My Time at the Bazaar

I know, I know, visiting a discussion thread that works to support list members problems hardly qualifies as “the Bazaar” but I saw a lot of similarities in the group dynamics that were highlighted in “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” that I drew the correlation anyway.

First, a short summary, I choose to investigate a discussion thread, misc.health.diabetes that related to the management of diabetes. The first comment was posted by an individual who had a friend that was recently diagnosed with diabetes and wanted information, diets and recipes. What followed were multiple replies from caring and concerned list members. Consequently, there were follow up problems and questions that persisted and kept the list alive from 1996 to 2004. I was surprised at the quality of the recommendations and support of this group. I wonder what their individual backgrounds are as far as illness type and occupation. Some of the list members sound like health care professionals. The following is a list of the topics that were discussed: diabetic symptoms, medications and side effects, treatment alternatives, products and research into new devices and pleas for help with financial advice, monetary gifts and insurance information.

Wiley’s question was: What motivates the responders to participate in the discussion?
Well, Eric Raymond listed what he called lessons throughout the body of his paper on the Delphi effect that applies to what I believe were the motivations of this group. For example, lesson one state that “every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch. Obviously, all of the participants on this list either had diabetes or had a loved one who had diabetes. They were very interested in discussing those methods that would improve their quality of life and improving the life of others. This, in my opinion, is a big “itch” to scratch. There is a large intrinsic motivation for these members to participate. In addition, I think because all of the list members share a commonality with diabetes they also have great empathy for those listers that share their problems with the group. Moreover, because the group shares a common disease they have experiential knowledge to share and have become experts in this category. This relates to Eric’s lesson 10, “if you treat your beta-testers as if they’re your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.” There were several times that members posted that even though they had access to literature and research, they found the comments from their fellow members of the list to be more informative and valuable for them in the treatment of their disease.

The thing that surprised me as this group worked to answer questions and support each other was the level of respect that they had for comments that were made. I felt, as a reader, that every post was treated as legitimate (not stupid) and of concern to the member who posted it. So, responses were made with great care to not offend but to graciously educate. I have copied some of the posts to illustrate some of the verbiage that was used. These quotes help to substantiate my claims of the groups empathy, commonality, experiential knowledge and expert advice that I mention in the above paragraph.

This was the first post that started this discussion:
Help! I'm a new diabetic, monitoring my bg for about 7 weeks. I havelost 30 lbs, work out everyday now, eat "right", and am still running bg 175-220. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. I can eat EXACTLY the same and workout EXACTLY the same 2 days in a row and have tremendous fluctuations. I am desperately trying to stay off medication as it would significantly change my life (can't scuba while on medication). HELP!!!!!
The responses were caring: It sounds like you are exercising your self into exhaustion. Losing 30 lbs in 7 weeks is also a bit excessive. My advice would be to talk to your doctor and ask him/her about your options. Not being able to control your diabetes will significantly change your life as well.

With that, the person with the problem responded with:

Thanks for being so caring.
There were three problems that were posted that the group members spent time on helping out the other person. One was when someone needed to know about a certain medication, the second was when a distraught member felt responsible for causing this disease in his loved one because of medication he had given her and the last was when someone posted that they wanted to treat their disease with Chinese medicine. In all cases, these problems were met with empathy and concern. One group member asks for clarification: What is "VYRTEC"? Is it a medicine? What is it used for? What is the chemical name? (Even in Portuguese this would be a help.)
Another states that the group member cannot blame himself: My son's experience prior to diagnosis sounds very similar…I can't speak for your case but in mine I know there was nothing that we did that caused his disease - if it didn't occur when it did surely it would have shown itself soon after.
A group members comment on Chinese Medicine: The first thing to do is to get your treatment handled via Western medicine. Once this is being done and everything is fairly stable, if you have interest in supplementing your Western allopathic treatment with othermethods, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, go see an experiencedacupuncturist who also is well-versed in herbs and have a consultation.They may be able to help support the treatment you're already receiving.Are you inquiring about type 1 or type 2 diabetes?
I thought that this last post was interesting because I would have told the person that they were crazy to try to treat diabetes with Chinese medicine. Instead, he handled it with great respect. There were more responses to this person’s query but I cannot list them all.

One last thing, it was sad to note that in 2002 and then again in 2004 there was a continuous post from someone who claimed to be in great peril in Russia. Of course the post was a plea for money, and it was constant with multiple postings a day. It took over the group several times and then in 2004 all together. I felt this was perfect example of someone who blatantly abused the use of the commons (in reference to “Managing the Virtual Commons”). The post was obviously a scam for money, but because it was posted so often and was so offensive to those who had a real need, the group members chose to go elsewhere in their dialogue. I was very sad to see this happen. It is an egregious act when someone takes advantage of the common space that we all share.

Time Spent this Week:
3 Hours Online
2 Hours Reading and Assimilating Information
Total of 5 Hours

Kami Hanson

Google Groups Quagmire

My Journey through Google Groups

I have not participated in an on-line group in a long time, so this was an eye opening experience for me. There was a time that I was part of the old “eGroups” which I found to be very user friendly and understandable. However, I found USENET to be confusing. Perhaps I wasn’t using it correctly and perhaps it was not intended to be a “new and improved” version of eGroups. The following is a description of my experience, maybe you can tell me what I did wrong.

My journey took me through several phases as I learned how to focus in on my searches and refine my interests. I spent the first two hours, 4:30-6:30 pm, doing what was assigned, exploring the archive. The most important thing that I was looking for was that the “group” was active. I discovered that you could see by the dates on the posts that a certain thread was “dead” but I found it frustrating that I kept going down defunct paths. I realized that the “advanced search” feature could locate posts that were more recent, but I wasn’t very good at the searches that way. I would put in a subject of interest in the search box and would find information, but often times it would be an article from some professional source instead of an actual group. I found this to be interesting because I thought that the “groups” would be much more defined, but basically, as near as I could tell, “groups” were just threads that related to a central comment. I couldn’t tell that there was an official group, just a lot of miscellaneous conversations that loosely related to the topic or group name that google had given it. I found it even more difficult to tell how you would know as a user how to get to a specific conversation of interest and how you would return to that exact same place later. I searched a variety of topics and groups which I can list but that seems superfluous to my actual experience. Around 6:30 pm I signed up for a user account.

When I signed up for my user account at 6:30 pm, I was informed that I would get an e-mail soon to verify my account status and then I could post to the group conversations. I was excited because I wanted to post on a conversation that related to Dan Rather. However, I did not get my e-mal, so I waited and surfed and waited and explored. During this waiting time I discovered a lot in my explorations. I found that there were several conversations related to Dan Rather’s “memo” issue and most of them got quite heated, off topic and insulting. Yikes, in fact, most of the political conversations ended up with “you moron” followed with “fascist pig.” So, I decided to explore some topics on the more inane side of celebrity. I found that some people hate Owen Wilson’s nose and some love the look of it. I moved on to women’s rights and activism, antifacism and education. I had to be careful and choosy in my decisions of what threads to follow. It was like going to a consignment store and having to pick the quality items out of the junk that was available. I am not in to thrift store shopping and sifting through scrap to find the one gem item. And, I didn’t like it any better in Google groups trying to find the one or two valid conversations in which to participate. I kept rechecking my e-mail for my confirmation message so that I could post, but to no avail. So, I continued to explore, but this time I clicked on every possible link that I could on the Google groups page. I had no idea that Google offered so much. I had always used Google for just a web search. So I was thrilled to see the “Images” feature and “Fruggle” and in the more section, there were all sorts of features. I was especially pleased to know that you could put a mathematical equation in the search box and have it solve problems for you and the word define feature was cool. I didn’t know about this. In addition, I read everything about posting etiquette which I though was interesting and relevant. And, it seems like most people adhere to these recommendations in their posts, except for the real heated political conversations. Last, I discovered that the Simpsons had the most threaded and active discussions of them all.

Alas, at 9:00 pm, I signed up for a different user account using a new computer and was able to get in to post immediately. I felt pressured to post where I knew there were current threads, so I posted to a conversation related to the Apprentice on NBC. I know, not the most cerebral, but the most entertaining. I had watched the last Apprentice show and was excited to comment on the firing of “Bradford” so I found a link in the “groups” section of rec.arts.tv. I found a comment to post to and when I did, it looked to me like my post was going to go somewhere different than intended because the comments in my draft box had to do with free iPods and not the Apprentice. Anyway, I wrote my comments and posted. To my surprise, the computer said that my post was successfully done but that it could take 6 to 9 hours to post. Yikes! I was so surprised. I knew that this was an asynchronous discussion but this time delay was unexpected. I guess I thought that there would be more opportunity for interaction. That someone would read my post and respond with-in at least half an hour. I’ll have to check back next week, if I can find it again to see if anyone responded. I continued as assigned and posted everywhere that I could where there was a current conversation. I posted on a review of “Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow”, participated in more Apprentice review and the breading of bearded dragons and same sex marriage and who would win at the Emmys. I got so caught up and lost about where I was at that I cannot tell you now Dave how to get there. Today, before this note, I tried to pinpoint my exact location for you but I could not discover again exactly where I was and I don’t think my comments have yet posted because I know I was somewhere close to where I posted for the Apprentice. Anyway, you’ll have to be patient with me. I haven’t participated on Google groups before and I’m sure there must be a more organized way to do things. All in all, I ended my Journey about 11:00 pm, with 5 ½ hours of haphazard exploration and episodic posting. My final feelings were, why go to Google groups when you can participant in more interactive chats on-line?

Interaction Hours

I spent at least five hours this week on the subject matter at hand.

Intro to Internet

“We have no troubles here…in here…Life is Beautiful!”

It wasn’t until I discovered that I could feed my passion for escapism via the Internet that I decided to become a regular user. I lived in New Jersey at the time, just outside of New York City, and was an ardent theatre patron. When the revival of the theatrical production of Cabaret opened, I was hooked. As my personal life was falling apart, I connected on a personal level with the idea of denial and escapism that was so prevalent in the psyche of the people in this play. I became obsessed with the performer that played the emcee of the show and discovered that there was an entire world dedicated to him on the Internet. Now I have to say that this type of “groupie” behavior was foreign to me, it sounds rather sophomoric in fact. However, I can’t tell you how fulfilled I began to feel as I joined up with listgroups and participated in chat rooms that were totally dedicated to Cabaret and the emcee. Those of us on the listserve referred to each other as “listsibs” and began to plan events and get-togethers in the city. I was on the Internet daily to view my listsibs posts, to look at pictures they had taken of “our” emcee and to find out what was new or upcoming so that I could plan it in my schedule. I felt like a patron of the Cabaret, that if I stayed entranced in this debauchery I would not recognize the evil that was brewing in my midst. As was the case with Nazi fascism, the trouble in my life became so paramount that it could no longer be ignored. I eventually had to move with my son to Utah leaving everything behind me.

This was a very dramatic beginning to my Internet usage. When I moved to Utah, I didn’t even have a computer, so I would go to Kinkos to use their computer and Internet almost daily. I felt very lost at first after I left the New York City metroplex and was trying desperately to still feel connected. I have to say that it was the Internet that saved me. I was able to keep in contact with my friends via e-mail, my listsibs via the listserve and participate in other virtual communities that were going through a situation that was similar to mine. This provided me with a support system, albeit virtual, that helped me to deal with the challenges that I was facing. Once I started to pull my life together, the Internet and the computer became even more an integral part of my existence. I started the process of applying for graduate school. I took the GMAT exam and used the computer to complete practice tests multiple times a week. I learned how to use excel and powerpoint, how to complete my banking on-line and sign up for communications about information in which I was interested. I began to see knowledge of the computer and related software as a benefit to myself in my personal and professional life. I took classes and worked to learn everything that I could about data management software, web development software, graphics software, and other relevant hardware.

I no longer feel the need to track a famous Broadway performer on the Internet. My time is spent doing research on the Internet and finding out new and exciting things related to instructional technology. I do, however, find myself tracking the movement of my ex-husband now and again in the news on the Internet. He has been served with a life sentence and will not have the opportunities that I now have learning in a new era of technology.

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