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate.com, which runs ''The
>Fray,'' one of the most popular political discussion sites.
>
[snip]

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Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
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"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
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