Thoughts on exclusion and culture

[gulplum]

I've always had a problem with people trying to equate mailing lists 
with parties or academic seminars. Over the (eek!) almost ten years 
of my presence online, people have always been trying to come up with 
analogies. I want to offer (as I have in the past) an alternative.

My main issue with those analogies is that they focus on the least 
important element, namely the immediacy of reply. Yet at the same 
time, the two most important elements (in respect of 
discussion/conversation analogies) of being at a party or seminar 
fall completely flat, namely the possibility of interrupting (or 
being interrupted), or perhaps worse, the possibility of being 
pointedly ignored. The analogy is also fallacious by the absence of 
the opportunity for off-the-cuff rejoinders which might get a smile 
but are otherwise lost in the ether. 

Without those, the analogy simply makes no sense, and there is no 
point in being at the party or seminar. You may as well rely on a 
report of the event (including, in the case of the seminar, the full 
text of the proceedings).

Let's therefore take a step back. We have a community, the members of 
which are communicating with each other.

My own "real-world" analogy for mailing lists and usenet groups is 
that of the "letter to the editor" page of a local (or other 
community) newspaper (or professional magazine), or indeed a 
newspaper which contains only unsolicited reader-submitted material 
of all kinds, of interest to that community. The only element the 
internet introduces is the fact that the publication is continuously 
updated. 

Heck, in the case of HPFGU the analogy even goes as far as the fact 
that an "editorial team" (i.e. the Mods) determine whether posts are 
worthy of inclusion for whatever reason. Of course, for the benefit 
of the mods' sanity and time, once someone has shown that their posts 
(generally) meet the basic criteria, they are left to self-edit. 

Take as an example the famous "letters to the editor" page of the 
London Times. Every day, there will be a mixture of items, some 
intellectually challenging, some not. Some will be reactions to news 
items in previous editions, some will highlight items of concern 
whether political or otherwise, some will be written in verse (!) and 
some will just be humorous anecdotes or observations. But all of them 
will have been deemed of interest to the Times-reading "community" 
(consisting of people who are, are perceived to be, or perceive 
themselves to be, the movers and shakers in British and world 
society). 

Nobody is expected to read *every* letter published, and letters 
occasionally include in-jokes of some kind or another, which 
frequently can only be fully understood by regular readers of the 
paper. New readers might scratch their heads at some of the antics 
that go on, but they don't complain that topic X is above their heads 
and thus should not be debated. Actually, that's an assumption on my 
part; I don't know that the Times editorial team don't get letters 
that letter X should NOT have been published. Similarly, we, the 
general readership of HPFGU, are not aware what complaints the Mod 
team get about posts, and this list is the first opportunity we have 
of seeing some element of what might cause frustration in some 
members of our community.

The party analogy is further incorrect because if two or more people 
go off to have a private conversation, they generally miss out on the 
rest of what's going on. Similarly, attempts at one-to-one 
conversations with the keynote speaker at a seminar occur after the 
main business has been concluded, and cannot have an impact on the 
conference as a whole. Yet here, as with "letters to the editor" one 
has the opportunity to make contact with authors away from the 
published page, and occasionally (by mutual consent) report back, all 
the while not missing what's been going on in the community as a 
whole.

By juxtaposing "party" and "seminar" as analogies, one is focusing on 
the level of formality of the (mutual?) communication. I don't see 
any reason to force any such juxtaposition. Serious or important 
points of interest can be made equally well either formally or 
informally, depending solely on the intent and ability of the author, 
as well as the context. 

Incidentally, if one wants an internet equivalent of the "party", I'd 
say that one should look at IRC or chat rooms. Several conversations 
going on at once, people talking over each other, a complete 
informality, the option of going off to "private areas", etc, etc. We 
have the mixture of informality, (un)limited chaos and free-for-all, 
not to mention the ephemeral nature (until one is confronted with 
logs...). :-)

I think it's helpful on a day-to-day basis to think of a mailing list 
as a "letters to the editor". Not in terms of style, but more in 
terms of general content (is anyone going to *want* to read this?), 
legibility (am I making my point?), general  comprehensibility (is 
the point I'm trying to make clear), courtesy (would a reasonable 
person be offended by what I'm saying or the way I'm saying it?) and 
originality (has someone else already said what I'm trying to say? 
Recently?). 

There is no need to descend to a lowest common denominator in all or 
any of these elements, but ultimately it comes down to understanding 
your audience (which is why it's generally considered appropriate to 
lurk for a while). Your audience doesn't have to be the *whole* 
community, but you have to be fairly confident that some significant 
proportion of the community *might* be interested in what you have to 
say.

-- 
GulPlum AKA Richard, who's beginning to ramble, so will shut up.