On Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:05:00 EST Peter Graham, Rutgers U., (908) 932-2741 said:
>
>For the record:  I'm talking at the moment in sociocultural terms, not in terms
>of "what we ought to do on the net".  I think it is a valid concern that we
>will all eventually have to confront, but for the moment I'm trying to discuss
>this at the cultural level:  the internet has provided us with a new means of
>communication which allows anonymous contributions to a discussion.  To what
>extent does this change discourse?  Do we want it to?  Why or why not?  Is the
>change "good"?
>
 
These are some of the questions I should have had in mind when I posted
the original note. :-)
   It was from one of my lists,  SEASIA-L, on Southeast Asian Studies.
The particular note seemed to be a test--it was not part of a
continuing thread.
   However, the notion of anonymity is probably going to become an
issue.  Over the last year, we have had two flame wars, both on
the issue of East Timor independence, resulting in a lot of verbal
intimidation.  In one case it went beyond intimidation to an overt
threat and this was relatively easy to handle by informing the
offenders' host systems people.  There has also been at least two
instances of forged mail.
   Several people have left the list because of intimidation and
the knowledge that various agencies from their own country monitor
the list.  I have offered to forward (anonymously) messages from
these people, although none has taken me up on it.
   With peer pressure and owner pressure, not to mention just
the passage of time, everybody gets back to the topic and focus
of the list. The list is focussed on "news and information," not
chat and discussion.
   I don't want to change to a moderated list because of timeliness
and because I don't want any subscriber to feel they are being
censored (although a few are convinced there is some way I can
edit msgs before they are distributed).
   There doesn't seem to be an acceptable solution, so SEASIA-L
will probably go on this way, but I would like to find a solution.
 
========================================================================
Elliott Parker                   Bitnet: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM
List Owner, SEASIA-L and CARR-L  Internet: [log in to unmask]
Department of Journalism         Less certain possibilities:
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