Comments? Illustrations? Write to Serchan.
The inverse relation is equally plausible. As the struggle to communicate (to maintain and develop understanding) goes on, people perceive that they think about the topical problem in similar ways, leading to progressively more 'off-topic' and personal issues and perhaps going on to 'flesh-meets' and real-life partnering. In this case, the effect is not so much erosion as accretion -- the building up of social relations from the raw materials of formality.
Under existing internet protocols, it is not possible to tell which effect predominates; any research must rely on self-reporting subjects (a notoriously dubious proposition), and the ambiguity will likely persist. The point of relevance here, however, is the matter of trust: the first scenario (invoked in calls for third-party 'moderation') basically distrusts subscribers' ability to keep their affairs in order, while the second equally clearly reflects their readiness to trust one another. (This can be restated in terms of alienation and depression (1).)
Now. whether one trusts or distrusts one's fellows is largely a function of one's own trustworthiness, which in turn correlates with whether or not one has been trusted in the past, and ultimately, with how one was brought up.
Thus, the issue for cyber-organization (as either 'hard' conference or 'soft' community) is how to sustain its chosen model, either in the face of 'invasion' by neighborly types, or at the risk of 'decay' into triviality as its more outgoing and confident members move on with life in other dimensions. The 'hard' road is well represented through administrative protocols, such as closed subscriptions, edited postings, 'peer review,' etc. The 'soft' path, on the other hand, seems to be at a loss: while (in theory) the same tactics could be used, their implementation (even in the form of 'benevolent dictatorship') goes against the community spirit. (2)
Is there a way to apply a more 'democratic' process in this case? Perhaps full peer reviewed pre-publication would serve -- but this would effectively constitute a list in its own right. Only the topic, not the chance of authoritarian control, would change. To my mind, a more consistent approach comes directly from the 'equation of trust': we who find trust because we expect trust (that is, to be trusted) have a responsibility not to disappear in a cloud of RL bliss, but to continue on-list; to sustain an ambience in which others can likewise learn to trust and to be trusted.
It may well be that such 'learning' (revelation may be a more apt term) occurs only 'IPL,' in living, breathing, touching life -- how can we (who are only recent immigrants to cyberspace, and bringing our mundane conceptual baggage with us) know? Nevertheless, this is only a change of emphasis, of 'logical level': perhaps what must be conveyed in cyberspacial discourse is the need to maintain PL connections; the understanding that virtual reality does not (cannot), in itself, define virtue. (3)
So this is, as they say, the point: I am not staking a claim for supremacy of one sphere over another, but for the essentiality of their coexistence. It is not enough to simply take for granted that an alternative will always be at hand (or keyboard, despite the progress that 'access' has made as a fundamental right); even as one struggles to overcome the 'honorable opposition,' the opponent must be able to keep hyr honor -- to remain viable on one level or another. The prime indicator of being too sure is the disappearance of levels -- of doubt, double meaning, ambiguity.
To catechise:
Can such an approach be saying that when someone calls for a (virtual) show of hands, only then does one exercise hyr franchise? No, because that begs the question of who shall call. Does it say there is some cut-and-dried test (by keywords, for instance) which is known to 'insiders' but must be discovered 'the hard way' by outsiders? No, for that takes both the criterion and ones access to it for granted. Does it connote a total absence of discrimination, an 'anything goes' or 'feel good' philosophy? No, for that belies the concept of pursuit altogether: older hands are in fact very likely wiser and will have much to offer the neophyte.
Is the 'pursuit of clarity' -- also known as realization -- both (and indistinguishably) an internal and an external process which puts all parties to the dialogue on a par? Indeed, yes, for it is that parity which is the hallmark of a demos (whether in application, as -cracy or -stration, or in translation as communitas) and which therefore, is equally obliged and privileged to preserve and perpetuate itself on whatever levels it can manage. No hierarchic diktat can call it into being, or extinguish it, and anyone trying should bloody well be told where to get off.(4)
The conventional idea that action is the result of choice is not only fallacious ('post hoc, ergo propter hoc'), but stultifying. By observing where that choice emerges, however, one discovers various logical levels, and is enriched. The trust that I am speaking of is the revelation of this potential; of recognizing, and being recognized as, more than one thought.
>Yes, it's amazing to me how many people here are suffering from >depression and I really think it's a condition of the country at large, a >postmodern condition, something like that. But then there's so little >reaching out in spite of everything...See also A HREF="../9216km.htm">VR and RL.