::fibreculture:: Facebook group
Katie Cavanagh
Katie.Cavanagh at flinders.edu.au
Fri Aug 10 13:13:46 EST 2007
Apologies All,
There were 3 posts that came in yesterday on Facebook. When I am
moderating I do my best to clear the 300+ entries in the database list
every night (last night 287 posts were ghastly spam generated offers
interspersed with cheap stock options, viagra and bargain OEM software)
but every now and then I miss a night. Last night my non-computer world
was unusually busy and as a result I am late checking the list.
There was no intention involved, nor any decisions on "taste", and I
regret disrupting the flow of an interesting and relevant discussion
with my tardiness.
---
I find that there are many new tools that I need to keep abreast of in
order to discuss social networking/online culture with any level of
confidence (facebook, myspace). There was a row in one my classes the
other day because the order that "friends" are in on an interface can
have an enormous social significance. The software decides the order, so
people download a hack to be able to change it. It echos the days of
comitatus when the best warrior sat at the head of the table. Simple
placement at the table could get very complicated very quickly... what
interests me with many of these systems is the lengths users will go to
in order tweak a rigid system to turn it into what they want (also true
for Second Life). The produser generation is busy creating, hacking,
manipulating and transforming.
It is challenging to keep up.
Cheers,
Katie Cavanagh
Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
> Another offllist exchange about Facebook - please, no flame ups re what
> he says about moderation - don't know nothing about it.
> mat
>
>
>
>>> Hi Tom,
>>>
>>> I attempted to answer your question on the fibreculture list, but
>>> apparently my street cred is not sufficient to get moderator approval
>>> for my posts. here's a snippet of a thread that a couple of us have
>>> carried on without the blessings of the Fibre Culture Aribiters of
>>> Taste. For my part, i think it's always going to be hard to describe
>>> what facebook /does/, since what it does it gossip in its most basic
>>> form, leaened witha bit of more formal social co-ordination perhaps.
>>> But how do you explain what you "use" gossip to do?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> dan
>>>
>>>
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: "Nicholas Roberts" <niccolo.roberts at gmail.com>
>>>> Date: 9 August 2007 13:13:09
>>>> To: "dan mackinlay" <dan at possumpalace.org>
>>>> Cc: list at fibreculture.org, peter.deane at anu.edu.au
>>>> Subject: Re: ::fibreculture:: Facebook group
>>>>
>>>> there are a couple of oss options... specific to education and
>>>> nowhere near as advanced
>>>> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/elgg.php
>>>> http://www.peopleaggregator.net/homepage.php
>>>>
>>>> On 8/9/07, dan mackinlay <dan at possumpalace.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ah, I would say that facebook has at least one standout feature that
>>>>> sets it aside from most social networking fads - it has an open API
>>>>> http://developers.facebook.com/
>>>>>
>>>>> Facebook is, from one perspective, a huge database of social
>>>>> relationships and a specialised query language for accessing them.
>>>>> Contrast with myspace, which is, in software terms, an inwards-
>>>>> looking community, supporting none of the "web 2.0" buzzwords (apart
>>>>> from a limited and perfunctory support for RSS). Facebook, on the
>>>>> other hand, supports a huge number of methods of accessing its data
>>>>> and integrating that data into other applications. There is a
>>>>> thriving community of developers showing off their skills in
>>>>> creating
>>>>> dizzying numbers of new applications for facebook that excercise the
>>>>> facebook API. Facebook data can be integrated into a huge number of
>>>>> applications, both server- and client-side.
>>>>>
>>>>> As to what it is /for/... If you follow Dunbar's argument, that
>>>>> human
>>>>> communication is primate social grooming continued by other means
>>>>> ( http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/65/bbs00000565-00/
>>>>> bbs.dunbar.html ) then i'd argue that this is another form of social
>>>>> grooming. That's the best way I've found of making sense of the
>>>>> weird
>>>>> allure of the small, almost content-free interactions that
>>>>> characterise communication in facebookspace. But it's social
>>>>> grooming
>>>>> adapted for the time-poor-studying-full-time-working-part-time
>>>>> typical modern student. I'd guess that a role in creating market
>>>>> share for facebook has also been played by the slow ongoing death of
>>>>> student unions under VSU and the concomitant decrease in formally
>>>>> organised student social events.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not that the market for facebook is purely student-based any longer,
>>>>> or we wouldn't be having this chat. Which said, should we perhaps
>>>>> continue this chat on the facebook group?
>>>>>
>>>>> ---dan()
>>>>>
>>>>> On 09/08/2007, at 11:34 , Mathieu O'Neil wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> omigod omigod omigod ya mean ya don't KNOW - its for SOCIAL
>>>>>>
>>>>> NETWORKING
>>>>>
>>>>>> OK! - ya need to build a clique and its like totally cool
>>>>>> (poor attempt at preppy impersonation)
>>>>>> alernatively:
>>>>>> its just the latest net fad tom - dont worry about it - unless
>>>>>>
>>>>> you are
>>>>>
>>>>>> into popularity contests that is
>>>>>> ("snark")
>>>>>> or:
>>>>>> its like LiveJournal except only those approved ("friended") by
>>>>>>
>>>>> you
>>>>>
>>>>>> can
>>>>>> view your information
>>>>>> (correct me if I'm wrong)
>>>>>> cheers
>>>>>> mat
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 09/08/2007, at 8:57 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> At 11:14 AM 8/08/2007, Lisa Gye wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Here is a direct link
>>>>>>>> http://swinedu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4143384913
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I joined Facebook, but I have to confess that I still don't
>>>>>>> understand what it is for. Any suggestions?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> http://possumpalace.org/
>>>>> http://del.icio.us/buttergod/
>>>>> http://livingthing.org.au/
>>>>> http://www.dislocated.org/nomadology
>>>>> Please email me at dan at possumpalace.org; gmail occasionally loses
>>>>> messages
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Nicholas Roberts
>>>>> The Media Society
>>>>> 0428 694 819
>>>>> nicholas at themediasociety.org
>>>>> http://themediasociety.org
>>>>>
>>> ---
>>> http://possumpalace.org/
>>> http://del.icio.us/buttergod/
>>> http://livingthing.org.au/
>>> http://www.dislocated.org/nomadology
>>> Please email me at dan at possumpalace.org; gmail occasionally loses
>>> messages
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> ---
>> http://possumpalace.org/
>> http://del.icio.us/buttergod/
>> http://livingthing.org.au/
>> http://www.dislocated.org/nomadology
>> Please email me at dan at possumpalace.org; gmail occasionally loses
>> messages
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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