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. :))