Hyperlinks…

…are killing reference books, a sweeping generalization for the day. Have you ever tried to get through the day without a sweeping generalization? That is so old school, like opening an unabridged Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary – which I still do, occasionally.  I bought my copy some years ago at a clearance sale for yet another dying independent bookstore. A different sort of endangered species. The 21st century marches on.

I have always had an advanced case of the Enclyclopedia Disease, unable to simply look up one topic. Flipping through pages looking for congress, I  would pause at aardvark, or sometimes make it as far as camera obscura. The same thing would happen with dictionaries, or thesauruses, or Bartlett’s Quotations.

Then came the internet, closely followed by the World Wide Web and those ultimate diversions of purpose, hyperlinks. Like the Enterprise hyperjumping entire galaxies at warp 5,  I could now follow an infinite branching network of paths into the densest thickets of information. Sitting down to my computer early in the evening, I might find myself still at the keyboard in the small hours of the morning, eyes grainy, mouse hand cramping badly, my mind growing numb from information overload.

I am getting better. Or age is forcing restraint where once was only appetite.  But…what was that link I saw on Facebook a little while ago…

Stop me before I click again, somebody, please! Lead me back to my bookshelves. Save print media, the next casualty of technology.

Over reaching

I regularly participate in a local message board online, the Chattanooga Message Forum. A shifting cast of participants, with a core of daily posters, express opinions on many subjects. Sometimes, just funny things that we read or see in the media, sometimes we tackle thorny and contentious subjects like politics or religion. The guiding principle of a successful message board is a willingness to let the arguments run their meandering courses, then move on to other topics. Most participants use online handles unconnected to their real names, although quite a few make no secret of who they are or what work they do. Those who prefer anonymous posting may do so.

Unfortunately, some folk use this anonymous cloak to attack those of contrary opinions, and are unable to contain their vitriol to the message board. A good and valuable poster, tcrashfx to us, who was also the moderator of a police forum, finally resigned his role in our message board because some of these anonymous malcontents had made repeated complaints about his posts to his employer, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department. Although public employees are entitled to the same First Amendment rights as any other citizen, the constant thread of complaint finally made participation in the forum a game not worth the candle, in tcrashfx’s opinion. So he left, firing a broadside at those posters who were unable to bear his tough and capable rejoinders to their venom.

Those of us who value honest exchanges of opinions, however vigorous and biting, will miss him. The others? Well, the victories of emotional pygmies are always puny and of no account. As Truman Capote said of critics, “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”

Far from Kansas, Toto

“Back in 2006, when I was 24, my life was cozy and safe.”

With that opening sentence, Emily Gould, author of the front page article in the NYT Sunday Magazine for May 25th defines, perhaps unintentionally, the gap between past and present for whatever letter now denotes current twenty-somethings. We have had the X gen, the Z gen, and probably others. “Back in 2006…” omg, that was two years ago! So very, very then. What a weary sense of instant welschmertz that simple group of words conveys.

The particular theater of experience in which Gould functioned was the internet, in New York City, for a network of blogs titled Gawker. For this metablog Emily Gould moved from a personal blog, Emily Magazine, into the thick of gossipy, media-saturated doings about town, on which her daily posts commented in terms sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes snarky.

Trolling for Power

A young boy lost his online community recently owing to an attack by an online troll, a destructive sort of pest who invades internet sites set up for communication. On a local message board, this youngster had enjoyed exchanging messages with a number of participants in the board. He did this with his mother’s watchful eye on him at all times. Most of the regular posters on the board were known to the boy’s mother, and in several cases had exchanged emails and occasional IMs with him as he gradually became more proficient with computer communication.

The troll in question, logging on under one of many names he has used to evade his prior banning from the board, posted a few times in mildly sarcastic comments on a variety of subjects. Then he zeroed in on the young man, affecting to believe that the posts under the boy’s name were actually written by his mother. Many posters assured the troll that posts under his name were the boy’s own, and his skills with language and computers were well known to many on the board. I am sure this was gratifying to the troll, as contention and argument are the only reason such persons get online. As an added plus for trolling, he was, however briefly, evading his exile from the board, which had been imposed only after many offensive statements, personal attacks and other unpleasantnesses.

In due course, he was was warned again. He retaliated by now complaining that the boy should not be on the board because he was too young, an ironic switch in tactics, considering he had first denied the boy wrote his own posts. In spite of his spiteful language, manner and comments, amazingly some of the board participants raised pious voices to express their concern for the welfare of the boy, saying that the troll “had a point” although his remarks were “unnecessarily catty,” comments that probably made him laugh.

Once banned again, the troll then complained to the hosting service about the boy’s presence being in violation of the services own rules, as well as laws in several states. The hosting service, afraid of liability, asked that the boy’s account be deleted. And so the troll won a famous victory over a young boy who was enjoying interacting with friendly adults who wished him nothing but good, with his mother’s supervision over each session. A boy’s disappointment is of no account when a twisted personality is seething with spite.

Fortunately, the boy has an excellent support system with his extended family, and will find other outlets, and hope that another troll doesn’t use him as a pawn in ego wars.

So Many Blogs…

I daily find blogs that I like and cruise for a while, then move on. Candy Minx mentioned one recently that I just spent some time sampling, and found good stuff. Just the title made me laugh—Nice Marmot. The proprietor, Shad Marsh, is a familiar name for me, from a message board about reading, Constant Reader, which is my longest-running point of internet reading.

Among the current treasures on Marsh’s pages is a link to possibly the most cluelessly wingnut site ever. I decline to provide the link here. Check out Nice Marmot and link if you dare.

Reading the wingnut page reminds me of many posts on the Chattanooga Message Forum, although most of the posters there can spell and frame coherent arguments, however much I might disagree with them.

A much more entertaining link was Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, which made me laugh very hard indeed.

Back to surfing.

A Story of Message Boards

Over the past twenty-four hours, an explosion of erupting passions on a message board I frequent has called up memories of another board, another time. Starting in 1994, I began to lurk on a message board on a dial-up service, which board concerned itself with books and reading, primarily fiction. Over the next year or two I began to post, finding great enjoyment in the discussions, and began to establish online friendships with several of the frequent posters there.

The core participants in the nascent board were primarily middle-aged  professionals , and overwhelmingly liberal in political orientation. There were just enough contrarians, politically and otherwise, to add some spice. I might add that the founding principle of the board was an intolerance of flaming, and a liberally-influenced tendency to take a politically correct, in the liberal tradition, tack on any issue of decorum.

Into this roiling mix entered a new poster one day. After a few posts on books and reading of interest to her (a strong preference for real names and personal facts were part of the board,)  this person suddenly went off on a rowdy sort of person who was one who added spice to the board. He had posted a mildly sacrilegious  joke.  Several  had already posted appreciative replies, when the outraged newbie attacked the originator of the thread, railing against his “blasphemous” humor and claiming that her religious sensibilities were terribly offended.

The responders to this rant were divided into two camps:

-champions of secular liberal tolerance, some of whom had religious convictions, some didn’t.

-champions of polite discourse, who tut-tutted over the offense given by a religiously tasteless joke.

The interloper then revealed that she was a woman of color, and added that to her grounds for aggrievement, since being religious was a  recognized characteristic of persons of color. This revelation, not offered before, brought more support to the anti-blasphemy forces. It was now “PC” to support the Pious Poster.

The conflict over this issue damaged the message board by leading to the exit of several of the wittier, more entertaining participants, some for good, a few who returned. After a year or so of continued participation of a sporadic nature, the champion of religious sanctity faded away.

The value of a message board is precisely that it allows all opinions to be expressed, regardless of extremity, even if some sensibilities are bruised, since so long as the ability to respond is unfettered, no opinion or expression should be disallowed.

Technowhati?

Thought I would try out this blog rating service thing, found at Technorati Profile. Now, I will see what happens. Magic? Mystery? Whatever, might be fun.

The Frailties of the Internet

For the past year I have been using web page hosting by a German firm called Servage. I was put onto this company by my friend Larry, whose blog has been hosted by these folks for several years. Very inexpensive, with a LOT of storage and bandwith. I have been well pleased.

Like all other things involving the complex web of hardware and software comprising the internet, however, Servage is subject to glitches now and then. The past several days, pulling up my various pages has been much slower than usual, occasionally ending in a “server gone away” or time out message.

I had received an email from Servage recently about a new spam filter installed on all their email accounts targeting the growing tide of junk emails. Good for them. And my mailbox has been much less crowded for the past few days. The notice did have a caveat, however, saying that email retrieval might be slowed down because of the extra screening. I wonder if that slowness has affected access to the page server as well. I will give it untill Monday to see if this is a settled trend before I send in a service request.

Heat without Light

The more I read opinion blogs and message boards the more it appears that mental health care in this country is failing, and those who need it are gravitating to the internet. In everday personal encounters, or RL for “real life,” as bloggers and other netizens call it, social interactions carry built-in governing factors. Ranting into another person’s face guarantees a short conversation and the loss of one more potential benign acquaintance, if not friend. Ranting on a message board or chat room, behind a screen name or alias, carries much less risk, and much less exposure to consequences.

Fable of the Internet Tarbaby

Seems there was this internet surfer who wandered the thickets of many message boards. One day he arrived at a thread with a Tar-Baby squatting at the last post.

As soon as the Tar-Baby saw the surfer, an endless stream of banal, poorly phrased and constructed sentences began to pour from its sticky mouth.

Recognizing that commenting to such a formless troll was a waste of time, the surfer clicked on another topic. There sat the same Tar-Baby, who immediately began another weak and witless rant, which quickly devolved into a long complaint about how badly the Tar-Baby was treated.

Click, went the surfer, hyperjumping to another thread. There was the Tar-Baby again. The surfer was quick with the return key, but some of the endless rant trailed behind him to the next thread, where again the Tar-Baby was waiting.

Finding that silence was not helping, and scrolling past the Tar-Baby was taking more time than reading the worthwhile posts, the surfer unwisely flamed the tarry troll. Hot, sticky tar spattered back on the surfer, and it took a gallon of kerosense to clean off the disgusting ooze.

Having learned his lesson, the surfer never again paid the Petro-Troll any mind, content to scroll on by forever.