Forum Snapshots

The last time I posted about something here about the computing ethics subject I'm currently taking up, it had that tone of a dilemma about whether to post my experience being active at highfiber. It was due primarily to the fact that the place is pretty much an asylum sans the downright retardedness back in the time I choose to associated my activeness with the site.

It goes without saying then that to write of the experience in a relatively more formal online venue would be to advertise myself short of being an alpha male online. At least that was how I saw it.

And it didn't help me either to go on and on revising my supposed post. What had me eventually post my piece on the forum personality question was the professor's reaction towards my comment on the ethics of killing because of self-defense.

To make the long story short, the professor misunderstood what I said. I can't say I blame him though because of the way I chose to shorten my comment. The venue was definitely more formal than what I'm used to at highfiber hence the need to be more on the look out for what I leave around there.

So I answered back essentially to clarify myself. Apparently there was no harm intended from our mentor really. In choosing to answer back the way I did however, it suddenly struck me that I already showed a glimpse of my arrogance, and philosopher and grammarian tendencies. In doing so, I found it much easier to finalize the revisions to my piece and go ahead with posting what I had in mind for the question.

Who says flame wars always end up ugly? :D

Prelude to a Few Forum Snapshots

Since last week, I've had my answer to the activity for module 6 where the student's forum behavior is asked of. Here's a snippet for the instructions for the exercise for the module in particular:

...Our activity would be to go over the various types of "Flame Warriors"by Mark Reed and find out which of the types you identify with (there are more than 80 types, so no denial queen/king here) and also maybe those whom you often meet in your online encounters.

Then write a post about it (a kind of short essay- try to think out of the box) - about yourself and about others. Try to comment to at least 1 post that your classmate would make (to encourage, to clarify, to console, or to empathize.)

It wasn't easy to come up with content as I've registered a lot of "hits" in that checklist in describing myself and other people I've interacted with at highfiber. Hell, I didn't even bother writing each categorization despite the fact that I've picked up at least 20 personas easily!

I'm unsure though as to how my classmates there would take the personas to which I qualify. The decorum on our online forum at upou is generally formal and accomodating while hifi, to which I associate myself with for more than 5 years now, is more on the "alternative" side of online interaction. By alternative, I'm referring to how the community started as a sanctuary for people who have had enough of poseur-stuff at friendster and PEX--enormous blinking texts, attention-whoring animated GIFs, etc.

What struck me when I first had my way around the site was how unpretentious the people were in talking about stuff in such a way that it ended up worth finding time to actually read content there. And stuff there's literally anything under the sun: politics, current events, global warming, education, religion, economics, dating, kids, etc.

People there refer to the place as an asylum and one of the many reasons why is that flamewars often erupt there. Unlike other forums though, people there actually have accepted the fact as a way of life, as something imminent because of the diversity of people there and the amorphousness of the community itself. I've been to a lot of other more orderly forums but I just can't find myself writing about any other forum apart from hifi.

So I'm actually thinking hard over my supposed post over the last few days. No matter how I tone down what I wrote, it still ends up meaning something I'm too hesitant to post especially if it's to be read by "normal" people. :))

Why Searching Has Become a Skill

Since the ethics portfolio is to appear a journal as much as possible, I've decided to "litter' this with my little thoughts on related stuff. Seemingly-related ones included.

Sir GGR's piece on how to answer the forums got my attention the other day. That is when he said:

Just one thing to remember though..., the challenge for all is personal critical thinking and personal reflection. Don't just accept what people have written but rather process them and be brave to post your own insights (backed by evidences of course).

This is what we lack in this technology and information-rich society. Let's face it, many in today's world can't process quality of information rather they get lost or drowned in the superficial ones.

How true.

How else would you explain the difficulty of getting decent material from searches these days? Sure there are some gems you'll get to stumble along the way but that still doesn't account for the rest of the senseless ones you'll have to wade through to get to the good stuff. And by good stuff I mean those that actually qualify as valid sources from the subject.

It is quite rare when you'd find someone who actually spends time writing substantial thoughts on his/her own. Personally I find it so much an eyesore to wade through too much post-modern delivery of entries in a particular blog.

Try and make a real paper acceptable to strict academic standards and you'll get what I mean. Sure wikipedia gets you off to a good start but there's still a lot of work to be done.

That and the popularity of readers to get content perceived to be worth one's time are telltale in themselves. While the issue of convenience to get information the fastest way seems to be the reason for the popularity of the latter, it also brings to fore another reason: time spent for searching for sensible content is better spent for something more productive.

Finally we see SEO as another buzzword in growing usage around cyberspace. With the battle of the search rankings raging on for the past few years because of the Web 2.0 movement, it really isn't hard to see how the quality of content has to eventually give way to its quantity.

And to think that once I was raring to post this interesting piece on what the author calls "social surplus" somewhere. Perhaps Luis hit something there when writing about his piece about "blogs and their rather sordid relationship with mainstream media:"

The point I’m trying to make is this: I do not begrudge anyone their grammatically-challenged, horribly-written detailing-my-last-shampoo-purchase train-wreck-of-a-blog. This is your God-given right as someone who (probably) pays for Internet access. However, we shouldn’t sell it like it’s the cure for cancer either. We need to accept the fact that the Internet - particularly the part of it that’s user-generated - is full of crap. It’s filled to the brim and everyday the container overflows and splashes everyone in the face with crap. And we shouldn’t wonder why people on the other side of the fence look at us and shake their heads, saying, “Wow, look at those people doing backflips into that giant pool of feces.”

Right.