Speaker: Community Modelling with DAS
48 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 Newer→ Last
-
She doesn't post, because she remains emotionally attached to her comments, and gets worked up when people disagree with her (or ignore her posts). So she doesn't find the effort worth her while, and is quite happy to lurk, read and enjoy.
I found that quite hard to get over, myself. And still occasionally fall into the trap.
more inhibitions about writing for public consumption; possibly less writing experience
Given that some writers seem to encapsulate their thoughts so well in a few sentences, this is a major obstacle for mee, too. Esp when I try to add nuance or context (and avoid sounding like an opinionated twat).
I also found the less political columns easier to comment on, people are just as passionate about TV or music, but a more inclined to hear othersides of an opinion without taking it personally. (cheers Graham)
-
Sue,
once former lurkers come out and play, probably they find they can relax their guard a little (as they find the PA community isn't that scary after all)
See but i think from this thread there are a few of us who admit that PA is a bit much at times, so we lurk more than post.
which relates to this insightful comment from paul
I also found the less political columns easier to comment on, people are just as passionate about TV or music, but a more inclined to hear othersides of an opinion without taking it personally. (cheers Graham)__iYES - i just read the political threads, becuase honestly i don't want to go there if things get heated
and i love reading the political stuff , becuase i think PA is the best political discussion in NZ, which is pretty coolbut yes I'm more attune to post in what i perceive as less conflict driven threads.
-
sue:
it's true you do have have an amazingly large number of highly well informed and intelligent people here.
russell, (assuming you notice this comment and read it), any more thought given to that 'cage-match' idea i floated with you when you were drawing up system?
if i remember right, you could have a "featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue. then you have a lurkers section where they lurk and/or talk about the experts.
this way the smarty-pants don't dominate the conversation, and the lurkers can ask each other clarifying questions.
-
PS. For example the PAS 1st XV discussing an issue, and the blokes relegated to making the tea.
-
I completely jumped to a wrong conclusion from the subject of the post...
TV advertised in my childhood and still around 30 years later, but not well-enough known to have a wiki entry... ?
-
Interesting idea Che. I wonder however if it would end up being a bit of a 'tree falling in a forest'. How many people wouldn't read because they couldn't contribute?
I wonder if Russell has any thoughts on whether adding system has increased the readership of the straight blogs that he used to have on PA.
-
I completely jumped to a wrong conclusion from the subject of the post...
Das Modeling clay
Well that worked, then. There's some in my daughter's bedroom, I wonder if she'd make a little Russell, and a little David...
whether adding system has increased the readership of the straight blogs
Oh, the potential for deliberate misunderstanding.
if i remember right, you could have a "featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue. then you have a lurkers section where they lurk and/or talk about the experts.
I'm not sure what the idea was in detail, obviously. I'm not big, though, on dividing a community from the top down, rather than letting it naturally precipitate.
-
I'm not so keen on it, Che. Just a bit too hierarchical for my taste. And it could well end up with a two tier system, which would have the effect of ghettoising some participants - "Oh, you're not good enough to play with the big kids, but never mind, have your own little sandpit."
-
russell, (assuming you notice this comment and read it), any more thought given to that 'cage-match' idea i floated with you when you were drawing up system?
if i remember right, you could have a "featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue. then you have a lurkers section where they lurk and/or talk about the experts.
this way the smarty-pants don't dominate the conversation, and the lurkers can ask each other clarifying questions.
The idea of the cage debates was to rope in a half dozen acknowledged experts on a given topic, commit them to at least one post a day for a week, and just watch.
I still might do it some time, but it soon seemed less necessary. The idea was to get a better signal-to-noise ratio, but we sort of got that anyway.
In terms of getting people directly involved in the issues we discuss to come and talk about it, I think we're still let down by the general image of blog discussions: they don't feel secure in joining in. (Although it apparently really __was__Don Brash that time on Kiwiblog.)
Which is why I'm all the more grateful when people like James Griffin and Hamish Keith (and today, Alan Perrott) do front up under their own names.
BTW, for all I know there may be the odd such person lurking behind a pseudonym. I make a point of never knowing the email addresses of registered participants, except when it's absolutely necessary, which it almost never is.
Perhaps we could have a competition to guess who International Observer is ;-)
-
"Nobody Important" with out the tits?
Unnecessarily coarse, Steve, but whatever did happen to Nobody Important?
-
The idea of the cage debates was to rope in a half dozen acknowledged experts on a given topic, commit them to at least one post a day for a week, and just watch.
yeah, that was it.
a secondary objective was to capture some of these debates for posterity. so that people could refer to the debate in a similar way to debatemapper
-
Roping in 'outside' experts for a caged debate does sound like fun. Can we lay bets on the outcome? Who's going to sell the popcorn? And will the loser get the thumbs down, permanently?
-
if i remember right, you could have a "featured-comments" section where only your given experts discuss an issue. then you have a lurkers section where they lurk and/or talk about the experts.
I like the idea of selecting a different group of "experts" for different topics, but for all you'd improve the signal-to-noise ratio, I think you'd end up burying the semi-regular gems contributed by first-time posters who log in specifically because they know the subject.
-
Roping in 'outside' experts for a caged debate does sound like fun. Can we lay bets on the outcome? Who's going to sell the popcorn? And will the loser get the thumbs down, permanently?
I have this strange urge now to watch Linux Geeks wrestle.
-
Roping in 'outside' experts for a caged debate does sound like fun. Can we lay bets on the outcome? Who's going to sell the popcorn?
seriously... try to imagine a week-long debate between tim shadbolt and michael laws about a local body issue of trivial importance, and have it *not* be fun...
-
Oh, I agree, Che. It's just that I would enjoy the sideline banter too, enormously. I genuinely do like the idea of invited experts posting their thing (c/f doing their thing) with the rest of us watching on, and no doubt commenting vociferously from the sidelines. Wot larks!
As for Laws vs Shadbolt, I would pick Laws every time. He is a stunning debater.
(Disclosure: I was involved in university debating at the more-or-less the same time as Michael Laws.)
-
I've just spent the last few days not just lurking but actively hiding from this comments thread (for all the reasons everyone else has mentioned), but as I did state publicly at ADA that I am going to try to lurk less and contribute more on our mailing list I guess I should actually take a tentative step forward here….
Thanks, Emma, for such a lovely summary of the weekend's events. It was great to have you along, and there were a lot of references to Bardic web through the rest of the weekend, so your contribution was continued even when you couldn’t be there.
The whole issue of participation is a bit of a background concern for the ADA list. Most of the time it’s pretty quiet, just carrying announcements, and it would be nice if it was busier and more communicative but most of us don’t have enough time to seriously cultivate that (and uhh, are serial lurkers ourselves anyway…), and it’s not necessarily a problem. There are some great models of really active mailing lists around digital / media arts, and the most notable at the moment I think are the IDC and Empyre lists where the moderators actively cultivate discussion around specific topics by inviting expert people to post. As Adam pointed out in our panel discussion at ADA, when someone of high status in your particular field asks you to write about a specific topic or project you feel much more committed to actually posting. I guess this is what Russell does already on PAS with inviting people to write regular or guest blogs, and what the caged debate idea would extend.
We’ve tried doing that a little with ADA, to encourage discussions around specific topics leading up to particular events, and it has been productive but is limited ultimately by how much time people are willing to put into it. And since I tend to avoid that level of contribution myself I don’t feel like I can really push other people too far on that one! (It’s actually the Audio foundation list where conflict tends to play more of a role in stimulating discussion (I was speaking about both at the symposium) – but I think that’s a more usual tendency of music-based forums, and it’s fun! (to watch from the sidelines anyway))
I think PAS is a great example of an active community of bloggers and commenters because a core group of people have actually, and I suspect not necessarily consciously, committed to contributing to discussion. There is real value in the level of discussion – issues get teased apart, new ideas get voiced, new content gets created for people like me to read while avoiding other work. But maintaining that level requires that people to feel compelled to contribute, and can manage that contribution without worrying about it for hours and days before each post. It’s that sense of commitment that I find really interesting here.
-
Hi, Zita! I feel an 'in ur community lowrin ur participashun threshold' coming on...
As Adam pointed out in our panel discussion at ADA, when someone of high status in your particular field asks you to write about a specific topic or project you feel much more committed to actually posting.
Yeah, that jumped out at me. I spent some time after that contemplating whether Russell counts as a 'guru', and what a loaded word guru is.
But I think it goes for beta-testing too. If someone invites you to be a part of a community before it goes officially public, to seed or work out the bugs or whatever, you feel a greater attachment to it, and something of a sense of ownership. Choose those people carefully and they'll give you their time and wit and expertise, and lay down the foundations of 'correct behaviour' for you community, and all for nothing.
-
Oh! And I was thinking about experts cage-wrestling, and I remembered the first article David H did for PA, on energy policy. That was a wee gem. Maybe that would be a good area for expert death-matches getting closer to the election: experts analysing party policy in their particular area.
-
Sue,
seriously... try to imagine a week-long debate between tim shadbolt and michael laws about a local body issue of trivial importance, and have it *not* be fun...
honestly easily, it just doesn't feed into my soul because at the end of the date it will devolve into hate and rhetoric, not actual informed debated.
that said it's election time and election debates are a load of arse.
And there are some key issues out there, maybe to find both politicians and advocates of an issues, could prove fascinating.then again what are the issue th PA peeps each care about?
- i think all new roads should have cycle lanes, and i don't even cycle, but i'd hate to git a stupid cyclist who is under the impression all the road belongs to them -
Oh! And I was thinking about experts cage-wrestling, and I remembered the first article David H did for PA, on energy policy. That was a wee gem. Maybe that would be a good area for expert death-matches getting closer to the election: experts analysing party policy in their particular area.
Hear hear. That was a PA article that still sticks in my head and which I've mentioned to people occasionally.
Intelligent, reasoned information during an election campaign. We could try it for a laugh I guess.
-
Oh! And I was thinking about experts cage-wrestling, and I remembered the first article David H did for PA, on energy policy. That was a wee gem. Maybe that would be a good area for expert death-matches getting closer to the election: experts analysing party policy in their particular area.
Good idea. I love the idea of informed comparison of policy, rather than the usual tit-for-tat of talking heads from the respective parties.
I suspect finding commentators as knowledgeable and able to write as well as David does ain't going to be easy, though.
-
I love the idea of informed comparison of policy, rather than the usual tit-for-tat of talking heads from the respective parties.
I suspect finding commentators as knowledgeable and able to write as well as David does ain't going to be easy, though.
have them sub-edited.
it could be the first step on sending public address over to the dark side.
"Public Address: New Zealand's Premier Online Newspaper <strike>that isn't Scoop</strike>"
Post your response…
This topic is closed.