--- In [email protected], "David" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I see a few advantages to text-based group discussions that I don't > really want to give up. One is relative anonymity. People can > contribute angry, contentious, argumentative posts to a text-only > group discussion to which they might not feel comfortable attaching > their faces. And that can be a good thing. It can invite people to > tell us how they really feel and to hash things out. Video > conversations, like live conversations, are ephemeral. They can lose > direction more easily than written correspondence. Written > communication can be searched more easily and is also easier to > digest in quantity. Writing forces people to think in a way that > speaking extemporaneously to a camera does not. Videotaped > conversations tend to be a lot like conversations in a bar: they > wander, they ramble, they include a lot of "aahhs" and "ummms" and > great gaping pauses that can be insufferable unless being uttered by > a lover in a passionate moment. Writing forces one to focus. > Editing is easier with written communication. Are people really > going to videotape themselves responding to a politically hot topic > on this board, then go through their footage and edit for style, > cogency and concision? That takes a lot more work then reading over > a paragraph and cutting unnecessary sentances or correcting grammar > and spelling.
There are many advantages to the mailing list format of this group. Like you said, there's the opportunity for relative anonymity, so that people can voice opinions that they can't necessarily back up with facts and then just drop the subject when they're proven wrong. This leads to a better discussion than when nobody wants to speak up when they have a different opinion. There's the opportunity to use spell-checkers if you want to seem intelligent. There's the opportunity to take an entire hour preparing a post that can actually be read in four minutes that makes it seem like you had all of those ideas in a row and could have duplicated what you aggregated before pressing "enter" in a live conversation, face-to-face with other people. There's the opportunity for people who read the list on mobile units to be a part of the discussion. There's the opportunity for people who want to read and respond to this group offline to save all the new posts and deal with them on the train home after work. There's the opportunity for people that don't have webcams to have just as much presence on the list as those that do have them. It'll be interesting to see the interactions between people from this group and youtubers, but it can only be an addition, not a replacement. -- Bill C. http://ReelSolid.TV
