Electronic communications and communities.

Electronic communications and communities. The barriers to communication between scholars and between scholarsand the public have been falling as the Internet has grown. Althoughmost of the publicity goes to the web, surveys show that the email isused by more people. Since it is based on characters rather thangraphics, bandwidth and modem speed are less problematic than they arefor web pages. In addition, while the web is the best way to disseminate dis��sem��i��nate?v. dis��sem��i��nat��ed, dis��sem��i��nat��ing, dis��sem��i��natesv.tr.1. To scatter widely, as in sowing seed.2. information on the internet, electronic conferences and newsgroups This is a list of newsgroups that are significant for their popularity or their position in Usenet history.As of October 2002, there are about 100,000 Usenet newsgroups, of which approximately a fifth are active. arestill the best way to interact on the internet. Electronic conferencesfor archaeologists began in 1986 when Sebastian Rahtz and Kris Lockyearcreated the 'Archaeological Information Exchange.' Four yearslater AIE AIE Adventures in EducationAIE Associazione Italiana Editori (Italy)AIE Arts in EducationAIE Associazione Italiana di EpidemiologiaAIE Applied Information EconomicsAIE Australian Institute of Energy begat ARCH-L and the number of archaeologists participatinghas grown steadily. Today ARCH-L has about 1800 subscribers in 44different countries; most subscribers are in the US and the UK. ARCH-Lnow averages about 16 messages a day; just under 3000 messages wereposted in the first 6 months of 1997. In addition to ARCH-L, there noware at least 40 other electronic conferences and newsgroups coveringdifferent aspects of archaeology.The advantages to electronic discussion are significant, but thedisadvantages are often irritating enough to discourage beginners fromgetting started. The primary advantage is the opportunity to discuss atopic with people all over the world. A question regarding an obscuresubject has an amazingly good chance of getting an informative responseon an active discussion group. Topics of passionate interest to you,that cause your local colleagues to roll their eyes, will often findothers who are equally passionate on electronic conferences. Electronicconferences are good places to ask for assistance, to notify yourcolleagues of upcoming events and to try out new ideas (assuming you areprepared for devastating dev��as��tate?tr.v. dev��as��tat��ed, dev��as��tat��ing, dev��as��tates1. To lay waste; destroy.2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. responses). They allow information to bedisseminated rapidly around the world. They allow more people toparticipate in a discussion than would be possible at a professionalmeeting or conference.The disadvantages flow from two major problems: too much informationand too little common courtesy. The volume of messages on a busydiscussion group can be very high, more than anyone would probably wantto read in a single day. Furthermore, certain topics tend to come uprepeatedly on a discussion group. People subscribe and unsubscribe To cancel a service. It is often possible to unsubscribe to an e-mail service by typing the word "unsubscribe" into a reply message. Contrast with subscribe. See opt-out. sothere is always someone who does not realize that the topic wasdiscussed to death six months ago. We are all accustomed to filteringout extraneous ex��tra��ne��ous?adj.1. Not constituting a vital element or part.2. Inessential or unrelated to the topic or matter at hand; irrelevant. See Synonyms at irrelevant.3. information about us: ignoring notices on bulletinboards, advertisements on television or radio, discarding junk mail See spam and junk faxes. andscanning over newspapers and journals for items of interest. Most of ushave not fully adapted our filters to electronic media yet. Increasinglythe software programs provide a range of filtering and filingcapabilities that make it easier to deal with the volume of information.The problem with common courtesy also relates to the novelty ofelectronic communication. It is very easy to reply and it is very easyto forget that the cues that we use to modify the exact meaning of ourwords in spoken communication do not transmit over the internet. Sarcasmusually fails in electronic communication since it depends not on whatis said, but how it is said. Because you do not see the person to whomyou are sending a message, it is easier to be rude and harder to avoidbeing misunderstood. In addition to inadvertent insults, there are alsosome who thrive on conflict and deliberate harassment Ask a Lawyer QuestionCountry: United States of AmericaState: NevadaI recently moved to nev.from abut have been going back to ca. every 2 to 3 weeks for med. or humiliation.Internet discussion groups fall into two broad categories: newsgroupsand electronic conferences. Each of these groups can be furthersubdivided into moderated and unmoderated groups. Moderated newsgroupsand electronic conferences have editors ('moderators') whoreview each message before it is distributed. In 'the good olddays' (before most people knew about the Internet) newsgroups wereunmoderated and there continues to be controversy regarding moderatedlists. This controversy would be of greater concern if it involvedchanging all lists and newsgroups from unmoderated ones to moderatedones. In fact, they readily coexist co��ex��ist?intr.v. co��ex��ist��ed, co��ex��ist��ing, co��ex��ists1. To exist together, at the same time, or in the same place.2. and each meets differentcommunication needs.Newsgroups are bulletin boards for various topics. Each message isposted to the bulletin board where it stays for a limited amount oftime. The messages are stored on computers with large storage capacitiesand are retrieved with news client software. There are over 20,000newsgroups and no newsgroup newsgroupInternet forum for discussion of specific subjects. Newsgroups are organized into subjects (e.g., automobiles); each typically has several subgroups (e.g., classic cars, Formula One racing cars). server stores all of them. Posting a messageto the bulletin board involves sending an email message to thenewsgroup. Because of their organization newsgroups have a number ofadvantages. You do not actually subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day"subscribe, takebuy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; a newsgroup. Your newsreader software keeps track of the groups you are most interested in andretrieves message headers from those groups. You retrieve only themessages that you are interested in. You can readily add or remove agroup at any time without having to contact anyone else. The messagesare stored at a single location for you to retrieve as you need them.They are not automatically sent to your email account email accountemail n → compte m (e-)mailso you do not payfor messages you do not want. For this reason, they will not fill youremail account storage space if you leave town for an extended period oftime. News reader software makes it is easy to follow a particularthread on a newsgroup (a linked series of messages on a particularsubject and the various responses).The principal disadvantages to newsgroups are that you must retrievethe messages regularly or they will drop off the bulletin board beforeyou have seen them. There are archives for newsgroups that areaccessible from web browsers The following is a list of web browsers. HistoricalHistorically important browsersIn order of release: WorldWideWeb, February 26, 1991 Erwise, April 1992 ViolaWWW, May 1992, see Erwise that allow you to retrieve old messages soyou can generally track down something you've missed - if you knowthat you missed it. The second disadvantage of newsgroups is that theycan be bombarded by commercial messages that have little or nothing todo with the topic of the group ('spam'). You may have to siftthrough a large number of message headers to find those you areinterested in. Anyone with an Internet connection can post messages toany unmoderated newsgroup.Electronic conferences are managed by software that keeps track ofthe conference subscribers and distributes any message sent to theconference email address See Internet address. to all subscribers. You subscribe to anelectronic conference by sending a message to the program that managesthe list (or sometimes to the person who manages the list). Oncesubscribed, you receive copies of every message sent to the list. Sinceyou receive the messages in your email inbox, you do not miss anymessages if you are unable to check your mail for a few days. On theother hand, if the disk space that has been allocated to your emailaccount fills, additional messages are returned to the sender. Since themessages come directly to your email account, extraneous and nuisancemessages can be very irritating.Unmoderated lists (and newsgroups) can have a relatively highpercentage of postings that do not seem to be on the subject. Theseinclude jokes, personal messages to one or two other subscribers,personal attacks and other generally irrelevant information. It oftenseems that if the list subscribers could just control themselves (orsomeone else would control them) that more of the list messages would beclosely related to the topic the list was created to discuss. Discussionof certain topics may seem to continue indefinitely and may be generatedby a few people who seem to be endlessly repeating themselves. Tolerancefor off-topic messages is also affected by the type of email accountthat one has. In the US Internet access See how to access the Internet. is now readily available andmoderately priced at fiat [Latin, Let it be done.] In old English practice, a short order or warrant of a judge or magistrate directing some act to be done; an authority issuing from some competent source for the doing of some legal act. rates so that the number of messages a personreceives does not affect the cost of the service. Elsewhere in the worldthis is not the case, and paying for a message that contains a joke orpersonal attack can be galling.Unmoderated lists also have difficulty wrapping up a topic. Peoplejoin the list in the middle of a discussion and repeat points madeearlier or they ignore a discussion for a while and then jump in. Mostlists now have archives that subscribers should check before raising anissue, but list archives are still not regularly accessed in myexperience. Since unmoderated lists often have automated means ofsubscribing and unsubscribing, people often participate for a while,then leave, and then come back. In the last six months, 34 people leftARCH-L each week and 40 joined. The turnover is not as great as thenumbers suggest since people unsubscribe and subscribe when they changeemail accounts, leave town for an extended period of time or get toobusy to participate.Electronic conferences provide a greater variety of ways to controlthe flow of messages than newsgroups allow. A list can be closed,requiring approval from the list-owner before someone can subscribe tothe list. A professional society can limit participation in a list tothose who are members of the society. Closed lists are also an effectiveway for a group of scholars who are working on a particular project tocommunicate if they are scattered around the world. For large lists thatare not tightly focused, closing the list just creates problems for thelist-owner who has to decide who gets in and who does not. For openlists, some list-management software (e.g. listserv) provides othertools to control the list. These include filtering (removing asubscriber and preventing him or her from subscribing again); limitingthe number of messages per subscriber per day; or limiting the length ofan individual message.A conference or newsgroup can be further controlled by moderating it.In a moderated newsgroup or conference one or more moderators review amessage before it can be distributed. Moderated lists can keep thediscussion tightly focused and prevent topics that are off the subjector have been previously discussed from appearing. To operateeffectively, the moderators must make the commitment to process messagespromptly. How well a moderated list works depends entirely on thequality of the moderators. Moderated lists are censored cen��sor?n.1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.2. only in the sameway that newspapers, magazines, and electronic broadcasts are censored;someone decides what gets included and what does not.Given the advantages of a moderated list - greater focus, fewermessages, less repetition - why would anyone subscribe to an unmoderatedlist? Both exist and are likely to continue to exist as long as theInternet is around. There is no need for every electronic conference tobe the same (either moderated or unmoderated). Archaeologists, andpeople interested in archaeology, will participate in a variety offorums organized in different ways. That diversity should be encouraged.There are several reasons to participate in an unmoderated discussionlist. One is that the speed and spontaneity spon��ta��ne��i��ty?n. pl. spon��ta��ne��i��ties1. The quality or condition of being spontaneous.2. Spontaneous behavior, impulse, or movement.Noun 1. of an unmoderated list canmake up for its sometimes chaotic content. Especially for obscurequestions, a larger list provides a better chance of getting a usefulanswer. Although the turnover in subscribers can be substantial,electronic conferences help people to discover new colleagues. They leadto the creation of simple communities that are connected by a commoninterest. Secondly, we widely recognize the important of academicfreedom as the only way to ensure vigorous, creative approaches tounderstanding the world around us. I think that the right to academicfreedom carries with it a professional responsibility to exposeourselves to competing viewpoints, even if they are antagonistic antagonisticadjective Referring to any combination of 2 or more drugs, which results in a therapeutic effect that is less than the sum of each drug's effect. Cf Additive, Synergism. . Everyarchaeologist works for the public in one respect or another. You willget a better sense of what the public thinks about archaeology(including your students and prospective students) from an unmoderatedgroup. You may also get useful ideas that are relevant to your ownresearch from messages that seem to be on completely different topics.Permitting the free expression of controversial ideas does not mean thatanything is permitted. Unmoderated lists have every right to establishrules against expression that is obscene and threatening. They also havethe right to establish guidelines for participation so that thediscussions are not dominated by a few individuals. With these rules inplace, the potential for collaborative interaction and opportunity tolearn more about one's field is enormous.