[NetBehaviour] Communication in Online Communities

[Pall Thayer]

I haven't been following all of this discussion but some of it. John
Hopkins' comment made me want to reply.

It's hard to tell a well-functioning and successful mailing list that
mailing lists aren't "the thing" anymore. But they aren't. Don't get me
wrong, I love Netbehaviour and do so for all of the reasons that it
shouldn't work in the modern net-world. The internet has evolved into this
fleeting-moment thing. Anything that isn't picked up within 30 minutes is
old and abandoned. Obviously, this is not at all conducive to lengthy and
detailed examination or contemplation. It reduces everything to quick,
witty comments that lend little or no meat to the actual issue.

Please, please, please do not change Netbehaviour.

Look at what happened to Rhizome. They made subtle changes to their
platform that caused everyone to abandon it. They tried to claim that it
was facebook rather than their changes that killed the mailing lists but it
was their decision to stop nurturing Rhizome as a community and become an
online "journal" (or whatever you might call it) instead.

Personally, I don't care about facebook and other platforms harvesting my
information and even benefiting from it. It's like Douglas Rushkoff
implied, if you're not a paying customer, you're the product being sold.
Either you use the service and accept that or you don't use the service at
all. You can't use the service AND complain about the service's methods of
financing your use of it. Regardless of any notions of what platforms like
facebook and twitter may have been created for, it's very obvious that
they're not used for meaningful debate or discussion. Try initiating a
meaningful discussion on facebook... I guarantee that it will quickly
dissolve into anecdotes, funny (or not) gifs and other comments that lend
nothing to the original post. That's just what you do on facebook and what
a lot of people appear to want from their online interactions.

Having access to a mailing list that actually promotes and fosters in-depth
discussion of emergent subjects is invaluable and it is why we're all here.
I know that a lot of you are on facebook, we're "friends". But Netbehaviour
is where we come for the "real" stuff.

Best r.
Pall

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 9:46 PM John Hopkins <chazhop at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 06/Oct/15 05:18, Joumana Mourad wrote:
> > Can anyone share why FB, G+, or any of the discussion platforms did not
> > work?
>
> For me, I don't know about other folks, but I refuse to use those other
> platforms that harvest my information. I used to be an early adopter with
> different technologies as I was teaching about techno-social engagement,
> but I
> bailed completely on FB in 2010 after being on it for a few years,
>
>   So it's email or bulletin boards or posting on my own web space, if that
> doesnt 'work' oh well. ... Obviously the NSA has access to everything that
> I can
> implement, but at least I can limit the access that commercial interests
> have to
> my data... And, being outside the FB bubble, one pays a price (like my
> 'connection' with my family is quite limited because few of them will send
> emails ever. So, there is always a price to be paid when one does not
> participate in the dominant social protocols...
>
> jh
>
> --
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
> grounded on a granite batholith
> twitter: @neoscenes
> http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> _______________________________________________
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>
-- 
P Thayer, Artist
http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
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