Monday, October 29, 2007

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1. Isnt the real problem of online blogging the cloak of anominity that we are all afforded. As you yourself have said Mick some of us say things on these blogs that would start an arguement in real life therefore our views online have to be treated with scepticism.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 11:08 AM

2. Sounds fascinating.Depending on logistical issues I might try and make it.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 11:15 AM

3. What time does it run to? Might be interested in ‘to what extent can online technologies allow public representatives engage with journalists; policy makers; party activists; and the general voting public?’ but have to put bread on the table first.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 11:23 AM

4. Outsider

   In a perfectly normal society contributors would not seek anonymity.  Why are we so different?
   Is it because of our violent recent past where people may be afraid to express a view and more importantly be publicly identified with it.
   This fear is I think small and will decrease.
   Then we will be free to say what we like within the confines of good taste and the law.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 11:51 AM

5. Strange Frank.  There’s no mention of a discussion about anonymity and use of sock puppets.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 11:56 AM

6. I think the point about annonymity stands regardless of whatever state your society is in. Bryan Appleyard recently made the point that the concept of intellectual property is what has driven the rise in knowledge in the west since the Renaissance. But that essentially, it relies on being able to clearly identify individual mental labours, and allow them to reap the benefits of them.

   Anonymous folk have (albeit imperfect) ‘protections from’, but they also give up their ‘rights to’. Thus Damien Mulley’s famous strapline ‘Invisible people have invisible rights’. It also means they have much less to gain from engaging fully in a public discourse.

   What makes some of the new social networking tools like Facebook so interesting is that people deal with each other through relatively stable identities and have networks of ‘kinship’ and ‘trust’ to work through.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:18 PM

7. In a perfectly normal society contributors would not seek anonymity.  Why are we so different?
   Is it because of our violent recent past where people may be afraid to express a view and more importantly be publicly identified with it.
   This fear is I think small and will decrease.
   Then we will be free to say what we like within the confines of good taste and the law.

   Ulsterfan

   I know what you are saying but are we really any different to bloggers in England or American who rarely use their own names.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:19 PM

8. I can understand why people may be reluctant to use their real names. But I think they should consistently use whatever “false” name they pick. Use of sock puppets within a thread pisses me off a lot.

   I’ve been using my real name and email on this site for years and I’ve only ever got 2 uninvited emails, both of them positive.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:26 PM

9. I’m beginning to feel on news type sites this use of anominity is one of the things that is holding us back from developing further. Could it be that anominity has become part of the culture of the WWW and for no good reason.
   If someone is at work and posting I can understand the secrecy but it must lessen the value of what one says if one posts anon.

   It sounds a very interesting work shop Mick, in my experience it is the politicians who are lagging behind here, not for any ignoble reasons but because they are on such a ridiculous treadmill rushing to this often pointless meeting to the next, giving them little time to surf the web and get a handle on it.

   So frt all we get from them is some pretty rough party web sites and public announcement. What you rarely get is a politician using the internet to argue their corner. Imagine the difference it would have made if Adams or some other senior Shinner had done this over policing etc with those of us who were their critics. There would have been an engagement, minds may have met on some elements of the platform, instead nothing and never were the two twines to meet.

   Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:42 PM

10. “the centrality of democratic institutions, and whether online media underwrites or detracts from their legitimacy?”

    Mick, here’s an example of an interaction, one that also involves others forms of communication such as the humble telephone and personal encounters; IMO face-to-face is far more stimulating than Facebook.

    4pm looks like an early night. Did you forget to reset your clock? Hope yous have a wonderful time.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:45 PM

11. Can someone explain to me why Facebook is considered any different to other social networking sites such as Bebo or Myspace, that is apart from the older age of its users.  My prediction is that it is a fad which will be replaced with something else similar.  Friends Reunited peaked and most people moved on elsewhere, same with Bebo and Myspace. Why should Facebook be any different?

    Posted by Chekov on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:52 PM

12. Think Facebook already past it with all those add ins. Workmates just keep chucking metaphorical sheep at each other. Bizarre.Youtube the real revolution IMHO.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:09 PM

13. Nev, one of the best aspects of Facebook is that it facilitates face to face communication. Here’s an example.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:12 PM

14. Can someone explain to me why Facebook is considered any different to other social networking sites such as Bebo or Myspace, that is apart from the older age of its users.  My prediction is that it is a fad which will be replaced with something else similar.  Friends Reunited peaked and most people moved on elsewhere, same with Bebo and Myspace. Why should Facebook be any different?

    Posted by Chekov on Oct 29, 2007 @ 12:52 PM

    Not sure about that, Facebook seems to be more popular with older types because it looks more uniform and clean as you cannot personalise your background. Also I get the impression it’s a bit more secure in terms of randomers not being able to look at your stuff.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:14 PM

15. Bryan Appleyard recently made the point that the concept of intellectual property is what has driven the rise in knowledge in the west since the Renaissance.

    This is a very grand and controversial claim. A few points:

    - The popular concept of so-called “intellectual property” is quite recent. According to Wikipedia: “It was very uncommon until the 1967 establishment of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which actively tried to promote the term. Still, it was rarely used without scare quotes until about the time of the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980.

    - Many influential thinkers, including Richard Stallman, would argue that the concept of IP has been a major obstacle to the ‘rise in knowledge’.

    - Scientific progress (for example) relies on the free flow of information. The artifical monopolies created by IP laws are at best a necessary evil - hence the Open Access movement.

    - Perhaps the most important contribution to the ‘rise of knowledge’ in the modern era is the internet - which depends heavily on Free Software and Free Culture - not on the concept of IP.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:25 PM

16. On the anonymity thing. People say things here that might inhibit their personal or professional relationsips, or might stifle their career. For example, civil servants might not want to reveal their identities. Or people might be disucssing people they know, etc. Without the anonymous thing, I’m sure many fewer of us would post for these reasons rather than out of fear in the same way as it might have been had such a forum existed c.1992.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:36 PM

17. Thanks, Mick. Is RSA Networks the new Masonic Order? ;)

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:55 PM

18. I’ve just finished listening to an item on Talkback discussing the proposed march around Donegal Pass – the same issue that was posted on Slugger over the weekend (BNP & Anna Lo) but then removed. Contributors to Talkback were both named and anonymous (in as far as only their first name was used).

    The discussion included assertions that were later shown to be incorrect; e.g., the parade being an annual event. Dunseith of course ensures defamatory statements are avoided but even here he has at times to resort to stating “well we can’t stand over that�. All fair enough.

    In relation to your seminar topics; “- can online communication ever be more than a news/gossip space?� and “whether Internet based technologies can be used to develop effective local policies?� I’d be interested to know whether traditional media still retain a significant leading edge – even when it comes to discussing a sensitive local issue. E.g., Talkback broadcasts live and engages the public and public representatives’ views on an issue that Slugger has had to remove.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 01:59 PM

19. runciter:

    I misquoted Appleyard. This is what I had been thinking of:

    Psychologists have long been aware that the more people are distanced from each other, the easier they find it to do them harm. This degrades bloggery. But, more important, it also threatens all forms of authority. All western - not just scientific - wisdom is based on identity. Advocates and their critics can be identified and their ideas formally tested. This is nothing to do with the statistics of crowds, and everything to do with the authority of the person. Take that away and truth and judgment become fictions.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 02:29 PM

20. Rubicon,

    I took it off because apparently you confused the surnames of two people who were in the news at the same time, but were not the same. What that points to is the loss of a thread due to shortage of time resources. MSM pays wages, Slugger can’t; yet at least.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 02:38 PM

21. “Item: MSM reveals to bloggers how to blog themselves rich, opening up new resources for the blog revolution!”

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 02:58 PM

22. As for Annonymity

    some of us don’t use our whole names because it makes a different in opinions

    Sean is my real given name and sounds nice and Irish

    My last name is decidedly not Irish so I specifically chose not to use it so it couldnt be used against me.

    So can annonymity or partial annonymity be situationally effective?

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 04:19 PM

23. “Sean is my real given name and sounds nice and Irish

    My last name is decidedly not Irish so I specifically chose not to use it so it couldnt be used against me.”

    Oh dear Lord! I do believe you’ve just made yourself the ball! Lol.

    Posted by Chekov on Oct 29, 2007 @ 04:34 PM

24. Re. anonymity, I think it has a valuable role online.

    I have often posted things here that I’d baulk at saying in person. It’s that thing Heaney talked about: “Whatever you say, say nothing.” Here in NI it’s almost a mark of middle-class sophistication to not have any opinions on anything.

    “oh, I’m not interested in politics,” is what everyone on the dinner party circuit always says, and usually where you get nayce, respectable Catholics and Protestants mixing socially, they’re falling over each other to declare that they have no time for politics and damned little for religion either.

    But of course, they’re liars. (I say “they” but I’ve been guilty of it myself.) People here DO have hugely entrenched political allegiances and sites like this provide a platform where the real issues are fought out - debates that you’d NEVER hear in real life, as people are too afraid, too nervous or simply too polite to say some of the things they’d say here.

    This blog has been an education for me, these last few years, and I wouldn’t have been able to have had many of the more enlightening tussles I’ve had, without the shield of plausible deniability that anonymity provides. I’m able to throw things out there with much greater freedom - it’s ok now that I can think back to certain arguments I’ve made in the past which I would no longer happily stand over.

    Though I have always used the same name, so that Billy Pilgrim is my consistent alter ego, rather than chopping and changing. Long-term bloggers here like (for example) Willowfield, IJP, Comrade Stalin, George, Darth Rumsfeld etc will know Billy Pilgrim well, as I know them well. I don’t need to know what their real names are. Their alter egos are real online presences, and that’s real enough.

    Sock puppeteers, on the other hand, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are pathetic weasels. They are the criminal class, the lumpenproletariat, of blogging society.

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 05:00 PM

25. So, when I turn up tomorrow, does my namme badge say Miss Fitz, or my real name? And how will I know who else is who?

    Actually, when I met some of the bloggers off the site before it was really weird, cos you never quite knew what to call them!!

    Posted by  on Oct 29, 2007 @ 05:36 PM
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