At 12:35 PM 7/30/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Friday, July 30, 1999, 12:40:29 PM, Richard J. Sexton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>>IRC is probably your best bet, and then use a Java client on the
>>>website to access it.
>
>> It you want to stage WW III, IRC is probably the place to do it.
>
>Only if you venture to EFNet :)
>
>I was actually suggesting that they run their own IRCd for these
>purposes.
William;
I've been trying to emulate the f2f group/association meting
in cyberspace for about 15 years. What I notice is, the physical
presence is vitally important. When people are disconnected
from that they say awful things and behave in a manner they
probably would not if a room full of people were watching them.
This has been written about for years with respect to email,
and what find is that, nominally, each service of the net
has it's own culture and ethos. That is the usenet subculture
is different from the IRC subculture. IRC is a very very
hostile place and I think it brings out the absolute worst
in poeple. What can be an argument on a mailing list is
much more intense and instant on IRC and usually escalates
to higher plateus fairly quickly.
The only thing I've seen in the last few years that has
shown any promise of putting the "physical filters" back
in is the advent of avatars. For some reason when your avatar
talks to sombody else avatar, the civility seems to come back.
Perhaps it the idea that 10 avatars are all staring at you,
perhaps psycologiclaly thats enough to make people act like
human beings instead of geeks.
There's a handful of these products - Esther is invested in
one, but for my money the best one is activeworlds.com.
--
Richard Sexton | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://dns.vrx.net/tech/rootzone
http://killifish.vrx.net http://www.mbz.org http://lists.aquaria.net
Bannockburn, Ontario, Canada, 70 & 72 280SE, 83 300SD +1 (613) 473-1719
