[iDC] iDC digest option & online silence and "infomania"

Sun Sep 2 09:10:06 UTC 2007

Something interesting happened around this discussion: after a flurry of 
interesting responses (on-list and off-list), Trebor compiled the digest 
(see below). That lead to an abrupt cessation of the group postings 
(though some excellent conversations continued off-list). So, we had 
information overload, as well as online silence in this discussion 
thread, all in one day...

A few points to wrap up the discussion so far, and maybe open new venues:

-Some of you mentioned "lurking" and passive engagement, which I believe 
are different than unresponsiveness. I pasted a few references on 
"lurking" at the bottom of this posting.

-David and others mentioned the "email" confirmations which ask us to 
confirm email receipt, and I also mentioned services like 
www.mailinfo.com, which "peek" into our inbox activities and report them 
back to the sender. We are left with the question whether these are 
legitimate attempts to address the challenges of online silence and 
information overload, or are they illegitimate invasions of privacy?

-Some of you mentioned the challenge of getting an online collaboration 
going when members do not respond to messages. This is a serious issue 
(in the workplace, the online classroom, and other places) which I cover 
in my work, including some suggestions on how to deal with them. If you 
are interested, ask me, and if you have your own tips, I think many of 
us would be curious to read them?

-A topic which came up off-list is footers that deal with the 
recipient's responsiveness. For example, footers such as 
http://five.sentenc.es/ or a footer like that used by Rebecca:

___

Hello!  This is a computer-generated auto-response. It aims to help me
with e-mail overload. I will try to get back to you as soon as I can.
If I fail to respond within 2-3 days please re-send your message. If
you need a response in less than 6 hours please call me or send a text
to my mobile phone.
___
I am curious if you have more examples, or opinions about such footers? 
Have you had positive or negative experiences with them?

Lastly, I was intrigued by Dave Cormier's suggestion to use *silence* as 
the most appropriate response to Keen's posting into this group. My 
guess is that the initial reaction of some was to want respond with an 
angry post, and that this was followed by a realization that such a post 
would create the exact buzz that Keen wanted to create? Was this an 
online example of a "spiral of silence"?

Thanks,

Yoram

links about lurking:

http://www.ifsm.umbc.edu/~preece/Papers/CHB_Corrected_Proof.pdf

http://sheizaf.rafaeli.net/publications/RafaeliRavidSorokaDeLurking2004Hicss37.pdf 

http://rafaeli.net/publications/SorokaRafaeliWWWInvisibleParticipantsLurking.pdf 

IDC infomania digest wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> If the frequency of messages is becoming a bit overpowering for you,
> simply switch to the iDC Digest option at:
> http://tinyurl.com/2bbmxx
>
> ***
>
> Digest of the hour: 
> Joseph Rabie, Stephen Downes, Robert Labossiere,
> Yoram Klaman
>
> ***
> message from: joe at overmydeadbody.org
>
> I equate "online silence" with "online stress" - on
> both sides, because the sender does not receive a reply, and because the
> recipient has both the pressure of finding the time to reply, and the
> guilt feeling of not yet having done so.
>
> Joe.
>
> ***
> message from admin at klooj.net
>
> one other thing occurs to me... the question of online silence is 
> particularly relevent to this list I think because most of us will have 
> encountered the phenomenon, in projects that are trying to develop 
> communities, of low active user response. It's not that people aren't 
> interested (I like to believe); in fact, many people will browse, but to 
> actively participate seems to require a level of immersion (familiarity
> with tools, acceptance of the time that might be involved, potential
> rewards, etc.) that many users don't have or don't want to explore. This
> is not, imho, actually "silence" so much as passive engagement. 
> For p2p or distributed projects, this can be a major issue,
> an obstacle to the realization of ideal of smart mobs, consumer
> activism, participatory democracy.
>
> Robert Labossiere
>
> ***
> message from stephen at downes.ca
>
> Hiya,
>
> I attempt to respond to all personal email (I say 'attempt' because I 
> sometimes fail). By 'personal email' I specifically exclude:
> - mail from mailing lists (which *may* merit a response, but doesn't 
> require one)
> - spam and other commercial messages, including those personally
> addressed
> - bacn and other status messages from websites (which *may* merit a 
> response or action)
>
> I think it's rude not to respond to personal emails (yes, this means I 
> am sometimes rude, because I sometimes fail). So I keep all personal 
> email in a folder until it has been attended to (I do not delete it and 
> then attempt to 'remember'). This means that although I respond to most 
> personal email immediately, sometimes personal email can take months for 
> a response. Usually these are emails that asked me for a longish opinion 
> or to perform a task (I may send a short acknowledgment for the latter).
>
> I have found that people (a) appreciate a response, even when it's 
> delayed, and (b) are willing to pick up a discussion after a long gap 
> like that as though nothing had happened.
>
> I also do not respond to termination emails following an exchange of 
> emails. These are emails that close a discussion, and hence need no 
> response. My favorite reads something like, "You're absolutely
> right." But you also see some like, "I guess we'll agree to disagree
> then."
>
> -- Stephen
>
> ***
> message from yoram.kalman at gmail.com
>         
> Robert, Michel,
>
> both of you raise an issue which is very central to understanding online 
> communication, and that is the issue of norms, and of how we *expect* 
> people to behave online.
>
>
> Unresponsiveness is really only one example of the complexity of these 
> norms. For example, in my research I found cases in which online silence 
> meant "yes, I agree", as well as cases when the same silence
> was supposed to communicate, "No!" Anyone who has ever asked
> people to RSVP had this experience, where some people do not respond
> since they do not plan to come, while others do not respond since they
> know that you know they will come, so why RSVP...
>
> Norms about online communication do exist, but they might differ 
> significantly between different users, and these differences do not 
> necessarily follow the same "fault lines" we are used to in
> face-to-face communication, such as gender, race, nationality,
> geographical regions, etc. 
>
> For example, some organizations have a culture of online 
> responsiveness: they respond in a timely manner to emails from 
> customers, co-workers, suppliers or subordinates. In other organizations 
> an email is rarely acknowledged, and if one wants something done, one 
> must use more traditional means such as the phone or face-to-face. If 
> someone from the former type of an organization emails to someone from 
> the latter type, the unresponsiveness that is likely to follow might 
> result in hurt feelings, ethical interpretations and other musings of 
> which the other side is absolutely unaware.
>
> I can see where Michel is coming from in saying that it is "an
> ethical requirement to respond to one's peers" but I have now
> encountered many cases which made me take a more Relativistic view on
> this topic. Robert's suggestion that online silence is as much about the
> sender as it is about the silent recipient, is a good example of this
> Relativism. I also liked Robert's attempts to draw parallels between
> email and telephones, as well as mail, bringing into mind Naomi Baron's
> insightful 1998 paper " Letters by phone or speech by other means:
> the linguistics of email."
>
> So, is it acceptable sometimes not to answer emails, and, is the only 
> other alternative to silence, Infomania?
>
> Yoram
>
> ***
> message #2 from yoram.kalman at gmail.com
>
> What a great example, David! I too agree that these confirmations are 
> highly intrusive, and I think twice and three times before I accept them 
> (if at all). But, their intrusiveness is nothing in comparison to tools 
> such as mailinfo (http://www.mailinfo.com), which actually report to the 
> sender the moment you open the email. They are using the same techniques 
> used by many spammers. On the other hand, aren't these technologies 
> trying to solve a very real problem, which is the high uncertainty 
> related to sending emails? Is it not legitimate to wish to know that my 
> message was at least opened? Tom Erickson and his colleagues at IBM 
> Research coined the term "social translucence," which is relevant to
> this discussion.
>
> So, are we for these confirmations, or against them?
>
> Yoram
> ***
>
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-- 
Yoram Kalman
Tel: +972 3 950 7340
Cell: +972 54 574 7375
www.kalmans.com