Hey, some of you, cut it out!--God damn it, please

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Ok, here's the long response which answers Peter's points in more
detail. It's mostly aimed at Peter so you will probably all want to
ignore it. It might interest those who think my recommendations as to
how to organise your posts were presumptious, ill-advised or in error.

Peter Giordano writes:
> I say:
> There are a number issues raised here - Let's take one of the
> more broad ones - Internet and list discussions have been compared
> to cocktail conversations which is of course absurd - The only way
> that analogy would hold is if people carried around video recorders,
> taped each other, re-wound the tape, edited in their own remarks, and
> then made copies of the tapes for the rest of the world -

I cannot for the life of me make any sense of this commment and am
treating it as an accident. The real problem with the cocktail party
analogy is not its inaccuracy but the presumption that all Internet
discourse can be described by such a simple model. There's a lot of
different technologies, forums and levels of techno-sophistication and
literacy out on the net. Overall the prognosis may be increasing
entropy but here on the P-list things have always looked far more
positive.

> What makes this sort of discourse strange and glorious is that it is
> constantly self-referential - I personally dn't mind the in-beding
> of previous messages because I am not likely to have read all the
> previous postings - The down side of that is that in all the layers
> of >>> and >> and >, etc. the original commentator is easily lost
> (hence I by reflex use "Somebody" merely to avoid the embarassment
> of attributing the words to the wrong party)

You may not mind. I don't mind. But some people do. Forcing people to
scroll through pages of crap because you cannot be bothered to remove
the 3 preceding mail notes is downright selfish and rude. If you need
to cite previous correspondence to 3 levels of nesting then fine. But
I know from many years posting to the net that such threads are almost
invariably exercises in mutual (or maybe replicated solo)
masturbation.

> As for threads and consistant titles - I cannot agree with Andrew's
> comments - I find that the relationship to a title is almost always
> lost about two postings in even when the discussion is exactly about
> the topic of the list (and not flaming) - However, I obviously defer
> to his wishes (with one exception: there are names I will not use)

Well, a thread may shift and I'd be happy to see the title shift with
it. But often threads are continued with irrelevant changes of title
and that makes it a bit harder to follow things, particularly for
those who read the list selectively.

> The other side of this is that there is an archive - (What's
> remarkable about this archive is that it manages to elude the
> omniferous Dejanews) - The problem with the archive is that it can
> be darn slow (please take no offense - It is the same sort of
> technical issue you raise when you talk about other people's tools

The archive was built by me in a spare weekend. If and when I get time
I will improve it (Matt's archive at waste.org ought to give you
perfectly acceptable performance). But note the use of the archive is
an optional extra. Responsible use of the list is a *sine qua non* for
it to be of benefit to us all. The tools required for that are not
software but knowledge and understanding in the heads of the list
members which my guidelines were supposed to broadcast and replicate.
You may think that you (and others) do not need to follow such
guidelines. If so I suspect you have not been on the net long enough
or else have been on too long for your own good.

> The culture of lists and email is still evolving but a number of
> basic activities and trends are in place - We already have a
> complete glossary to describe various behaviors and a complete new
> set of punctuation - There are those one lists who somehow imagine
> that they can control the flow of discourse

Actually, you underestimate what we have here. Lots of people on the
net and particularly people on this list have developed great skill in
maintaining asynchronous discussions amongst a group. We structure our
posts in a different way to conventional conversations, e-mail or
snail mail and we manage the direction and flow of discussion using
different types of controls. It is nonsense to say that there are no
controls. On an alt news group or an immensely oversubscribed comp
group like comp.lang.c++ the controls are much weaker and very
different. But things do not have to be like that here. In fact there
it would be very difficult for this list to become like them because
people are here for a different purpose and to exchange different
kinds of information.

> I used to be one of
> those people (Hey, stick to the topic, man! etc.) - Experience
> proves that the only way the content of a list can be controlled is
> to have it moderated and moderated lists make for their own problems

Well 4 years experience here suggests that people are very good at
behaving responsibly if they are reminded of the need for it now and
again. Perhaps you should jettison your prejudices and try cooperating
with others. A moderator is not the only option. We could make the
list closed, restricting access to those who are allowed to join. I
don't like either option and woudl rather people acted sensibly.

> Although I've only been on this list a short while I can't for the
> life of me remember how I found it - When I signed on I did all the
> good do-bee things - I read for awhile and dipped my toe in (I think
> my first message was about a public reading of GR) - I readily admit
> that I did not read all the messages and my main goal was
> information about M & D - My point being that all the publicity
> about M & D was bound to change the culture of the list - A lot more
> people were going to find it and join (Andrew, is this the case?
> Is there a census?)

Info on list membership is not available to anyone but the list
owners. Frankly, I don't care if there are 2 or 200 or 2000 people on
the list. It will only be useful if people behave responsibly. Which
means that we all have to do our best to accord with this requirement
and encourage others to do so.

> Believe it or not, in my first two months (was it that long), not
> once did I read a message about Lineland (there I said the title) or
> its author - I passed because I thought from the title it was one of
> those glib little satires one finds on the list every so often - My
> first foray into that strange world was my first and perhaps biggest
> mistake - I responded (in kind and tone) to some strange claims
> about the first book on internet discourse and the first
> self-designed book - At that time I had no idea who or what I was
> dealing with

Well, seems like you didn't sit around long enough. Perhaps ou should
learn from the experience to be more guarded in how you enter a
discussion and perhaps you might also consider backing off and either
taking a discussion to private email or thinking long and hard about
everything you want to say, post it once then close the debate by not
responding to any further provocation. Works far better than an
endless dribble of point counterpoint read by no one but yourself and
your interlocutor.

> - I was truly shocked by how quickly the tone went from
> mutual sarcasm to personal attacks and threats - Alarms went off for
> me, not because I I was personally offended but because experience
> shows that when people are reduced to personal insults they usually
> have something to hide - And I have a professional interest in the
> accuracy of information spread on the internet and I have a personal
> interest in the way pynchon scholarship is built - I do not
> "worship" TRP but I do not think there is much value in spreading
> rumors about him - And unfortunately this list has been used for
> that purpose

I see. You assume we are all too stupid to do anything but take Jules
input at face value. So you are on a mission to educate us by showing
him up. Well thanks but actually I didn't need the help. I have made
my own assessment of Jules' character (I have had far more email
conversations with him than you have and I entered and continued such
conversation in a much more careful, guarded and open-minded manner
than appears in your postings) and the value of his book (which unlike
you I have read in its previous draft). Frankly I thnk you miss the
mark by miles in both cases. What is more I think your presumption re
Jules motives and character, your pontifications on a book which you
have not even read and your clumsy entry into and wallowing in a
stupid flame war with Jules hardly qualify you to teach me anything
about the `threat' Jules represents to me, the list or Pynchon
scholarship in general. So please do your crusading in private email
where it might be of relevance to your correspondents.

> Some people may not like it but I believe that the majority of my
> postings are directly related to TRP and the nature of the
> scholarship - When it was pointed out that I was off track I
> corrected myself (or tried to)

All I can recall is a pointless series of exchanges about who said
what to who when. I will raid the archive for your more interesting
exchanges to correct this misapprehension. Please do return to Pynchon
ASAP.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.