You know what?  This voting for an upcoming topic is becoming fun.  I voted
already, but now I need to hold back, as I find that I want to campaign for
my choice.

I'm just being curious here, but as I've been a member, even a regular
contributor, on quite a few lists (vastly different subject areas however,
which might be a factor, not sure) I've noticed that in many cases a certain
kind of group dynamic emerges.  Perhaps there's theory out there to account
for it, but I'm not sure...I'd bet it's been studied and someone here will
be able to elaborate.

I'm speaking of the-what-for lack of a better word-(sort of) cliques or,
more accurately I suppose, the sub-groups that sometimes spring up.  Not
that it's happened here, but the thought of list "fun" made me think of the
times over the past 10 years or so when a kind of odd playfulness and
strange personal familiarity would impose itself in an odd clubby way.  I
doubt that I need to describe the phenomenon because all of you would have
experienced it.

It seems that in some ways there's a need / attempt / desire / [your word of
choice] to emulate real life insofar as groups of people do tend to behave
in certain ways, and groups do develop, seemingly, a character of and on
their own.  Sometimes I wonder if it's born of a need to transpose the
familiarity of material existence onto that which is less familiar and less
material.  Or, maybe it's just a function of relative anonymity.  Or maybe
it's the sexiness of feeling connected to someone/s a world away.  Or maybe
it's due to some "natural" or innate form of human (or animal I guess)
communication that is inherently non-linguistic-say, facial cues, glances,
gestures, sighs etc etc-translated into a medium that is language based.  I
mean, of course, email: not the internet.

And other thing, perhaps not unrelated: what's with the dare I say "teenage"
email language.  I'll tell you why I mention this: recently through some
strange set of circumstances, I started to receive the personal email of a
young girl in the UK who happens to have the same surname and initial as me.
And while I have done what I should to correct to mistake, some of her email
comes to me.  I have to be honest here.  This writing without vowels
(mainly) seems jarring and actually fostered in me quite a weird response at
first.  I was a bit annoyed to say the least.  Sure, it's a bit difficult to
read at first, but surprisingly lucid once you get going with it.  And
certainly part of what bugged me about it was something completely
irrational-it's hard to articulate.  Partly my response was related to the
content which was markedly adolescent, but there was a tiny part of me that
thought of these kids as rejecting of ME, while usurping what is MINE.  (an
over-simplification, but all I have time for right now)

But, hey, I've been reading both Logan and Ornstein and one of them, maybe
both of them, talk about language before vowels....

See where I'm going with this now?

What other kinds of pre- or a- historic phenomena pop up in this medium.

PS: I think we wax on about the web and web applications (and, yes, I've
seen shades of self-congratulatory stuff and a sort of privileging of "us"
technophiles over those ludds (the rejecting usurpers)-and I kind of wonder
if the results of the blog switch idea-all of the reasons it is indicated
aside for the moment-isn't, at the root, a bit of an illustration of this).

Alright, let the real synthesizers loose.

Sorry, I haven't had my morning coffee quota yet, and it's been hot and a
bit humid out here...and I'n NOT proof-reading this.

lee
Last month there was an overwhelming majority vote to discuss The Role of
Collaboration in Digital Writing, but in fact it was hardly mentioned all
month! That's no doubt due to the summer break, I guess. However, we did
have some lively conversations about  other things including switching to a
blog, silence, and gender bias.

I'm releasing the poll for September's topic now.

Sue

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