I think that Phil makes some interesting points. I wonder about the notion of posters anonymously evaluating posts. Some respondents to the WOD democracy already express fear of being judged as ill-informed or harshly criticized for their views if they are different from what they perceive as the majority opinion on WOD. Although some of us would welcome the feedback, I am afraid that for others, this might serve as an additional deterent to posting.
Two problems that are highlighted in the survey are: 1)Reluctance to post (fear of judgement, feeling foolish, criticism, etc) and 2) Lack of diversity of opinion. It is easy to see how these two problems feed each other.
It is very easy to get carried away when posting about something that excites our political passions. Unfortunately, sometimes we end up driving away people, not converting them. We all lose if discussion is shut down. And then, too, as posters and as readers, we must keep in mind that discussion boards do not allow for the accurate conveyance of tone of voice, etc. that might soften the written words. We need to be less hard on each other, and more careful in our posts--not editing our ideas, but paying attention to how we express our ideas.
I'll look for the book. It sounds interesting.
Terri Hyle
From: "Phil Carlson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Online Democracy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: [Winona] Survey Report Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 14:45:49 -0500
Thanks, Kathy, for sharing the survey with us. I think it reminds us of many things we probably already know: WOD is a useful tool, many people would like to do more with it, and uncivil comments are a hindrance. I am reminded of another web-based experiment:
I just finished reading a very interesting book, "Emergence" by Steven
Johnson, that analyzes among other things* how computer software can be made
to "learn". He mentions a web-site, slashdot.com, which is a bulletin board
and chat group geared to computer techies. Slashdot has thousands of
members and thousands of posts. The creators of slashdot set up a system
whereby other subscribers would read all the posts in a given month and
"rate" them for content, clarity, and overall quality. This ad hoc
committee of reviewers would be rotated, so no one had to do it full time,
and so that many people got a chance to review the posts. The reviewers'
grades for various posts and the post-ers were compiled and noted on the web
site. This way people could get someone's opinion of which posts were worth
looking at, and whose posts were usually worth the time of day. Note that
it was not the web-master grading or censoring the posts, but the actual
members themselves.
This experiment is probably far more sophisticated than WOD aspires to be,
but it begs a question for all of us - what would WOD look like, and what
would our own posts look like, if the other members were looking at our
posts, grading them, and posting the results anonymously on line? What
would each of us do to earn the respect of our fellow WOD members and
thereby be assured that people would be urged to actually read our opinions,
as opposed to being way down the list of worthwhile reading?
- Phil Carlson, Mpls
* P.S. Johnson's book also looks at ant colonies, slime mold, computer games
like Sim City, patterns of urban growth, and the evolution of DNA and other
aspects of our biology. Fascinating reading!
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