AcadianaMOO
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AcadianaMOO
[log started Wed Feb 7 17:14:32 2007 CST]
Participants: OoglyBooglyBoo, lizlosh, LL, christyneberzsenyi, dirkr, mday, and Susan
OoglyBooglyBoo turns the Southwestern Cafe Recorder on.
christyneberzsenyi says, "I realized quickly just how much reading and
writing were involved in creating a portfolio, reading emails, reading
profiles, responding, etc."
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "woops forgoet to do that"
mday . o O ( we live in text on a screen )
OoglyBooglyBoo (to christyneberzsenyi) "yes that is what intriqued me
about reading your presentation"
christyneberzsenyi says, "and I felt that the genres of writing were
new, especially in terms of context, and that it was a highly
purposeful form of communication "
christyneberzsenyi says, "yes, it was lives on screen, identities, and
relationships developing, starting, and ending quickly in some cases,
and some going on to meet offline"
christyneberzsenyi says, "so, I stsarted by studying the forms of
writing and even was a participant observer myself"
christyneberzsenyi says, "as i got more familiar with the process and
the forums, primarily Match.com, and a couple other more conservative
organizations"
christyneberzsenyi says, "I started to meet people who were dating
online and I asked a lot of questions"
christyneberzsenyi says, "what interested me is how different people
had different relationship goals, and personal histories, and language
behaviors, and comfort levels with technology, and so forth"
mday says, "interesting. I've always wanted to do something like that,
but instead my investigations are only from anecdotal sources"
christyneberzsenyi says, "well, I read some anecdotal materials and
whatever was available, which wasn't much, at least early on with
online dating"
Susan steps into the Southwestern Cafe.
christyneberzsenyi says, "it was facinating to get behind the scenes
withthese folks and what they were trying to accomplish in this
multi-media or modal form of communication that was designed to end up
offline"
mday remembers several sets of folks who met on MOOs and ended up as
partners
christyneberzsenyi says, "that's great!"
christyneberzsenyi says, "actually, I met my fiance on Match.com"
christyneberzsenyi says, "I'm a success story. hahahahaq"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "cheer"
mday says, "And I always liked Howard Rheingold's take on online
relationships, although he concentrates on communities"
mday cheers!
christyneberzsenyi says, "at some point after I wrote my first essay on
it, I was doing some online dating then"
christyneberzsenyi says, "I'm not familiar with Rheingold's work. I
should check it out?"
mday says, "_The Virtual Community_ is a good start. 1993 but updated
since then."
christyneberzsenyi says, "So, what you have as the writing sample is a
short and clumbsy version of a 30 page paper"
mday says, "And of course Turkle too."
christyneberzsenyi says, "thanks, I'll look into it. with "the virtual
community""
christyneberzsenyi says, "yes, familiar and use Turkle's work often"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "what I was fascinated by was, like you said, how
purpose driven the participants seemed to be"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "well luke, Juan and(can't remember name)"
mday says, "There's a level of practical impact to this rhetoric that
other discursive forms can't hold a candle to."
christyneberzsenyi says, "it's now been almost four years since I
started this project and have updated the material by going back to
each of the participants and getting their current situations and
their hindsight reports on what they've done with internet dating.
that's been the most interesting part"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "oh say more!"
christyneberzsenyi says, "yes, some of the particiants were so
conscious of how they were interacting and what they wanted and knew
ways to get what they wanted and where to get it and how to ask for
it. "
mday [to OoglyBooglyBoo]: to whom was that addressed? Christyne, I hope
OoglyBooglyBoo (to mday) "to chrystine"
LL says, "yes, i'm really interested in how people frame what was
considered successful or positive, rather than, er, a waste of time""
christyneberzsenyi says, "3/4 participants were successful in their
dating in that they met the types of people they set out to meet,
forming desired relationships that ranged from casual to serious and
long term"
mday says, "I have been fascinated how we try to compress a spirit, a
soul, a personality, into not much more than a bit of text and some
emoticons."
[ 5:25 pm ]
mday says, "That was the way it was in the early days; now bandwidth
allows a lot more multimedia, so you can share pictures, video and
music pretty easily over the net."
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "as somebody who has never been to match.com, how
do participants express themselves--as mday said it, compress their
spirits?"
Susan . o O ( the text is just a window, not a representation-- like an
Eastern Orthodox icon )
christyneberzsenyi says, "that's a good question about how they framed
successful--it had to do with achieving the kinds of relationshiops
they hoped for. So, this project is not about my assessment of their
successes so much as a look at how they have viewed their efforts,
activities, and outcomes"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "like are their surveys, or is it like myspace?"
mday says, "or not compress, but somehow represent in bits and bytes"
christyneberzsenyi says, "there are some survey aspects as well as some
areas in which they could elaborate even with stories"
mday [to Susan]: a stained glass window, multipaneled, fragmented, but
resulting in a beautiful whole when you back up and look at it from a
distance.
Susan grins at mday
christyneberzsenyi says, "the type of media certainly has changed over
the years as now more audio files and video files are used as opposed
to when I first started the study"
OoglyBooglyBoo (to christyneberzsenyi) "I was talking to one of my
colleagues about online dating and he said that English professors
have an advantage"
mday always likes Susan's tropes
christyneberzsenyi says, "also, I think people are a little more
comfortable showing a picture than they used to be"
christyneberzsenyi says, "that's a good point about the english faculty
having some advantage"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "because they understand rhetoric and can more
carefully control the way they present themselves"
LL (to OoglyBooglyBoo) "I disagree about the writing advantage. ;)"
christyneberzsenyi says, "the writers in the study did do better than
the technical folks"
lizlosh says, "I am interested in how much reading is central to online
dating as well. I used to carpool with a philosopher on a number of
those services. He seemed to be making elaborate mental catalogues of
what he considered to be code words. "Athletic" was one. Mostly he
was looking for class markers, unfortunately, or for clues about how
people might be concealing aspects of their appearance."
OoglyBooglyBoo (to LL) "oh this was definitely a late night, perhasp
alcholol induced hypothesis"
LL says, "or I should say, those who are interested in text compared to
visuals, perhaps""
mday says, "it used to be said that folks would post pictures that
weren't that representative. Is that a misperception? Has it changed?"
mday says, "but yes, those who can write well have an advantage. it's
been called a new epistolary culture"
OoglyBooglyBoo (to christyneberzsenyi) "oh fascinating reading against
the grain is a requirement"
christyneberzsenyi says, "well, I found out the hard way that, for
example, when I meant that I was "liberal" it meant that I was a
diversity or multi-culturalism type of person, and for some it meant
"sexually liberated" or indiscriminant or the like"
LL says, "oooh, I like that...epistolary culture""
LL scribbles notes
OoglyBooglyBoo does too
Susan says, "wow. That may be the soultion to student resistence to
required writing course. Sorry, if you can't write, you can't date!"
christyneberzsenyi says, "so words and their connotations are important
in self-presentation and inn interpreting others"
Susan giggles
OoglyBooglyBoo (to christyneberzsenyi) "how is this discourse taught:
is there a catalog of these words?"
LL says, "did you notice that people usually begin with a defense of
the portrait?""
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "or is it one of those trial by fire type of
things"
christyneberzsenyi says, "in some ways, the academic is at a
disatvantage in that I , for example, wrote way too much in my early
ads, while the less acedemics taught me what is a well written profile"
LL says, "such as, the profile that begins with I didn't think I'd do
this""
LL thinks about her own somewhat peculiar experiences with match.com
christyneberzsenyi says, "certainly some trial by fire, and those who
are willing to try and try different strategies did better than those
who were stuck in one strategy and insisting that that was their core
identity and they weren't going to deviate from it"
christyneberzsenyi says, "sort of antirhetorical"
mday used to call it an epistolatory renaissance.
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "or current-traditionalist, maybe neo-romantic (no
pun intended) rhetoric"
christyneberzsenyi says, "right, there are lots with that kind of
qualifier of "I wasn't sure if I was going to try this, but here I go""
christyneberzsenyi says, "I agree with teh epistolatory rennaissance"
christyneberzsenyi says, "that's what drew me to the project. "
mday says, "Oh I like that observation; so that in some ways, less is
more?"
christyneberzsenyi laughing at pun
mday grins with christyne
christyneberzsenyi says, "yes, I've been taught and learned that less
is more, especially online"
christyneberzsenyi says, "however, powerful, descriptive, telling
concision"
LL agrees, totally agrees
OoglyBooglyBoo is thinking about business writing, for some reason
mday is wondering how carefully one has to craft texts for this
interaction. Could one create a rubric? Or, I'll bet that such
rubrics are already out there on the paid sites, right?
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "because that is how I describe business writing
to my students?"
christyneberzsenyi says, "I saw a recent commercial for the Eharmony
and the guy says, "if you're honest with yourself and the process, you
can find who (should be whom) you are looking for, or something like
that"
mday [to OoglyBooglyBoo]: yeah, and tech writing. Efficiency and ease
of interpretation. But that might suck the spirit out.
christyneberzsenyi says, "in some ways, it's true, but not right away
necessarily, just like with any form of interaction, communication"
mday says, "Honesty, as a trope is interesting. I almost wrote
"tripe." What is honesty, in this game?"
OoglyBooglyBoo (to mday) "maybe; i'm wondering if Match.com is as form
driven"
[ 5:35 pm ]
LL says, "Could you talk a bit more about Juliet? I'd like to know more
about what you think about the language issues - fluency in English -
and the cultural issues, you mention she was from E.Europe and her
skepticism and final hopefulness""
OoglyBooglyBoo (to LL) "good question"
christyneberzsenyi says, "there's a balance between efficiency and
saying enough to convey an identity that is distinct from others and
also responding individually to each member's emails and profiles is
time consuming but creates a new communication that is specific to the
ever changing context of new audience, moment, circumstances, etc. "
mday says, "Well, think about it this way. For those less able to
write well, a how-to guide might be crucial. Think of medieval letter
writers, or Cyrano de Bergerac => Roxanne."
christyneberzsenyi says, "well, with Juliet, she has a number of issues
that make her less free to explore the forum: her age/generation is
more conservative, less trusting of the Internet in general and more
traditional in that she has to wait for a man to contact her, as
opposed to t"
mday thinks it MUST be time-consuming. It would be exhausting, too!
christyneberzsenyi says, "Katrina who is younger, educated recently in
the US and willing to initiate contact with a man"
christyneberzsenyi says, "it is a time-consuming literacy activity!"
christyneberzsenyi says, "also, with the language issues, she was
perfectly literate, but "
christyneberzsenyi says, "her word choices were more formal, less
American"
mday says, "But I like the fact that we can call it a literacy
activity. Since letter-writing, how often could we call dating and
courtship a literacy activity?"
LL giggles at mday
christyneberzsenyi says, "also, she tended to be more confrontational
in her general demeanor once she met the person, and she was sort of
shy, but could come off a little offish, if you know what I mean by
that"
mday says, "Historically, it seems like letters used to fill this
purpose until, what, the middle of the 20th century, when the phone
took over???"
christyneberzsenyi says, "right, it is literacy dating"
LL says, "do you know that you can search by keywords now on
match.com?""
OoglyBooglyBoo . o O ( keywords!!! )
mday says, "Oh my, a folksonomy of dating?"
christyneberzsenyi says, "yes, it's a very good thing. I was thinking
about that when I read Lei Lani's piece"
LL says, "so instead of a narrative, something like -sailing- will
bring back results too""
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "i see"
mday writed down "literacy dating." That's good.
christyneberzsenyi says, "yes, key terms like sailing will produce
results"
christyneberzsenyi says, "like any search engine, the key is to learn
how to narrow the scope so that you don't get 2, 0000 hits that are
not manageable or useful"
LL says, "i like, christyne, these types of literaries, they seem to
get sort of lost in the conversation about online communication""
christyneberzsenyi says, "I agree, LL"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "well they seem to be liminal forms of
conversations"
mday says, "Right, that's good search strategy. How to narrow to the
most likely possibilities."
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "well maybe liminal is the wrong word, but on the
border between something that is permissible, and something that is
maybe a but risque"
mday wants oogly to tease out the "liminal" comment. Very interesting.
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "maybe public and private discourse"
christyneberzsenyi says, "well, when Katerina wrote her profile, she
explained that hers was longer than most, but she used that as a way
to weed out those who were either too busy to read or intimidated by
her education or the like"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "private discourse that is public?"
mday says, "Mmm, border is good. But it's fun to figure out what
social borders we're talking about and who sets them up, and how
computers networks are changing that."
OoglyBooglyBoo (to mday) "exactly"
christyneberzsenyi says, "some member sites are risque, and others will
edit out risque material"
christyneberzsenyi says, "however, once you get to the email stage,
they are no longer screening as editors, as far as I know"
mday says, "And I have seen a lot of ppl putting lots of things we
would have considered private in public, on line. All the turning of
lives inside out, the webcams, the intimate blogs, etc."
christyneberzsenyi says, "especially as members start to communicate
with their own email accounts as opposed to the ones related to the
organization"
mday says, "right, b/c then it moves from one-to-many to one-to-one
communication. "
Susan goodness, it sounds very much like a resume.
mday says, "And there is and should be a big difference in conventions
between the two"
OoglyBooglyBoo . o O ( there is business writing again! )
christyneberzsenyi says, "the public is presenting much more private
material, aspects of their lives--I wonder that our culture is getting
more compartmentalized and that is people's way of feeling less
invisible and reaching out and getting attention"
mday says, "or portfolio, I would like to think, since it can be
multifaceted."
christyneberzsenyi says, "going on first dates is a lot like an
interview!"
mday says, "and without reflection or commentary, what good is it?"
[ 5:45 pm ]
OoglyBooglyBoo (to christyneberzsenyi) "I think that our society
definitely has set aside place for dating and meeting people, and
maybe even a time range"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "i.e. college; graduate school"
LL says, "oh, i think that there's no user comments section on
match.com is a very good thing""
christyneberzsenyi says, "I wonder if the university writing programs
have a place for the literacy related to socializing?"
mday says, "yes Christyne, I think it's people trying to be visible in
a world that tries to efface identity in a lot of ways."
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "but then when you get into the working world,
those 'dating venues' decrease"
christyneberzsenyi says, "I just discovered the true.com or something
like that--they let you make comments, like rate other members, which
is very ebay and sort of good to warn others but weird "
OoglyBooglyBoo (to christyneberzsenyi) "I think that could be a useful
avenue for them to pursue"
mday [to christyneberzsenyi]: only tangentially as part of netiquette.
Only partially taught
Susan says, "I could see that. People needing to create spaces to break
out of the more rigid conventions of society. Maybe it is even
changing our culture"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "eek like ratemyprofessor.com"
mday says, "but where do we make space in the curriculum?"
christyneberzsenyi says, "the dating venues decrease. certainly!"
mday says, "Is it in gen ed, or in FYComp, or in "health education"
(giggles!), or in interpersonal communication?"
christyneberzsenyi says, "I'm amazed how electronically oriented my
students' lives are--myspace, instant messenger, text message, email,
gaming, web pages, ebay, etc. "
OoglyBooglyBoo probably won't be teaching online dating anytime soon
(at least not until tenure)
mday says, "now there's a flat out rhetorical statement! true.com ????"
christyneberzsenyi says, "exactly mday. where do we put such a course
that is a rhetoric course but the contexts are social"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "but the same lessons might apply to other social
interaction type of sites"
christyneberzsenyi giggling over comment about true.com
Susan (to OoglyBooglyBoo) "just think about that you could do if you
didn't have to worry about tenure. (Susan puts on her indepent scholar
badge)"
mday says, "They do seem to be more and more at home online. It's
assumed that classes will have an online component, and that college
students will have and use facebook"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "lessons = bad word"
mday says, "yes, social rhetoric."
christyneberzsenyi says, "right susan. I'm grateful to be through that
hurdle, but you're right"
OoglyBooglyBoo (to Susan) "unfortunately I have to feed the cat!"
mday is buying the domain name false.com
christyneberzsenyi laughing at false.com
OoglyBooglyBoo giggles at mday
Susan (to OoglyBooglyBoo) "well, okay. As long as it is for a worthy
cause."
dirkr says, "there's an interesting topic: pre-tenure teaching
strategies/topics compared with post-tenure strategies"
christyneberzsenyi says, "someone get on it!"
mday says, "Well, have you seen firstlife.com, the spoof?"
christyneberzsenyi says, "haven't seen firstlife.com"
Susan says, "that's great"
mday says, "not sure of the URL, but do look at it if you can."
christyneberzsenyi says, "spoofing dating sites?"
mday says, "no, spoofing secondlife and online worlds with avatars"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "spoofing second life"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "a lot of rich material there"
christyneberzsenyi says, "oh, I see"
OoglyBooglyBoo . o O ( despises second life )
mday says, " http://www.getafirstlife.com/"
mday says, "but don't click!"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "well thank you christyne for an excellent
presentation!"
mday . o O ( since the browser will take you off this page )
christyneberzsenyi says, "does anyone have any critiques to share with
me now or by email cab39@psu.edu. I'm open to suggestions about
failings in the paper, methodological concerns, suggestions for
publication (I'm thinking about The Humanistic Psychologist) or others"
mday claps for Christyne!
OoglyBooglyBoo claps for christyne
christyneberzsenyi says, "thanks a lot"
LL thanks for the great presentation!
mday says, "Umm, Christyne do you know Rich Doyle?"
OoglyBooglyBoo says, "let me turn off the recorder and we will take a
short break before the next presentation"
[log closed]