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T H E N E T W O R K O B S E R V E R
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VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3 MARCH 1994
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Welcome to TNO 1(3).
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This issue includes an uplifting article by Jonathan Grudin on
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The Beginning Teachers Computer Network, a network set up to help
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new graduates of the Harvard School of Education teacher training
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program survive their first year of teaching. How can this fine
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system serve as a model for others? Which features of it are
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crucial? It's hard to say for sure, but it does involve people
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who have known one another in person but who have scattered
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geographically while still sharing stressful experiences in a
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new activity without necessarily having adequate support systems.
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What else is like this? New doctors from medical school? New
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parents from birthing classes? Newly sober alcoholics from AA
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meetings? People who have similar physical disabilities, newly
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released from hospitals or physical therapy programs? Circles of
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elderly friends newly dispersed to nursing homes? Perhaps all of
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these groups could use electronic alumni associations.
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Aside from Leslie Regan Shade's article on Canada, TNO 1(2) was
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far too polemical. TNO 1(3) returns to the path of constructive
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criticism with some reflections on the Internet at a commons.
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Most Internet institutions are still remarkably open, in the
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sense that anybody can join and anybody can send messages at any
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time. Will this last? Will hordes of unacculturated beginners
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overwhelm it? Will advertising overwhelm it? Will cumbersome
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billing software overwhelm it? Will people start building walls
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around their network communities? Maybe not -- if we understand
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and apply some principles for the maintenance of a commons.
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The Internet as a commons.
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With the Internet growing exponentially, cultural emergencies are
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breaking out. TNO 1(2) described one of these, the unfortunate
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practice of teachers telling students to ask basic questions on
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Internet discussion lists. There's also the fairly widespread
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Internet traffic in digitized pornography, advertisements sent
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unsolicited to individuals or discussion lists, high-bandwidth
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video signals sent over long distances without full regard for
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the consequences for folks along the way, and so forth.
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Yet another is the following irritating dynamic:
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* Someone wishes to subscribe to a given discussion list, so
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they send a request directly to the list rather than to the list
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maintainer (probably because nobody ever told them how).
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* The request goes out to several hundred readers, a few of
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whom mistakenly reply to it, and these replies also go out to the
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whole list.
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* Whereupon several more readers send notes to the whole list
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complaining about the previous messages.
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* Whereupon several people wish to remove themselves from the
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discussion list, but they don't know how, so they send messages
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to the whole list.
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* Whereupon several more readers send out-and-out flames
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demanding that everyone else stop sending them meaningless
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messages.
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Many readers of TNO are no doubt aware of other such phenomena.
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What can we do about these problems? One common response is to
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promulgate rules or etiquette guidelines or "principles of user
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responsibility" and so forth. In each case, the image is one of
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restraining unfortunate behavior through written instructions,
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which does not work very well.
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But more effective responses exist. One of them, crucially
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different from the rules and guidelines, is to write instructions
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for the most effective ways of using the net to get things done,
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including clear explanations of *why* these methods work best.
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I've tried to write a couple of these things myself (see past
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issues of TNO for details), and I hope that others will too. (No
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doubt they have; if you know of any, please tell me.) In writing
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these things, I was influenced both by how-to-get-ahead books
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for business people and by books about the practice of democratic
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organizing for political people. The point is to appeal both to
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self-interest and to shared values, not to authority.
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Here's the wonderful thing. Given how the net works, it happens
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that the most effective ways of networking, getting help, finding
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information, gathering people together, making friends, and so
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forth are also the most socially responsible ways of doing these
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things. Why is this? It's because of the network's tremendous
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capacity for cultural self-regulation. The most obvious example
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of this phenomenon is the suppression of anti-social advertising
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methods. The net is full of people looking for business models
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these days, and several books and newsletters promise to explain
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how to advertise on the net. These people have caused much
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worry among net inhabitants who envision receiving floods of junk
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e-mail and the like. There are certainly things to worry about,
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but in my view this isn't one of them. Internet folks have
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already suppressed numerous outbreaks of anti-social advertising
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through the simple method of flooding the offenders with flaming
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complaints. While ill-tempered flaming has its own costs, the
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basic method is an important one. Imagine if it were just as
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easy to complain to the people who send you *paper* junk mail.
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What the Internet needs, then, is not rules and guidelines but
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a more fully functioning set of community standards. Although
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laws are certainly necessary for many sorts of things, community
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standards are better than laws because they are more flexible,
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more situational, cheaper, less dependent on supposedly objective
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authorities, and basically decentralized. Community standards
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are the best way to regulate a commons. And that's what the
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Internet is -- a commons. What does that mean? Well, we're
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not talking about common ownership, since the Internet is owned
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by all sorts of organizations. Rather, we're talking about a
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certain social system within the Internet, which includes, for
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example, the convention that discussion lists are open to all.
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This could change. The Internet could fragment into a bunch of
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separate spheres, each with its own gatekeeper. It won't happen
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right away, since most of the people who run Internet discussion
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lists and the like are still primarily interested in attracting
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people, not keeping them away. Notice that many of the people
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who run important Internet facilities, for example bibliographies
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and Listserv lists, are based at relatively marginal institutions
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-- the ones that we in the United States sometimes jokingly refer
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to as "Southwestern East Kansas State" and the like. Those jokes
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can be their own form of bigotry, but the phenomenon is real: the
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net is providing people at the periphery of the global research
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system with ways of building a community for themselves by
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providing a useful public service. Let's hope it stays that way.
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Garrett Hardin's classic paper "The Tragedy of the Commons" is
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often quoted to demonstrate the impossibility of a real commons.
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If everyone can graze their sheep on the commons, he points out,
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then everyone has an interest in maximum grazing, thus ensuring
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that the commons will be quickly worn out. Likewise with fishing
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in the world's oceans; many fish stocks are in grave danger of
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being fished out, and the fishing fleets of newly industrialized
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countries often fail to see the wisdom of collective management
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administered by institutions dominated by the very countries that
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fished the stocks down to dangerous levels in the first place.
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Is Internet bandwidth a commons, just like fish stocks? Market
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economic theories tend to assume that it is, simply because some
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people can profit by using more and more of it.
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But, as Hardin points out, a commons *can* work if it has a
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functioning system of community standards. In this context, of
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course, a "system" is not a piece of hardware, nor is it a set
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of written rules. Rather, it's a set of customs, together with
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a form of social organization that ensures that everyone has an
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interest in upholding those customs. When people's lives are
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heavily intertwined, as in a small town, and when the society is
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not too badly stratified, then reputation is an effective means
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of restraining anti-social uses of the commons. Another system
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is to place the commons under the management of respected elders,
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a system that obviously has a delicate set of preconditions. At
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bottom, maintenance of a commons always requires a holistic ethic
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of care, which can retain the benefits of managing the commons
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as a whole and avoid the disadvantages of chopping it up into
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separate domains. To learn more about the history and customs of
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the commons, read the following tremendous book, by the editors
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of the British environmentalist journal The Ecologist:
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The Ecologist, Whose Common Future?: Reclaiming the Commons,
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Philadelphia: New Society Press, 1993. NSP's phone number is
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+1 (215) 382 6543. You can order by phone, or by mail at 4527
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Springfield Avenue Phil 19143. It's $14.95 plus $2.50 s&h.
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How should we maintain the commons of the Internet, so that
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everyone can keep on benefitting from its openness? I don't have
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all the answers, but here are some thoughts, in two groups: first
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things that are more "social", then technical things.
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* Complaints. When someone does something on the net that
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seems anti-social, send them a note. I don't think it serves any
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purpose to send people flaming hate-mail; after all, you might
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change your mind once you learn more facts, and non-hardened
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offenders are more likely to see reason if they're treated
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reasonably. Also, it's good not to give such complaints a bad
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name by being arbitrary or rude. If such complaints become a
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widespread practice (as they already are for many purposes) then
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they'll serve as an automatic referendum on marginal forms of
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network behavior.
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* Story-telling. Recount stories about net behavior. The
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recent article by Julian Dibbell in in The Village Voice ("A
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Rape in Cyberspace", 12/21/93) about some unsettling goings-on in
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the Xerox PARC LambdaMOO system is a good example. Stories are
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good ways to transmit values, to occasion debates about values,
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and to provide models for understanding and responding to future
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instances of questionable behavior. When disputes arise about
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proper net use, and when community standards have to be invoked
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to suppress unfortunate network behavior, it's important to tell
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stories about the events, and to keep on telling the stories for
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the benefit of others.
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* Curriculum materials. Nowadays anyone can choose from among
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a wide variety of texts about the technical aspects of using the
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Internet. What students learning about networks need now, in my
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view, is a textbook of the social aspects of network use. How
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do you get things done on the net? Again, the point is not to
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constrain users' activities with rules. Rather, the point is to
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provide the methods that work -- methods that are consistent with
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community standards, and that contribute to the atmosphere of
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helpfulness that now prevails on the net.
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* Network Watch. Let's imagine an organization called Network
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Watch whose purpose is to bring unfortunate network practices on
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the part of large organizations to the attention of the network
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community. This could include simple things, like advertising
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practices, but it could also include more sophisticated things,
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such as the diversion of personal information to purposes other
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than those for which it was collected. Obviously such a group
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would have to be cautious and encourage debate about what is and
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isn't legitimate network activity, and it should keep reminding
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itself that its most important weapon is publicity, but it
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should also call for e-mail campaigns, boycotts, and other forms
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of pressure against particularly grievous or chronic offenders.
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(See, for example, TNO 1(1)'s article on Internet action alerts.)
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It could also serve as a contact point for people who have been
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harmed by unfortunate network practices, or it could form an
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alliance with publications such as the Privacy Journal that
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already serve this purpose. The possibilities for such campaigns
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are unlimited. A great deal of inspiration can be gotten from
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labor unions' "corporate campaigns", which pressure organizations
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to conform to community standards in pay and working conditions
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by mapping out the full range of the organization's connections
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in the world (directors, customers, suppliers, bankers, etc)
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and applying pressure on the ones that seem vulnerable to public
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criticism. The great virtue of such campaigns is that, more or
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less, they don't work unless the community decides that the cause
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is just. (For more info on corporate campaigns, see issue #21 of
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Labor Research Review, which is available for $8 plus $1 s&h from
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the Midwest Center for Labor Research, 3411 West Diversey Avenue
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Suite 10, Chicago IL 60647, USA, phone +1 (312) 278-5418.)
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Technical things:
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* Interface. Many unfortunate social dynamics have their
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ultimate causes in bad interfaces that mislead users -- with the
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common result that the users make mistakes by trying to use new
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systems by analogy to systems they already know. We know a lot
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about designing good interfaces by now, so we should do it. In
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particular, it's quite important to watch some new users trying
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to use the system, and to encourage new users to write about
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their experiences, since the long-timers have usually forgotten
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what the hard parts are.
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* Concrete instructions. The worst set of net-user instructions
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I've ever seen are for an elaborate system of discussion groups
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and archives for people doing research in a field that shall
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remain nameless. The instructions are detailed, but they are
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basically useless to anybody except experts because they are full
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of abstractions like "issue a "send" command", where the meaning
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of "issue an xxx command" is explained somewhere else, in a
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way that itself presupposes that you know about ten other such
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abstractions.
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* FAQs. Many folks on the net maintain lists of frequently
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asked questions (FAQs). Unfortunately, in my experience you
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usually have to be a world-class neuromancer to actually *find*
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these things. New net users should be directed to relevant FAQs
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through as many mechanisms as possible, including absolutely
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detailed and concrete directions, if possible down to the precise
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keystrokes, for how to retrieve and read them. In particular,
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someone who subscribes to a discussion group should automatically
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receive such instructions, along with a clear explanation of what
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a FAQ is. (Most new users don't know what F.A.Q. stands for!)
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* Bounce-mail. Bounce-mail refers to the messages you get back
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when your e-mail doesn't get through. Since I run a mailing
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list, I get lots of bounce-mail and it's all terrible, full of
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extremely obscure and arbitrary codes, with the crumbs of useful
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information so badly formatted that it takes moderate experts
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like me several tries to find it. And, of course, every mailer
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has its own completely unique format. Imagine how intimidating
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such messages are to beginners. Can someone please write an RFP
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for bounce-mail formats? Can we please generate error messages
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that are written in whole sentences, formatted into whole
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paragraphs, with extra paragraphs explaining the basic idea in
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case the recipient is a beginner? One of these paragraphs should
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say: If you wish to report this problem to someone, please send
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along this whole bounce-mail message, because otherwise it will
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be impossible to figure out what really happened.
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* Collective memory. FAQ's are a kind of collective memory.
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We need tools to support the collection of many other kinds of
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collective memory as well. One possible tool would be a matcher
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that takes a user's question and compares it to *all* of the
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questions in *all* of the FAQ's on the net. Maybe this wouldn't
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work, given that each FAQ tends to presuppose a certain context
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(e.g., that you're using a certain program or speaking the
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language of a certain discipline, etc), but it's worth a try.
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* Better tools for maintainers. A lot of problems would be
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solved if it were easier for mailing list maintainers to screen
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the messages that are sent out to them. Such tools do exist, and
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some maintainers do use them, and claims of censorship do arise,
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for example when people insist on thinking out loud by sending
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large numbers of long messages to a list. But these issues are
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going to come up, and if we have flexible tools then we can try
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different solutions to them. The important thing is to share our
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experience, not keep it locked up in a particular person's head
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or a particular systems department.
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The Beginning Teachers Computer Network.
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Jonathan Grudin
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University of California, Irvine
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Information and Computer Science Department
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grudin@ics.uci.edu
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"The network is one of the most wonderful things a school can
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give to its students."
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The students, in this case, were not really students, they were
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former students: graduates of the Harvard School of Education
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teacher training program. I spent an hour on the phone with a
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seventh grade teacher in Augusta Georgia, the result of a chance
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conversation with her mother.
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50% to 60% of new teachers leave their profession within 5
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years, she said. To find out why and to see what could be done
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about it, several years ago Harvard set up the BTCN or Teachers
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Network. For $25, a graduate can rent a computer and modem for
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a year. The system comes set up, with an 800 dial-in line and
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hotline help. The documentation is primarily education on "email
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etiquette" -- actions and feelings to expect on a network.
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The graduates have been through an intense twelve months of
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training. "We get very close in the program and are then hurled
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off into the cruel world. The first year of teaching is awful,
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it's very very hard. It was the worst year I've ever had, the
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hardest thing I've ever done. It's brutal. It's hard. You
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never sleep, you're grading all the time, you're planning all the
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time, you're crying all the time."
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She estimated that 60 of a class of around 100 took the offer
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and joined the network. Some "forums" are devoted to specific
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disciplines: Humanities, Math & Science, Foreign Languages.
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Others are topics: Classroom Management, Evaluation. In an
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Introduction forum new participants are guided in trying out the
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technology together. "Soapbox" is a general forum. Some Harvard
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faculty participate in the lightly facilitated forums, which are
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also studied for research purposes (a consent form is part of
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the rental agreement). "Private forums" (person-to-person email)
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are unmonitored. (Recently they upgraded the system and added a
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"Chat Line" for synchronous communication. She is unsure the new
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features warrant the increased complexity, though.)
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"It was really lifesaving for me, it kept me grounded when I
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needed it, helped me see what things are mountains, what are
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molehills. It's a time when you are feeling panicky about
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the world, worried about the future of society and children.
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Classmates really understand things so well. We could help each
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other in a wonderful way, not naive yet still excited."
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Questions were often specific. "'I'd like to stress writing, but
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the class is 35 kids, it seems too big... Should I teach Julius
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Caesar or Macbeth?'" Sometimes, though, "It was like reading
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an education journal" in a positive sense, "where theory and
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practice meet up."
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Some classmates who had not found teaching jobs got on the
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Teachers Network but inevitably stopped participating. To her
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surprise, arrogant classmates she "couldn't stand" in school were
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likable and helpful on the network, all struggling with similar
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problems.
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"It allowed me to see the longer range. With intense, miserable
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experiences every day there is a tendency to say 'forget it.'"
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Students encourage each other or just "vent." Discussing
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differences in the methods encountered in different schools
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enabled her to see that some problems she faced in her all-white
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private school were not universal. After a year she moved to
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an inner-city magnet school, where she says she is much happier.
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("I wouldn't say Augusta has an inner city, but that's what they
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call it.")
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Her year of computer rental up, she bought a computer to stay on
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the network but finds herself participating less in the forums,
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which remain focused on first-year problems raised by the newly
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graduated class. (This year for the first time current students
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at Harvard can monitor and (rarely) participate.) She mostly
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uses private forums (email) to a few friends who also stayed on.
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It seemed a very special set of circumstances so I asked her
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uncertainly whether she sees any other uses for networks of
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this sort. She was ready. "Parents! Of kids in the same age
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group. I'm thinking of starting a newsletter for them. Parents
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of middle school kids see their kids turn into monsters and
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don't know what to do. It's a monstrous age, difficult to
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live through. Seventh grade is the height of monsterness."
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She laughed. "Parents need to be told "you were a monster when
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you were 13 and your children's children will be monsters when
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they're 13."
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She sees many opportunities. "Networks for parents of infants.
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For people starting new businesses..."
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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This month's recommendations.
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Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin, eds, Rethinking Context:
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Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, Cambridge: Cambridge
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University Press, 1992. A tremendously intelligent collection
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of articles about the phenomenon of "context" in language. The
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idea, roughly, is that "context" isn't just a sort of cloud that
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hangs around and determines or changes the meanings of words.
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Rather, context is something that people are *doing* through the
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ways they interact with one another.
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Philip Lesly, Overcoming Opposition: A Survival Manual
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for Executives, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
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1984. A belligerently reactionary defense of established
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authority against campaigns of activists, including some rather
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sophisticated counter-tactics. He advocates propagating a steady
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stream of "facts" that make things seem complicated, since people
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will be quiescent if the picture isn't clear. He also suggests
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supporting groups that favor the organization's own goals. As
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one might expect, he grossly caricatures and oversimplifies the
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activists' positions (not that all anti-corporate activists think
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clearly, of course). It's not clear whether he really believes
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these things -- his big example throughout is infant formula in
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the Third World -- or whether it's just good strategy to position
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activists' views as oversimplified caricatures etc. The book
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is eminently quotable throughout and is clearly addressed to
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business executives who feel the need for an ego boost after all
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the attacks on their legitimacy.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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Company of the month.
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This month's company is
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Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc
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155 Montgomery St
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San Francisco CA 94104-4109
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(800) 929 2929, +1 (415) 288 0260, fax +1 (415) 362 2512
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A remarkable new movement has arisen within the American business
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community, which presents itself as a radically more ethical
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and democratic approach to business than we're accustomed to.
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The important ingredients include a rhetoric of "empowerment",
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an emphasis on personal change and development, attention to
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the emotional and spiritual dimensions of work, the leveling of
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hierarchies, and a rethinking of traditional relationships of
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authority.
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The most radical of the books in this movement are published
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by Berrett-Koehler Publishers of San Francisco, and I encourage
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you to call or write for their catalog. Are they for real? Are
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they just naive? Is this all just a cover-up for New Age forms
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of mind control? Have the traditional relationships of control
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within firms been entirely supplanted by the inherent discipline
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of the market? I don't have the answers. I do know that I
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regularly learn genuinely useful and genuinely ethical things
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from these people's books.
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In case you're curious, they tell me that they're not yet on the
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Internet but they're working on it, and that their point person
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for Internet-based activities is Pat Anderson (510) 339-7467.
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Abstract of the month.
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Andrew Clement and Pater Van den Besselaar, A retrospective look
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at PD projects, Communications of the ACM 36(4), 1993, pages
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29-37.
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Modern methods of information systems design involve the user in
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some way in the development process. However, often this is only
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deemed 'functional,' in that it is reasoned that involving users
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will lead to greater acceptance of the end system. Participatory
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design (PD) techniques attempt to get the user involved in order
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for them to have a say in their eventual working environment.
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PD has changed since its inception in the 1970s. However, many
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aspects remain similar. Detailed is an overview of the history
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of PD. Discussed are many of the PD projects documented since
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the 1970s that were reported at conferences sponsored by IPIF
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Working Group 9.1. Areas analyzed include a definition of PD,
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the method of constructing sample projects, a discussion of the
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actual projects, and general patterns and analysis.
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This abstract comes from the "Mags" database of the University of
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California Libraries' clunky but nonetheless indispensible Melvyl
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system, which is a product of Information Access Company (IAC).
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Follow-up.
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One impassioned reader of TNO 1(2) actually called me a Communist
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sympathizer. Given that the rhetoric of political repression
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is coming back at full strength, it would probably behoove me to
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point out that I am a life-long opponent of Communism. My core
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value, and the core value of TNO, is democracy. Conservatives in
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the US are increasingly open about their opposition to democracy.
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One manifestation of this is the increasingly frequent practice
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of coining metaphors that compare democratic liberalism with
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the Soviet Union, thus insinuating that liberals are basically
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Communists. For example, conservative Republican strategists
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have recently taken to referring to Bill Clinton's health-care
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proposal as "liberalism's Afghanistan", the over-reaching
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invasion that demonstrates the regime's underlying weaknesses
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and helps bring it crashing to the ground. Many of them also
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like to portray democracy as "two wolves and a sheep voting",
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when the more common picture, of course, involves one wolf and
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twenty sheep.
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Heaven knows that democracy in my own country is pretty messed
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up at the moment, but that's why I'm writing TNO. My view is
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that democracy is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon, a
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set of skills for actively getting together to run the collective
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life of the community while respecting individual dignity.
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These skills include getting help, communicating across cultural
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boundaries, networking, organizing things, and so forth. None
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of these skills is innate. All must be learned, and all are in
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danger of disappearing when people are manipulated into passivity
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in the name of some supposedly higher good. We can use networks
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to alleviate this danger -- and to help reverse the damage that
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has already been done -- by sharing our experiences, information,
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strength, and good will, and TNO is my own small contribution to
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this larger project.
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Those who are interested in the issues management now being
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practiced by various players in the Washington telecommunications
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regulation battle might be interested in a press release from a
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coalition of the seven regional Bell companies announcing their
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WWW server, which contains all kinds of lobbying materials. To
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retrieve a copy, send a message that looks like:
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To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
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Subject: archive send bells
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Don't let my rhetoric overly influence you -- read their views
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and make up your own mind. You might also wish to read the
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views of the Information Industry Association, who generally
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want information to be a commodity. In this issue they explain
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their opposition to a bill that would impose a presumption of
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privacy upon personal information kept by state Departments of
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Motor Vehicles, as well as their proposal to commercialize the
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circulation of government documents to libraries. To retrieve a
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copy, send a message that looks like:
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To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
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Subject: archive send iia
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Also, due to popular demand, the article on TNO 1(2) entitled
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"The art of getting help" is now available as a separate file.
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To retrieve a copy, send a message that looks like:
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To: rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu
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Subject: archive send getting-help
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You would be most welcome to post it to your favorite discussion
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group, to beginners on the net, or to people who teach courses
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that involve Internet-based research.
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Phil Agre, editor pagre@ucsd.edu
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Department of Communication
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University of California, San Diego +1 (619) 534-6328
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La Jolla, California 92093-0503 FAX 534-7315
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USA
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The Network Observer is distributed through the Red Rock Eater
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News Service. To subscribe to RRE, send a message to the RRE
|
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server, rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu, whose subject line reads
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"subscribe firstname lastname", for example "Subject: subscribe
|
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Jane Doe". For more information about the Red Rock Eater, send
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a message to that same address with a subject line of "help".
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For back issues etc, use a subject line of "archive send index".
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Copyright 1994 by the editor. You may forward this issue of The
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Network Observer electronically to anyone for any non-commercial
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purpose. Comments and suggestions are always appreciated.
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