A great travesty has occurred. An announcement has been made by the forum owner that the Doctor Who Forum (DWF) will close for good at the end of July.

The DWF has been the central base of operations for Doctor Who fans for 13 years now. There are other Doctor Who sites and forums out there, but none as large or as active as the DWF. It was there during the dry years after the ending of the classic series. It was there when the announcement came to relaunch the series in 2005, and it has been there through the announcement of three doctors, four assistants, and every episode, season and special in between.

The site primarily is a discussion forum, however there are also areas where information is posted, collected and archived about every facet of the Doctor Who world from actor information, Doctor Who trivia, DVD releases and reviews, to books, audio episodes, and conventions. There is also a place for fans to post their fan-art and fan-fiction. There are even sections for news and discussion about the spin-off series Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures. It’s a massive, active forum.

Needless to say, the site’s closing is a crushing blow to its members. There is a real sense of community there among the active members, and even lurkers like me love to hang out and follow along with the banter, inanity and in-depth discussions of fellow Whovians. Of course not every thread is perfect, and because the site is so huge there is always someone who will complain about something. However inspite of the odd complaint, it’s an invaluable resource for both information and camaraderie.

The biggest tragedy for me about this whole thing is that on July 31st, the 40,000 strong community will be set adrift in cyberspace, and all that history and information will be gone in the blink of an eye. The reactions, the debates, the arguments, the information collected, the stories written and shared, in essence the heart of the Whovian community will be wiped away, lost forever. Imagine the devastating impact if the initial creator/owner of Wikipedia decided to shut Wikipedia down without passing it on to someone else. All that information, data, collaborative efforts, history and community would be just gone, never to be seen or accessed again. (ok, I know that the original owner did wash his hands of Wikipedia because it wasn’t going the way he wanted. However at least he handed over the reigns to someone else. Here, the DWF owner, for whatever reason, is just up and closing the doors.)

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about produsage communities and productive collaboration. However in all I’ve read, I’ve never come across a discussion about what happens when these sites/communities close down, the impact that has on the immediate members of the site, as well as (especially in the case of fandom) the impact it has on the larger online community/fandom that site was a part of.

I have no real pithy or insightful concluding thoughts for this post, except the say that when a site like the DWF is thriving and vital, it gives a false sense of permanency and stability to its members, to the point where you forget the insubstantial and transient nature of cyberspace.

For a long while now I’ve been trying to come up with a justification of why we as compositions need to take a new look at coherence. Of course the same need to help students produce papers that communicate their arguments in a logical and coherent manner is just as true as it was X years ago when coherence was a new and vital subject for composition research. However I really feel that coherence as a topic of academic interest has fallen by the wayside. There seemed to be a renewed interest in coherence when hypertext and digital texts first came onto the academic research scene, however that interest also waned in time.

What prompted all this is that I have a research project that I want to polish for publication, a project that focuses on teaching coherence to students and measuring to see if the level of coherence improves in their writing. Back when coherence was flavor of the month, research fell into two categories 1) showing that those papers that earn higher grades and do better in standardized tests have a higher level of coherence than those papers that don’t do well. 2) People agreeing that coherence is the best thing since sliced bread and then giving a detailed description of their favorite class exercise dealing with coherence. No one, however, showed that actually teaching coherence to students would help improve their writing. My study sought to rectify that deficit, and I think I discovered some interesting data and implications.

Research on coherence in traditional print texts, however, is way out of fashion, and as such not really sought after for publication. And so my quest to justify why we should newly look at coherence in traditional print texts. Yesterday, however, I think I found a way to make my project more sexy and marketable. I was reading Henry Jenkin’s blog when I came across a passage from his book Convergence Culture. (It’s on my list to read, but I’ve got to get through a few other things before I can read his book). Anyway, in this passage Jenkins talks about what he called the public’s ‘collective intelligence’. Jenkins points out that there is such an overwhelming amount of information available online, that people are more and more relying on the advice and comments of other individuals to help synthesize and process that information. In this way, a collective intelligence is created and maintained online.

This is no great revelation; however reading this turned a light on as a potential angle to justify my unfashionable project. If we as a culture as relying more and more on the comments/suggestions/reviews/summaries/recommendations of others that we read online, how much more is there an need to make those comments, etc, coherent.

Ok, this seemed more exciting in my mind yesterday, but I think what this does is tie my unfashionable coherence topic to a topic that is much more sexy at the moment—online communication. Heck, I could even tie in Web 2.0 and social software in the intro to set the stage for my project.

Hmm…as I said this was more exciting when I first read Jenkin’s blog, but I do think it is the first idea I’ve come up with that has real potential to help sell my coherence article.

I refuse to give in to my 4 1/2 year old son who refuses to be potty trained.

I refuse to let my 8 year old son, with an insanely high IQ, slide by until the end of the school year without learning his multiplication facts.

I refuse to give in to the asinine logic that says that, as a parent of a 14 year old kid, I should let my daughter do it [and for 'it' read your underage 'vice' of choice--drinking, smoking, sex, drugs, rock n roll, whatever] because she is going to do it at that age anyway so I may as well make sure that she does it safely.

I refuse.

I’m sure Einstein didn’t have all these problems when he was working on his dissertation.

Someone forwarded this to me and I just had to post it.

You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello , and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this.

For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on…
If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, ‘Who’s on First?’ might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO : Thanks. I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT : Mac?

COSTELLO : No, the name’s Lou .

ABBOTT : Your computer?

COSTELLO : I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT : Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name’s Lou .

ABBOTT : What about Windows?

COSTELLO : Why? Will it get stuffy in here?

ABBOTT : Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO : I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the
windows?

ABBOTT : Wallpaper.

COSTELLO : Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT : Software for Windows?

COSTELLO : No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?

ABBOTT : Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT : I just did.

COSTELLO : You just did what?

ABBOTT : Recommend something.

COSTELLO : You recommended something ?

ABBOTT : Yes.

COSTELLO : For my office?

ABBOTT : Yes.

COSTELLO : OK, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT : Office.

COSTELLO : Yes, for my office!

ABBOTT : I recommend Office with Windows.

COSTELLO : I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal.  What do I need?

ABBOTT : Word.

COSTELLO : What word?

ABBOTT : Word in Office.

COSTELLO : The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT : The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO : Which word in office for windows?

ABBOTT : The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.

COSTELLO : I’m going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don’t start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO : That’s right. What do you have?

ABBOTT : Money.

COSTELLO : I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT : It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO : What’s bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT : Money.

COSTELLO : Money comes with my computer?

ABBOTT : Yes. No extra charge.

COSTELLO : I get a bundle of money with my computer? H ow much?

ABBOTT : One copy.

COSTELLO : Isn’t it illegal to copy money?

ABBOTT : Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO : They can give you a license to copy money?

ABBOTT : Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)

ABBOTT : Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO : How do I turn my computer off?

ABBOTT : Click on ‘START’………….

I’ve been mulling over a more thought-provoking post that I want to get to here soon, however I saw this tonight and I just had to record this for posterity.

I was searching for nuclear duct-tape to get my husband for his birthday. My husband’s reverence for all things duct-tape is kind of an in-joke in our family, and when I saw on Boing-Boing that you could buy nuclear-grade duct-tape, I knew I had to get some for Brian. What more could a guy want for his 40th than nuclear duct-tape?

Anyway, I went to Amazon to find out how much the tape was, and came across this lovely suggestion for a combined purchase.

Now I know that Amazon tend to spit out off the wall suggestions, even if only one person bought the two suggested things together. However i can’t seem to figure out why even one person would think to buy nuclear strength duct-tape with their rubik’s cube. Perhaps to hold it in shape when you smash the cube against the wall in frustration?!? But even then wouldn’t superglue be better?

No…I just don’t get it.

I’m still wading through Bruns “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond,” and I’m actually really enjoying it. However the chapter on folksonomies is bugging me so much that I had to stop reading and vent. So here’s the problem…

The way Bruns is defining, (and so finding value in),a folksonomy is not the way Thomas Vander Wal originally defined folksonomy. On some level their definitions resemble each other: they both agree that a folksonomy is a collection of user-defined tags that are then aggregated and made available to anyone and everyone on the Web.

However for Bruns, the main purpose or driving force behind the folksonomy is that it is a means to tag and collate information on the web for the online community at large, that the main value of a folksonomy is that it provides metadata to primarily be used by others, and as a knowledge structure that can be analyzed and used to offer insight into the way online communities form and interact. For him, the value is in the social and collaborative nature of the folksonomy. For Bruns, individual tags that do not fall into generally accepted or shared uses of the word-tag used can “skew” the usefulness of the folksonomy. He even goes so far as to suggest that in order for folksonomies to be deemed useful, we need to find ways for “filtering out or negation of metadata that is intended for purely personal uses” (184).

Vander Wal, however, says in “Folksonomy Definition and Wikipedia”, that a “folksonomy is not collaborative, it is not putting things in to categories” and its primary function is not social interaction or social communication. Rather, he defines a folksonomy as “the result of personal free tagging of information and objects for one’s own retrieval” (my emphasis). Yes, he says, it is done in a social environment (ie the tag-lists are then shared with and open to others), however the main essence of a folksonomy is that the tags are made purely for personal use. It is not a collection of individual users’ tags created for the benefit of others, nor a labeling of things in a way that others would find useful, but rather purely for the use of the individual tagger and the individual’s own recollection. Creating systems for “filtering out or negation of metadata that is intended for purely personal uses” is a direct contradiction of how Vander Wal defined the term folksonomy in the first place.

I understand how Bruns is fitting folksonomies into his idea of produsage, and of users purposefully creating content online for the use of others; however his thoughts are based on an understanding of the term folksonomy that is at complete odds with the original definition and concept of a folksonomy.

Ok, rant over. I feel better now.

I confess that I’ve always had a sort of odd, eclectic combination of interests. Computers and Medieval manuscript, Chaucer and folksonomies, Science Fiction and Shakespeare, to name but a few. At times my tastes seem to run at completely opposite ends of the spectrum, and it is a rare occasion when I find something that combines even two of these disparate elements.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found something that combined Star Trek, Dr. Who and Shakespeare all in one event: the RSC’s 2008 production of Hamlet, with David Tennant (the present Dr. Who) as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart (who plays Captain Picard in Star Trek TNG) as Claudius. And the production would be not only at the RSC, but also for a spell at The Globe Theater! It was like the Perfect Storm, a combination of elements that comes along once in a lifetime, if you are lucky.

Unfortunately, I was not lucky enough. Residing in America, as a family of 6, living on only one salary, and trying to pay off a hefty mortgage meant that there was no way I could ever afford to cross the pond and see the production, that is assuming I could even get tickets to the production itself! My parents live in England, and I toyed with the idea of getting them to go, take a hidden video camera with them and surreptitiously film the production. However I couldn’t get them to cotton to the idea, so I was completely out of luck.

That is until today. Today I came across a wonderful piece of news: the RSC is going to be making a film version of the production this June. It won’t be a full on film, but according to the Telegraph, it will be more than just a video of the stage production.

Now this may not be earth-shattering news to most of you, however to this Shakespeare-loving, Dr. Who-obsessed, Star Trek TNG fan, it is the best news I’ve heard in a while.

I’ve been keeping up with the copyright infringement lawsuit against The Pirate Bay, a P2P torrent site, that is presently underway in Sweden (I guess Sweden is the country of origin of the site). Four men are standing trial in the case, one of them being Fredrik Neij.

Anyway, one of today’s news clippings was entitled “Prosecution Baffled by Pirate Bay’s Anarchic Structure“. Apparently the lawyer for the prosecution was trying to ascertain who ultimately was responsible for the site, who ultimately made the final decisions for the running and upkeep of the site, and so figure out who ultimately should bare the brunt of the punishment.

The prosecutor became visibly frustrated when he tried to get Neij to identify the kingpin who is ultimately responsible for Pirate Bay and the text and graphics on the site. Neij explained that an extended group of people have privileges on the server, and contribute haphazardly as they see fit. The prosecutor seemed not to grasp the concept.

“But someone must ultimately decide whether to put up a certain text or graphic,” he protested.

“No,” Neij answered. “Why? If someone believes a new text is needed, he just inputs it. Or if a graphic is ugly, someone makes a better one. The one who wants to do something just does it.”

This particularly caught my attention because I’m reading Axel Bruns Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond, where Brun looks closely at what he calls produsage communities of which the Pirate Bay would be a classic example. To Brun, using traditional terms like product, producer and consumer are no longer adequate to describe the way certain online communities collect and use information/knowledge/items on the internet. In certain online communities, there are no clear producers who produce a finite product which they then give to a consumer. Rather members of the community all share, use, add to, delete from, recombine the collective artifacts of the community: the members are both producers and users of the content or, as Bruns says, produsers.

One of the key elements of this kind of produsage communities is that there is no hierarchical structure, no single controlling person(s) who have the ultimate say in the running of the community. Rather, there is a heterarchy, or an adhocracy, where the leadership of the community/site is spread across a large section, or even all, of the members.

So, the point of this long explanation? Who do you blame in an adhocracy? Who do you point the finger at when, as in the case of the running of The Pirate Bay, no one/everyone is to blame for any legal transgressions?

When you have one person who downloaded 10000 illegal songs onto his/her computer, laying the blame is simple. When there is one clear mastermind at the top of a hierarchy, the guilt is easy to assign. But how do you bring a lawsuit against an adhocracy or a heterarchy made up of hundreds of thousands of members?

Just one more way our legal system is unprepared to handle the legal complexities of the internet.

Ever since I ventured over to the Dark Side of Rhet and Comp I have been interested in what happens the to essay or the academic paper in a digital environment. For the most point I have been looking at hypertext and the potential a hypertextual environment has for shaping/creating/delivering an essay. Today I came across one man’s attempt to examine the potential for the essay in a new media environment. Jamie O’Neil seeks to answer this question:

How then would McLuhan expect an essay to be composed today, nearly a half-century after his time?

I’m having trouble posting videos to the blog, so for now I’ll have to be satisfied simply posting a link to the McLuhan Remix site. I also can’t take credit for finding this (that belongs to John), but I can at least pass it along.

This came out of June last year, so it’s not new to anyone but mw. However I found this today and had to share. The title is “Information Revloution” and it’s made by Michael Wesch, the same guy who brought us The Machine is Us/ing Us.

Information Revolution