Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA15898 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 22 Jan 2001 14:02:24 GMT User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.0 (1513) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 08:59:55 -0500 Subject: Re: DNA Culture .... Trivia? From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B691A2EC.6C3A%bbenzon@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745BF0@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
on 1/22/01 7:27 AM, Vincent Campbell at v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk wrote:
> Do you notice how, there can be weeks of very little activity on the list,
> but when people start getting a bit agitated, it suddenly explodes into life
> (albeit very red and tooth and claw)?
Well, if someone wants to undertake a little research project, they could
count up all the messages in the archive and plot the number of messages
against time (say, the number of messages per day) and analyze that
distribution.
There's been a bit of research that analyzes internet traffic flow at the
packet level. This research shows that it has a fractal distribution. I
wonder if we'd get that kind of result at the message level for this list.
>
> I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoy a heated debate, but I also think
> its brings the worst out in us, especially on a faceless e-mail list, where
> people talk to each other in ways they never would face to face (and I've
> been as guilty of this as anyone else).
A psychologist named Norman Holland has written an article on what he calls
the internet regression, what happens in email communication. I'm sure if
you do a web search on his name, or on "internet regression" you'll come up
with the article sooner or later.
Bill b
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