After reviewing the last few days of controversial posts it does appear that there's been a deliberate attempt to mitigate the effectiveness of the forum as a universally accessible communication tool. Not everyone will have the patience to review these postings as a group, but there appears to be a fairly consistent pattern in the introduction of subject matter, the use of language to humiliate or intimidate opponents and the effort to assign perception of differing viewpoints to radical (read threatening) mindsets: and from what I've seen over the last month, >most< Forum members appear to be reasonable people, many have an offbeat sense of humor and/or playfulness that makes their observations more enjoyable. It would be interesting to gather the inflammatory postings into a thread and analyse them.I've been putting them onto disk in a separate file for study as they continue to appear and when reviewed in toto,they have a different effect than discrete reading. There are a lot of emotional strings being pulled here in what appears to be a well-organized action. I sympathize with sysops-it's a hell of a mess but an academic goldmine. It'll be interesting to see how far the Forum can be manipulated by this nonsense.Our friend from the previous thread may have been correct in her surmise, because this is in fact an most excellent experiemental situation. I"ve worked in research long enough to know: maybe I'll beat "them" to publication, if indeed "they" are there and have an acceptable protocol. If there is no "they", perhaps the consciously cruel will consider that they are providing fodder for academic research and be more kind in their web critiques. No royalties to flamers. mike

-- mike in houston (mmoris67@hotmail.com), January 22, 2000

Answers

Did Andy's calling me lame make the cruelty list?

-- ImSo (lame@prepped.com), January 22, 2000.

mike,

thanks for your insight. I've been scratching my head at what's been transpiring here, and the (unsubstantiated) conclusion that I've arrived at is similar to yours. I'm very interested in any conclusions you come to, though I understand that the task will be a tedious and perhaps daunting one.

best regards,

-- jonny (jonnyb@good.com), January 22, 2000.

mike in houston,

Take a careful look at those posts...

Criteria words...MetaPrograms...Slight of Mouth Patterns...this Board is being played like a fiddle...and beware of the infamous Torpedo Pattern.

Mike, leave that can of worms alone!

TPTB are watching!

-- ~~~~ (Losing it @ Lost it .com), January 22, 2000.

I hope TPTB aren't paying me very much to post to this forum, because if they are, they are not getting much bang to the buck.

-- Butt Nugget (catsbutt@umailme.com), January 22, 2000.

certainly not in your case butt n

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 22, 2000.

Mike maybe the sysops would work with you so that you could cross reference posts and IP addresses.

Glad to see you posting after "shelter n place" threat. Hope all is well with you in Texas.

-- BillP (porterwn@one.net), January 22, 2000.

Maybe if the SysOps told everyone's mommy, everyone would play nice.

-- ImSo (lame@prepped.com), January 23, 2000.

mike in houston -- this is an interesting insight.

Reading thru your post it occurred to me that this patterned response over a relatively large sample might be a (culturally) homeostatic response to information that (for a time at least) could be seen as threatening the culture's stability. (In contrast to organized disruptive activity centrally planned.)

(Of course conducting anthropological research on one's own "tribe" has pitfalls of its own, owing to unrecognized mutual consensus.)

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 23, 2000.

I wonder if there is much cumulative wisdom in a pooling of ignorance, though...

-- ImSo (lame@prepped.com), January 23, 2000.

ImSo-- homeostasis does not imply wisdom -- only an organized system using feedback to return itself to a more or less steady state. The "steady state" to be maintained may be a neurosis, either individual or cultural (e. g., the ancient feuds we've seen expressed recently in the Balkans).

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 23, 2000.

Tom, you bring up a good point. Since we're down the thread and the Forum has moved on, I think it's acceptable to get off the general track into some of the academic issues. One of the aspects of 'Net communication that really fascinates me is the relationship to AI. How much of the system is strictly human? Is the existence of and interaction with the system itself forming the human aspect of the culture? A sort of parenting loop between man and machine? The posting about Dianne telling "everyones' Mommies" is really not as irrelevant/irreverent as it seems: when the user isp is posted, by God, that's the net equivalent of telling Mommy. It's hard to communicate on some of these issues without appearing facetious or pompous, but this is a probably the richest site on the web since all input is welcomed and it offers something to users on ALL levels: informational, emotional,and objectively academic as a unique growing entity with a life of it's own. Now if I can just learn to slow down and type my address correctly so friends and flamers could communicate, I can benefit still further from this excellent Forum.

-- mike in houston (mmorris67@hotmail.com), January 23, 2000.