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
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
posted by Kami at
8:43 AM
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