The Lego Tech Queen

From One Bright Star...yes I've been lifting a lot from her lately. Make your own at The Mini-Mizer.

Posted by prolurkr at 10:47 PM | TrackBack

Serenity

Ok if, like me, you are a Joss Whedon fan go see Serenity.  If you were a fan of Firefly go see Serenity.  Golly if you just like fun movies go see Serenity.

I really enjoyed it...now I know where Reavers come from. *shivers*  Hubby, who doesn't know all the backstory from the episodes liked it too and says he would recommend it as well.

I'm not telling you any more than that...just go see it.  Get up and go...now...scoot...move.  LOL

Posted by prolurkr at 10:22 PM | TrackBack

Fall is falling into my frame

It's been chilly here today, high of 72 F and low of 45 F.  Of course my house has not warmed up appreciably from last evenings chill.  Fall is definitely here.  The leaves will be turning in 10 days or so. 

I'm sitting here writing this wearing jeans and a long sleeved sweater with a scarf, one of those partially knitted scarves that are popular.  You know the kind where the mixed yarns and ribbons are held together with an inch of knitting for every six inches of open work.  My frugal country girl ways are in direct conflict with the concept of paying money for holes.  Oh well...my occasional dip into fashion. 

Well none the less it is getting colder.  I am so jealous of Anya and her world of spring blooms in AU, the picture is from her Flickr feed.  I wonder if it is possible to work some sort of wild cross university appointment so I can always have warm weather, you know spring and summer in Indiana and spring and summer in Australia or New Zealand.  Yeah I know it won't work but a girl has to have dreams and warm weather dreams are way better then my upcoming reality of tights and long undies.  *sigh*  I hate winter.

Posted by prolurkr at 06:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CFP: The Theory and Practice of Life Writing: Auto/biography, Memoir and Travel Writing in Post/modern Literature

CFP: The Theory and Practice of Life Writing:  Auto/biography, Memoir and Travel Writing in Post/modern Literature (Turkey) (2/20/06; 4/19/06-4/21/06)
 
We are inviting 20-minute papers for a symposium to be held by Halic University in Istanbul, Turkey, 19-21
April 2006 on the subject of the modern self in and as writing.

What does it mean to transform the self – or oneself – into writing in a modern or postmodern world? This symposium will focus on the theory and practice of auto/biographical writing from the end of the 19th century until today, and on its many genres and sub-genres; from memoirs to family histories to travelogues. Along the way, some of the following questions may be addressed: How do auto/biographies reflect cultural differences? What are the strategies employed by authors to turn their lives into narrative? Is there an ethics of auto/biography? Is all writing in some sense autobiographical?
 
Additional sub-genres and topics may include:
-Auto/biography and gender studies
-Ethnic auto/biography
-Auto/biographical novel/poetry/drama
-Disability/disease auto/biography
-The (in)significance of the body in auto/biographies
-Concepts of nationhood and history in auto/biography, memoirs and travelogues
-Creation of cultural and/or collective memory through life writing
-Film as auto/biography
-Use of photograph and other media in auto/biography
-Exile and diaspora
-Childhood
-Postcolonial auto/biography
-Auto/biography and psychoanalytic theory

Selected contributors will be invited to expand their papers into essays to be published in a collection.

More information / abstract submission (one-page abstract of your paper and a brief curriculum vitae by
20 February 2006):  halic2006_at_yahoo.com

Posted by prolurkr at 05:27 PM | TrackBack

Shelob is available for your research pleasure

My friend and collaborator Pete Welsch, a big advocate of open-source software, has released Shelob into the research wilds.

Shelob is a F/OSS system for collecting, analyzing, and sharing blog data that is driven by a number of Perl scripts and a PostgreSQL database. It will go beta at my AoIR presentation on October 7, 2005.

I've seen a couple of test runs on he program and the output is impressive. If you are interested in blog link analysis I suggest you give the site a look see.

Posted by prolurkr at 03:22 PM | TrackBack

Dealing with the university's course software beta release

Just got off the phone with a very nice and polite tech guy who explained to me that what I needed the courseware software to do is unavailable.  Now what I want the software to do is pretty simple and straightforward, and should be available in a "Beta" release but isn't in this pre-Beta Beta release.  

The tech gay said "It's a special feature that the software doesn't perform that action at this time."  SOOOO in other words it's now a special feature that the software sucks.  I complemented the tech on both his professionalism and his ability to keep his sense of humor, he was working hard not to laugh along with me at what was said. Sorry this one was just to funny not to share. 

Remember this line the next time you need to get out of a sticky situation, "It's a special feature..."

Posted by prolurkr at 12:06 PM | TrackBack

Lotus Fest 2005

Last Saturday night, Sept 24, hubby and I caught up with each other in Bloomington and attended the Lotus World Music & Arts Festival.  If you love world music than Lotus Fest is the place to visit.  We heard three groups, all outstanding.

• Creole Cowboys: Cajun and Zydeco music from southern Louisiana. Dance baby just get up and dance! What can I say hubby and I both love Cajun and Zydeco and the Creole Cowboys were outstanding.
• Samarabalouf (site in French only): Samarabalouf are French performers of Gypsy Jazz. If you like Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt then this group is for you. Hubby said he could have listened to them all night. I enjoyed the performance but would have loved it had it been in a different venue. We were at the Bluebird Nightclub where people were packed in standing cheek to jowl, not my kinda thing. I do wish we had had the personal steam to stay, remember we had an hour plus to drive home in two cars, and see them again at First Presbyterian Church for the late show (10:45 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.) I think I would have enjoyed the group much more with a set where I could see. 
• Rachel Davis & Jake Armerding: Well what can I say, I'm a confirmed folkee as anyone who has read much of this blog already knows.  Any chance I get to see live folk music is a little slice of heaven to me.  In this case it was definitely heavenly to hear Rachel Davis' incredible voice ringing through the First United Methodist Church.  If you get a chance to hear Rachel I really recommend it. Her album Minor League Deities is available online.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:36 AM | TrackBack

Announcing "Teen Works 2005: Young People and the Internet"

WISE KIDS and IT Wales are co-organising a one day conference entitled, "Teen Works 2005: Young People and the Internet", on the 15th of November 2005. The conference will be held at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, and is one of the events held as part of ict forum wales 2005.

The conference aims to explore young people's awareness and use of the Internet and mobile phones, and look at current and upcoming trends in this area. It also aims to look at current research and guidelines in this area, and provide relevant examples and strategies that young people and adults can use to take advantage of the Internet and mobile phone technologies, whilst ensuring their personal safety. Through the specialist seminars in the afternoon, topics like child protection issues and moderating online communities will also be covered.

The speakers for the event will include Rhian Davies, Assistant Children's Commissioner for Wales, Josh Dhaliwal, Director of Mobile Youth, Angus Cormie, Director of The Digital Business, Bill Westhead from the Cyberspace Research Unit, University of Central Lancashire and Tamara Littleton, CEO of eModeration. Young people will also be invited to attend and participate in the event.

For more details and registration, please visit:
http://www.wisekids.org.uk/conferenceregistration.htm
Also, please feel free to circulate this notice to any of your colleagues who may be interested to attend.

Sangeet Bhullar
Executive Director
WISE KIDS
email: sangeet@wisekids.org.uk
http://www.wisekids.org.uk

Posted by prolurkr at 07:46 AM | TrackBack

Prolurker as an "evil" site

I picked up this meme from One Bright Star (1B*), make of it what you will.  In truth the site's discussion - see belows - is kind of interesting though the whole thing is pretty scary. Very weird that 1B* is much less evil than I am.  Humm does goodness come along with the tenure-track position?

The Gematriculator is a service that uses the infallible methods of Gematria developed by Mr. Ivan Panin to determine how good or evil a web site or a text passage is.

Basically, Gematria is searching for different patterns through the text, such as the amount of words beginning with a vowel. If the amount of these matches is divisible by a certain number, such as 7 (which is said to be God's number), there is an incontestable argument that the Spirit of God is ever present in the text. Another important aspect in gematria are the numerical values of letters: A=1, B=2 ... I=9, J=10, K=20 and so on. The Gematriculator uses Finnish alphabet, in which Y is a vowel.

Experts consider the mathematical patterns in the text of the Holy Bible as God's watermark of authenticity. Thus, the Gematriculator provides only results that are absolutely correct.

Posted by prolurkr at 07:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Ethnography Division of the National Communciation Association

In writing a rely to Joseph Reagle's post Writing Ethnography with it's trackback to Prolurker, I realized I had not posted a plug for the Ethnography Division of the National Communication Association's Pre-Conference next month.  I don't actually know if they have openings at this point.  NCA is so huge I would bet their pre-conferences fill very quickly.  Mostly I just want to bring the Division to your attention so you can watch for future offerings.

I attended the Pre-Conference in Chicago last year where the topic was Taking Fieldnotes.  I found it immensely helpful and a lot of fun.  I'm looking forward to this years pre-conference and hope to bring home some new techniques that I can apply to my online work.  Here is the blurb from the conference website.

*PC 03: Historical Ethnography: Bringing Cultures from the Past into the Present through Archival Resources*

The role of ethnographers is to shed light on cultural phenomenon. Communication scholars who study culture from an interpretive perspective focus on communication related problems (e.g., the silencing of marginalized groups, the communicative ways that a culture passes on its traditions in order to survive) or highlight communication related methodologies (e.g., the exploration of stories, talk, speeches, conversation, or metaphorical constructions of a phenomenon).

Both theoretical and methodological endeavors are important to contemporary ethnography as well as to historical ethnography. Historical ethnography uncovers the cultural phenomenon of past (as opposed to the contemporary) cultures. Theoretically, historical ethnographers see the past to expose the present (e.g., How women were socially constructed in the 1800s through religious stories or popular magazine articles of the time which may have left a lasting impression on the women of today. How did antebellum newspaper editors discuss race within their editorial pages?). Methodologically, historical ethnographers rely on artifacts from the past (e.g., journals, diaries, census data, and/or other archival documents) to bring the past into the present.

This work shop is intended to introduce ethnographers to historical ethnography in four ways. First, an archivist will discuss the value of historical documents. Second, five researchers who conduct historical ethnographies will present their work. Third, the participants will see the past through participation in a walk down The Freedom Trail in Boston. Fourth, the participants will engage in guided exercises to help them understand historical documents and the piecing together of those documents in order to give expression to cultures of the past.

Presenters:

Christopher Pehrson, Written By Hand Manuscript Americana Yale
Nick Trujillo, California State University, Sacramento
Harold Goodall, Arizona State University
Robert Krizek, Saint Louis University
Sarah De la Garza, Arizona State University
Robin Clair, Purdue University

Posted by prolurkr at 06:32 PM | TrackBack

Marking things off the future planning list

Off the list are:

• International Communication Association (pdf of cfp). They require full papers and have a November 1 submission deadline, no way I can make it this year.  I will, of course, review for them when that time rolls around.  If money is good I might even attend, next year's conference is in Dresden which would be a great though expensive trip.
• WWW Conference...also a November 1 submission deadline. We had talked about submitting something from BROG but I'm betting that is off the table at this point.
• The Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication, edited volume also a November 1 deadline for proposals/papers with a March 6, 2006 deadline for final submission. I so want to have something in this volume but I just can't get anything new together in time.

So what is left on the list?

• Computational Approaches to Analysing Weblogs (CAAW-2006). Position statements are due October 7, 2005. I'm hoping to have time to pull something together for submission but this is the last thing on the to-do list for the next 5 days. It just may not get done.
• SWTexas Popular Culture Assoc./American Culture Association
  • Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, and Personal Narrative Area.  Abstracts are due November 15, 2005.  Of the two tracks this is the one I would most like to present in, as it would be a first for me to present at SWTexas outside the Computer Culture Area.
  • Computer Culture Area. Abstracts are also due November 15, 2005. I attended this conference in 2004 and enjoyed it, so I want to go back if I can.
• International Conference on Television, Video, New Media, Audio and Feminism: Console-ing Passions is another fun conference I attended in 2004. Abstracts are due in the middle of December, the actual CFP isn't out yet but there has been a general announcement.

Everything left on the list is up for grabs as well.  It's way to easy for me to get sidetracked since I enjoy research and teaching so much and really don't enjoy writing literature reviews.  What I have been doing is trying to reward myself with research, ok so I'm a crazy nerd here, as I progress with my writing my quals.  I do so wish I could just publish and count that as quals instead.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:12 PM | TrackBack

Dine for America

October 5th is Dine for America, a fund raising event to benefit the Red Cross. For those of us that are going to AoIR in Chicago I suggest we find a restaurant on the list for dinner that evening and make it a huge internet-geek event. Let's make the restaurant one of the ones that are giving part of their profit to the event, rather than one that is collecting from patrons. Anyone who knows the area well could give a suggestion, here is the Chicago list of participating restaurants.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:55 AM | TrackBack

Xmas Cancelled

Xmas Cancelled,
originally uploaded by Annie Mole.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:01 AM | TrackBack

Missing hours

So I have a job to do, in between my regular job, I and my tech councilors get to try and figure out how to accommodate the growth of the blog in the most efficient way possible.  If you have suggestions to minimize bandwidth usage without making major changes to the look or content of the site I am always happy to listen.  Readers of this site collectively have far more knowledge on the subject than I do.

Things I have done in the last month:

• Blocked all crawlers from most of the site with the exception of the main page and the archives. Of course this only stops crawlers that actually look where they are allowed to go, the unethical ones will just go and so this will have no effect.
• Optimized photos before posting or use thumbnails in postings.

Things I'm thinking about doing (if I knew how):

• Tyeing my .htaccess file into a blacklisting service or my old MTBlacklist text file, to try to keep spammers out. At minimum I would like to block numerical urls that don't resolve.
• Zipping archives to make them smaller files.
• Further reducing the number of posts on the front page.  We went from 15 days to 15 posts in the last upgrade.  I've thought of reduing it to 10 but I wonder if that is too short. 

Your input is welcome.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:44 AM | TrackBack

Grading ROCKS

Ok so I'm lying, but hey as of this evening I'm only a week behind, and last week's lab was not in narrative so it should be easier to score.  This is a major improvement.

Now I just need to pull together spreadsheets for the BROG presentation, write an conference paper for NCA, put together my presentation for AoIR, write a position paper for CAAW-2006, and send a blue-bazillion time-sensitive emails, oh and finish grading last week's lab assignments - all before we leave on Tuesday.  *sick manical laugh*  Don't tell me I'm screwed. *covering her eyes and ears* I live in a computer generated fantasy world where anything is possible.  *humming loudly* 

I wonder if there is a theme song for the "Little Train that Could."  That would be a motivational ring tone because "If I Only Had A Brain," my usual ring-tone, is feeling way too accurate at the moment.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:26 PM | TrackBack

New books - one for work and one for fun

Today's mail brought two new books from Amazon, one for work and one for fun. Ok so I think my work is fun too but in this case I mean "fun" as in almost no redeeming purpose but a good enjoyable read...something I don't seem to do much anymore. First I have Van Maanen, John (1988). Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago. I have seen many references to this little, and inexpensive, book and decided it was time to read it. Sadly it will have to wait a bit but since it is a small book I can see it becoming my "in the handbag" reading.

The second book, the for the love of reading book, is Gabaldon, Diana (2005). A Breath of Snow and Ashes. New York: Delacorte Press. Gabaldon is a wonderful writer, she is living proof that one can complete a dissertation and still be able to writing interesting prose. This is the fifth book in this series, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into it.  I have read the other four books several times each and even keep abridged versions on my iPod for listening while I travel.  Nothing like someone reading you a good book to help you fall asleep anywhere, on a plane or a train or an unfamiliar hotel.  I'm sure that this book will end up on the iPod as well.  In short Gabaldon is an inspired writer, if you haven't sampled her work I suggest you checkout or order a copy of Outlander immediately.

Posted by prolurkr at 02:50 PM | TrackBack

New OQO

A 30gig hard drive on a Windows computer that fits in your pocket. *lustful sigh*

Posted by prolurkr at 02:19 PM | TrackBack

CFP - E-Learning Journal

Special Edition of E-Learning Journal
Guest Editor:
Angela Thomas
University of Sydney
a.thomas@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Theme of the Issue:  Digital Inter-Faces

Description:

The focus of this special edition of E-Learning is ‘Digital Inter-Faces’. The articles in the edition will examine the issue of identity in and around digital contexts.  As our lives become increasingly more technologically inclusive, we face new opportunities to e-xplore, e-xamine, e-xtend, e-xperiment, and e-volve.  Technology is changing the ways we think about the world and the ways we position ourselves in the world.  Our involvement in and around digital contexts has opened up a place for living within a multiplicity of identities and through this, we can act out our fantasies, become the Other of our desire, and just as importantly, in the words of Eowyn, a 15 year old girl, “It's not becoming your own hero that's the point-- it's allowing what's inside of you to show
through”.

And yet online our selves can be conveniently edited, we can be kinder and funnier and more intelligent.  In the same series of posts about her online life, Eowyn told me, “The person I show to others online is outgoing, different, and not afraid to be herself”, and Shadow, a 14 year old boy, revealed, “I am sort of a persona, me but minus the things I don’t like about myself”.  Other children revealed to me that rather than edited selves, they become fused selves with their online role-playing characters.  The faces shown to others online may be masks of other personae or characters, yet underneath are intimately fused with the self.

What are the consequences and implications of these new faces?  The faces of our cyborg self, our edited self, our hybrid self, our fused and blended self into another character, and the Other of our desire.  What can we actually learn in this masquerading of fragmentedness that has become a hallmark of post-modern identity?  In this issue of E-Learning, our contributors discuss aspects of these issues, drawing from a range of theoretical, sociological and political perspectives.  Thoughts about gender, race, youth, politics, power, trust, and authenticity are critically discussed with respect to the many faces and inter-faces of the digital world.

Submission Deadline: January 18th, 2006
Submit to: Angela Thomas, a.thomas@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Information about the journal and papers: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/?.

Posted by prolurkr at 11:49 PM | TrackBack

CFP - Academic Session: "A Tremendous Shattering of Tradition": Reconsidering Walter Benjamin's 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'

CFP: Academic Session: "A Tremendous Shattering of Tradition":  Reconsidering Walter Benjamin's 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'
(AAH Annual Conference, University of Leeds, UK, 4/6/2006 - 4/8/2006)

Session convenors: Patricia Allmer, MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University, Cavendish North Building, Cavendish Street, Manchester, M15 6BG, sears@allmer.fsnet.co.uk

John Sears, Manchester Metropolitan University (Cheshire),
Interdisciplinary Studies, Crewe Green Road, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 5DU,
J.Sears@mmu.ac.uk

Session Abstract:

This session will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the publication of Walter Benjamin's seminal essay 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit', translated into English by Harry Zohn in 1968 (year of revolutionary discontent) as 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'.

In 1936 the essay offered a challenge not only to Fascist appropriations of art, but also to conventional Marxist aesthetics as well as to phenomenological theorisations of art - witness its problematic reception by Adorno and others, its expressed discontent with what it sees as depoliticised modes of aesthetic engagement, and its analysis of "a world without aura" (Rodolphe GaschE9). These challenges are repeated in different ways in the essay's influence on the turbulent intellectual scene of the late 1960s. It has contributed significantly to the development of both Marxist and postmodernist theorisations of culture, as well as to the ongoing art-historical reassessment of the art work and its roles in contemporary media-dominated societies. In short, Benjamin's essay constitutes a major, if continually contested, contribution to debates about modernism and postmodernism that retain their currency in the age of digital reproduction, "a period when politics as spectacle has become a commonplace in our televisual world", as Susan Buck-Morss argues.

The essay's perennial appeal to discontented Marxist and other modes of reading modern and postmodern art may constitute one line of enquiry. Papers are also sought that will explore the essay's continuing significance for contemporary theories, practices and histories of art. The essay has exerted a profound influence on the work of key theorists (eg October) and practitioners (Warhol, Burgin, Sherman); papers may wish to explore or assess aspects or examples of this influence. Other topics might include Benjamin's notions of the aura of the art work, of originality, of reproduction; changes in the significance for art history of mechanical and other forms of reproduction; the implications and consequences of accommodating photography and film (Benjamin's exemplary modern media) within the configurations of art historical practice, and the essay's contribution to current debates about inter- and trans-disciplinarity (the 'contents' of the discipline of art history); the essay-form itself as exemplifying politicised, interventionist aesthetic practices of modernist and postmodernist malcontents; the essay itself considered as a work of art, enacting its own arguments in fragmentary, inconsistent forms; and considerations of the various publication contexts and initial critical receptions of and
responses to Benjamin's essay.

Papers are invited that address these and other topics in relation to reconsiderations of Benjamin's essay.

Details for Submission of Proposals:

Papers must not exceed 30 minutes. Please email a 200 word abstract to the session convenors before the 11th November 2005. Include the title of your paper, your full name and contact details and institutional affiliation (if applicable).

Please note that the call for papers for all the conference sessions has been published in the June edition of the AAH Bulletin and at the AAH website: www.aah.org.uk

Posted by prolurkr at 08:40 PM | TrackBack

PubSub joins the crowd with its own blog ranking tool

PubSub my current favorite blog research tool, well it and the background scripts that make it useful to me, has announced the release of their own page ranking system.  Doubt prolurker made the list, but that won't stop me from checking.  *S*

PubSub.com, the essential prospective search tool for tracking what people are saying about the topics they care about, today announced the formal release of PubSub LinkRanks, the Blogosphere's most comprehensive tool for tracking the popularity and influence of blogs and websites. This unique service provides detailed data that bloggers and feed publishers can use to actively monitor the results of their publishing efforts, and gain insight into how to improve their future rank and influence.

PubSub LinkRanks measures the strength, persistence, and vitality of links appearing in the more than 16 million web feeds monitored by PubSub. PubSub has also made available the PubSub LinkRanks 1000, a list of the most consistently influential sites that publish feeds, based on their average LinkRank scores during the past 30 days.

There are some very useful statistics on their results page. Check out prolurker's page for an example, the link is also on the right side-bar under RSS feeds.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:11 PM | TrackBack

Welcome to UBC students

Welcome to students in Mary Bryson's Graduate Seminar Diversity, Difference, and the “Digital Divide”: Media and the Possibilities for Democratic Public Pedagogies at the University of British Columbia. 

Prolurker is listed as a site to visit on their class calendar.

Posted by prolurkr at 08:01 PM | TrackBack

Two very useful reference books

Today I have had reason to pull two of my favorite reference volumes for projects I have in process. After working with both, I decided I would introduce, or reintroduce them, to you. First is - Schechner, Richard (ed.) (2002), Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

This is quite honestly a book that constantly surprises me. With each new project, where performativity is an issue, I pull out Schechner and do a quick review. But my reviews never end up being quick and I consistantly find mention of references, theories, and ideas that are new to me and usually akin to the project or my current thinking on an issue.  For example today I was beginning a quick review before I start writing my NCA paper - The Performativity of Naming: Adolescent Weblog Names as Metaphor.  (Look for a post with a link to the paper after I have it written.)  But of course as I am reading the section on performativity I am drawn to comments on Walter Benjamin which ties into a paper I currently have in the To Be Revised and Submitted file which draws heavily on Benjamin.  The paper was written roughly a year ago so, of course, it has been perking in the back of my brain.  So while reading I was drawn to Schechner's section on Baudrillard, which lead to a list of notes for further reading in Simulacra and Simulation.  The wheels just keep turning.

One of my big projects today was to get a good sized bite out of grading. I have this goal to be completely caught up, which includes this weeks lab assignments, by the end of the week. In written work, which is not all of our lab work to be sure, I count off one point for each misspelling and grammatical error I find. When I am reading the students papers I keep my copy of Lunsford, Andrea A. (2001). The Everyday Writer. (2nd ed.) Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's close at hand so I can double check myself and try to use the proper terminology when I explain why points were lost for an error. This handbook is one of the best I have ever seen in that it explains problems in plain english so that non-grammarians like me can understand. If you haven't updated your english references in sometime I strongly recommend you find a copy of this handy little book. Oh there is a new edition out but as far as I can see the only difference is in which versions of the style guides they are referencing.

Posted by prolurkr at 05:52 PM | TrackBack

More on click throughs as group conversation

Hmm... very interesting... looking forward to the journal article. Also interesting that you're looking at click throughs from the links and not comments or trackbacks as evidence of conversations.

Others, including BROG have taken a look at comments and trackbacks as fairly straight forward indications of conversation.  We are currently working on a presentation for the upcoming AoIR Internet Research 6.0: Generations Conference in Chicago on the topic.  Our presentation is entitled Conversation and Connectivity in the Blogosphere (abstract in word document download) our presentation will be on October 7th at 3:30 p.m., if you are coming to AoIR attend the presentation and say hi after.

In looking at click throughs as conversation there are a couple of assumptions that must be accepted.  First you have to buy the idea that the creation of a link between two online entities creates a conversation. Now in truth I keep debating this point with myself. I'm very clear that the creation of the link acts as a conversational opening, in which the link creator invites the linked site (person behind the site?) into conversation with them, but does it by itself create conversation? And who is that opening aimed at - the webpage being linked and the reader of the original site, or just the linked site, or is it just to the reader?

If you buy into the first assumption, then the second is that the creation of the link activates a perpetual conversation so that anyone discovering the link at any point in the future could see that conversation had, is?, taking place.  This of course is problematic as well since the life expectancy of online material is fairly short.

But given both of these assumptions then the reader, as a potential third-party to the conversation, has the option of activating a link and becoming part of the conversation.  Though, given the two assumptions, their entrance into the perpetual conversation is much more ephemeral since there are no "permanent" traces left, without the use of third-party software, that they activated said link unless they take up the conversation in comments and trackbacks.

Hummm reading this I think that there might be two papers here, an essay on inter-site conversation and the content analysis of link activation from Professional-Lurker.  Cool, I love getting more for my research buck.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack