From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu 05 May 2005 - 14:24:46 GMT
--- Derek Gatherer <d.gatherer@vir.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
> I have a bee in my bonnet about this, since it has
> previously been wrangled
> about extensively within the memetics community.
> See in rough order of
> publication:
>
> 1)
>
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9654782©
>
> 2) http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/1997/vol1/best_ml.html
>
This was the only one I could access fully at the
moment. There were some questions I thought of while
reading it, given my own experience with USENET.
First off again the category of commensalism was
excluded, but I'm not sure how important this omission
is in this context...
How isolated are newsgroups from each other?
Newsgroups share people in common between them so one
could look at migration and "meme flow" (cringe) where
perhaps something a person picked up on one newsgroup
spills over to their posting behavior on another. An
idea may appeal in one ng that they spread to the
other ng or posters might have personal histories
beyond the ng. In my case, I knew Ted from another
(unmentionable here) forum, so I knew his views and it
spilled over here (sorry). The stuff we share in
common from that other forum might influence how we
approach certain topics (ie- memory) here. Resonance
has many connotations as I have read Lashley's
discussion wrt reduplication and I think William
Calvin addresses it in his book, but I guess the
connotation Ted and I share must not be discussed
here.
And what about usenet phenomena like trolling and
sockpuppets? How could these be addressed? Both
involve a type of Machiavellian deception, I suppose,
since the trolls will predict how the other posters
might respond (sometimes cascading into the infamous
flamewar) and sockpuppets conceal their identity and
do all sorts of interesting stuff that gets other
posters lathered up into a mouth foaming frenzy
sometimes.
There's lots of behind the scenes stuff that might
influence newsgroups like books read in common or
emails between posters not known to the rest of the
group.
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