OT Culture
- From: Philip Deitiker <Nopdeitik@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 27 May 2005 17:17:43 GMT
This is not about archaeology but about culture.
I have been on this UseNet since 1989, but with a pronounced
presence since 1994. I have observed many fights, wars,
participated in some wars, started others, and still ended
others.
What you want a group to be really depends on the collective
culture. In unmoderated groups there is no control of how the
culture of the group evolves, but despite the lack of control,
group culture none the less evolves.
Changing groups culture often depends more on evidentary
results than in planning, IMHO, the only time a group culture
shifts if someone comes into a group, does something, and it
has a result that somehow they feel empowered by, others in
the groups reinforce that result.
I have noticed in this group that crossposting is fully
tolerated, whereas in other groups it is ubiquitously annoying
and untolerated. The reason it is tolerated IMHO, is because
the subject material is not overtly off-topic, even if 90% of
the time it is nonsense. For the culture of the group to
change the level of tolerance for the 'nonsense' component
when tied to crossposting to other groups needs to evoke a
different response in posters, that response needs to be the
the removal of newsgroups from replies or killfiling. If this
is the desired response by the culture of the group, then the
result will reinforce the response, and if it is not it will
not hold in the long term.
I can tell you that individuals who have their posts
followed up religiously to one other groups tend to
discontinue posting to that group because it results in the
undesirable response. Getting people to ubiquitously killfile
a pest is also a method. both can work in concert with each
other. For s.a.p. the management of the EC A'J'S problem took
about 8 years, not only getting our people to avoid followups
but also convincing the folks in t.o. that getting our group
members angry was not in t.o. best interest. There is an
informal agreement in place with the moderator that as long as
he keeps the lid on crossposting 'loons' to s.a.p. that we
won't charge over and create havoc in his group. Tom knows how
all of that went down couple of years back, not proud of the
war but it did accomplish its objective.
But in s.a.p. it was different, we had a culture that was
undermined by the wanted activities of 2 individuals
'outsiders'. Tom and others disagreed with this assessment,
then, in June 03, but as one looks at s.a.p. now one clearly
sees who the regular posters are and who are interlopers, and
how they desparatetly try to disrupt group activities by
crossposting to completely unrelated groups (rec.ponds for
instance). One of the call signs of this type of individual is
morphing. I noticed that in talk.origins they thought it was
amusing that this was going on with crossposts into s.a.p.
that is the t.o. culture, up until I morphed 30 times in one
evening, and turned t.o. upside down. It is clear that
individuals morph to avoid being ignored and killfiled, it is
a very effective UseNet technique and there should be
consequences to morphing within the group culture, obviously
not, though here.
In this group the people doing the undermining have become
core members of the group, and are not interloping outsiders.
As a matter of fact, the war instigators in the group are
regular posters and have interpersonal relationships with
other group members. The problem here is much more complex,
because there is a solution to the problem of extremely biased
topicality in the group, but I would say 80% of the regulars
here do not want to do anything about it, although I have seen
some change in heart over the last year, it is still quite
common to see someone say 'Pet troll''our village idiot'. The
other problem is that many here are attracted to discussion of
Norse culture, even if the thread seed is complete nonsense or
misinformation, it opens the discussion of norse up.
What I am trying to say is this, if you want change to the
group, we can discuss it, bring the charter of the group into
play, make revisions to the charter and post them quarterly,
or use them in discussions where the charter is being
violated. This is a huge group, one persons action will not
alter the behavior of the culture at all, if that culture is
not inclined to respond to that persons actions. I have taken
some kicking from JerryT; however, I was the one who was
rebuffed with the pet troll and other excuses. I have come to
enjoy the culture of the group like everyone, given the fact I
can't change it, and I see how to manipulate meaningful (to
me) discussions out of this culture. This does not mean that
it would be better off without change.
I bet you I could not extract 2 posters here who know where
the charter for the group is or who have ever read it. Doug
knows the charter, probably there is another person lurking
about, it tells something about the informality of the
culture. I will be frank about this group, and its patronage.
This groups is a place of teasing, leg yanking, joking,
misinformation, . . . in which by strange coincidence
archaeology is sometimes discussed. It is what it is, you
can't have someone denying the spelling or meaning of words
who is unable to fess up for notable ilks and mistatements of
facts, at great propensity, and not have people making fun of
it. See the Net loon index.
The first thing we have to admit here is that there are
multiple standards at play, when &JM posts here no-one
responds, for the most part the phasiotic disk discussion gets
little response. We are doing this because we see that behind
those individuals is an alterior if not group distructive
motivation for posting here. So that unless you are going to
change the standards of what is 'complete outright off topic
religious wacko' and what is on-topic enough to deserve a
response in this group, the culture of the group will not
change. I don't think that the mdm is distructive to the
group, just destracting and unrelenting in her desire to
dominate the discussion. Thus she resides in the grey zone of
what is appropriate in a science group, and I think people are
willing to entertaine her because of this, while another
person they would completely ignore if the OT motivation was
completely apparent (a.k.a religion or racism). My opinion is
that if the individual is presenting OT material that is based
on a different potentially valid perspective, we should
respect that individual, despite some errors or something we
don't like, but if a unscientific motivation becomes clear
then other measures, as a culture, needs to take place, that
is what works in these newsgroups. In my opinion and I have
stated this on many occasion I don't think she is working with
a full deck, and on top of that she has unresolved issues
concerning ethnocentric behaviors
I have previosly stated my reason for joining this group, I
am interested in seed and food culture, particularly the
evolution of food culture in asia and the new world, this
includes the storage archaeology and stone and metal
impliments. While it does not seem like it when I have posted
information on these I generally provide references at the
time of the informations posting. While it would be nice for
others to do the same when they post their interesting topics,
it generally does not happen. If the charter were brought into
the discussion I would like to see this added to the charter.
I am not holding my breath.
.
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