ASSumptions

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

I was just going to reply to Sara Jones alone but I think this might
be of interest to other list members. It concerns the list and
member's posting habits so is arguably on topic.

I wrote:

> >My Jenny enjoys but is not obsessed by Pynchon. She is however hooked
> >on tales from the P-list as a kind of high-class, lettered soap.

To which Sara Jones replied:

> I find this statement offensive.  "lettered"? maybe... if lettered implies
> formally educated, mainly formally educated in the use of vocabulary words.

The intention in selecting `lettered' was to denote people who can
read and write well. I think that covers most of the people who post
if you take `well' modulo the clumsy and incoherent level at which
many net posters operate. As to offense, I think you should be more
concerned with the appelation `Jenny' which denotes i) a female ass
and ii) Tristram Shandy's `companion'. In other words I am sorry that
the `joke' went over your head while the serious point crashed down on
top of it.

>  As for "high-class", I've never seen so much petty squabbling, idle
> threats, dumb un-related one line replies to 500 lines of quoted text, and
> non-literary or even topical comments.

Well, she hears my edited version. So, frankly, your judgements as to
the appropriateness of her `high-class' appelation are definitely
somewhat underinformed as to the matter of evidence. But you miss the
point again - maybe I was being deliberately elliptical (what me?  no,
never) and I am to blame for your misconstruction - since her comment
betrays a rather different set of criteria in making her judgement
than you employ in making yours. She is interested in the
communication not because of its `high intellectual content' - far
from that - rather because she is a professional in Human Computer
Interaction and finds the twists and turns of a strong-minded,
dedicated and highly eloquent (by net standards) user community
fascinating.

In particular, she is very interested in how we adapt our discourse to
the technology. One of the reasons why you see so much flaming and
scratching recently is because lots of people have recently joined the
list and most of them have not had the good sense to sit around long
enough to find out what is going on before they start igniting each
other's blue touch paper. Add to that the irritated reactions of long
term members and the general malaise which accompanied the long, long
wait for M&D to arrive and you have a recipe for battles-a-plenty. I
hope and expect that the M&D reading will occupy us enough to damp
down the flames over the next few months.

While this is all particularly interesting to my dear Jenny that's not
an endorsement from me. If you are asking people to stop the
squabbling, idle threats, dumb one line replies, redundant quoted text
and all the other inanities I concur 99%. I reserve 1% (or maybe I
should double that to two cents) to note however that in any community
grief and strife are naturally bound to happen, particularly at times
of major change. And in particular it is well documented by those who
study computer system use that e-mail based communications are far
more prone to engender argument and extreme positions than face to
face and/or voice to voice communications.  Mostly because the various
feedback mechanisms which these alternative modes of communication
support are missing in text only e-mail and so the problem of making
one's intentions and the import of one's words known is seriously
exacerbated. Hence my jenny's interest in the role of our (relative)
eloquence in initiating, controlling and damping down such conflict.

When it comes to feeding paranoia e-mail based lists appear to be even
worse than mail notes copied to clearly bounded user groups. Most
significant appears to be the fear that one has lost face or been
sidelined by someone else's comments before an unknown but possibly
large and perhaps important audience (who knows which potential
employers, friends or rivals might hear about your public humiliation
and msijudge you accordingly?). This gives rise to a kind of verbal
arms race where each person's criticisms are topped by more extreme
and exaggerated attacks in response. With the result that you think
everyone thinks you are an arsehole - actually you yourself think you
are behaving like an arsehole in your more lucid moments - but you
still will not shut up lest someone think you are an even bigger
arsehole if you do not respond to the latest provocation. Of course
most people have given up on you, forgotten the whole dispute and do
not give a damn but there you go, paranoia can easily become your
modus operandi.

Not that this excuses anything but it might help people to understand
and expect such problems and *avoid responding to them like a bull to
a red rag*.

> I don't mind the volume of the mails, but there seems to be a group of
> high-volume posters who seem to take great delight in tittering about their
> greatness in being in such ivory tower cliques.

Yes, well I will exclude myself from that charge in the present
instance on the grounds outlined above. Otherwise I share some of the
guilt. Mea culpa. Now can we talk about Pynchon? there's this little
matter of a group reading I would like to get started on . . .

  . . .

> I'm glad "your Jenny" enjoys your relating of anecdotes, however I suspect
> the case is more that "your Jenny" enjoys seeing you in high spirits and
> having the pleasure of association with like-minded individuals, and could
> care less whether its TRP or motorcycles which tickle your fancy.

In which case you clearly do not know what you are talking about and
had best discard thsoe suspicions. Not surprising really since I have
lived with my Jenny for 12 years whereas you have never met her (you
have not even communicated with *me* either in private or in response
to one of my previous postings). Perhaps you ought to learn a bit more
about posters before you go delving into their personal lives - the
parts of their lives that are not network based, that is.

> whew.

Indeed.


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