The virtual community

From Driscollwiki

Jump to: navigation, search


Rheingold, H. (1993) The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. HarperPerennial: New York.

Contents

Introduction

The heart of the WELL

Daily life in cyberspace

Anonymity

  • Stewart Brand strongly against anonymity in the WELL (49)

Forum architecture

  • Modeling the spaces (62)
    • Forums, conferences, topics

Imagining the 'who'

  • Imagined audiences, communities (64)
    • Marc Smith, Anderson

Visionaries and convergences

Net as inclusive

  • BBS critical part (67)
  • Internet also a single part of a whole
  • BBS history "wholly different" from ARPA,etc (68)

Early off-topic activities

  • SF-LOVERS listserv on ARPA (77)
  • HUMAN-NETS, forum for social computing

Discussion of Xerox PARC

  • (78)

Computing for everyone

  • "Available to entire pop not just to a priesthood" (70)
  • Cyber-optimism, net exceptionalism: John Quarterman, "What will happen when McLuhan's global village becomes one of the largest countries in the world?" (80)
  • More cyber-optimism, specifically regarding open access to scholarly research + hobbyist scientists (81-82)

Pre-internet

  • BITNET, net for scholarly discussion, NSF + IBM
  • CSNET, specifically for CS scholarship, NSF
  • First discussion of "acceptable use" of ARPANET
    • No commercial activity (changes in 1993) (83)

NREN (National Research and Education Network)

  • ARPANET + internet + NSFNET (85)
  • Created via legislation
  • Military
  • Fear of falling behind, based on report from Office of Sci and Tech
  • High Performance Computing Act (86)
    • Al Gore champion!
    • Signed by Bush I
    • $650m from DARPA, $31m D o Comm, Natl Inst of Stds and Tech

IBM, MCI, AT&T

  • Big players first tried to stymie dev
  • Then try to take advantage of big money
  • Privatization trned
  • 1991 (86)
  • Concern over "metering" (88)

Net activities

  • Arguments will be supported by facts (91)
  • Pre-search engine Scavenger hunts (96)
    • "folklore" the only way to find things (104)
  • Hytelnet == hypertext + telnet (menuing system) (99)
  • Proj Gutenberg, Michael Hart (104)

BBS set up

  • "No cost" software (102)
  • Internet gateways
  • Inclusive term "Net"

Search

WAIS

  • Wide Area Information Services
  • Brewster Kahle (105)
  • Thinking Machines
  • Supported by Dow Jones, Apple, KPMC Peat Marwick

Rosebud (106)

  • Applesearch
  • Apple comp

Gopher (107)

  • U of Minn mascot
  • Hierarchical menus, masking line commands

Grassroots groupminds

Comp assisted teleconferencing

  • Jaques Vallee, 1982 (111)

Group decision making

  • Murray Turoff, Rand + Inst for Def Analysis, Delphi method (112)
  • EMISARI (Emergency Mgmt Info Sys and Ref Index)
  • "Groupmind"
  • Resource Interruption Monitoring System (RIMS)

NLS, Augmentation Research Center

  • Engelbart (113)

Collective intelligence

  • Turoff
  • EIES (Eyes) Electronic Info Exchange Sys, 1976 (114)
  • Collective intelligence (113)
  • Tough interface but continuously developed for a decade
  • Harry Stevens created Participate, influenced by eyes, for a service called the Source
  • Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz made a sys called legitec for MA state gov built on EIES
  • Human potential, spiritual communion

Groupware

  • Coined by Johnson-Lenz

Inst for the Future (IFTF)

  • 1970s think tank
  • tool shop for think tank
  • Jacques Vallee + people from NLS/SRI
  • PLANET == PLAnning NETwork
  • Became Notepad, private global conferencing system (116)

Telecomm experiments

  • UUCP, 1971 (1971)
  • Telecomputing corp of america, 1979
  • Source/ Readers Digest, 1980
  • CompuServe, 1980
  • First MUD, 1980
  • USENET, 1980
  • Ward Christensen, BBS, 1980

USENET

  • Conferencing for UNIX programmers (118)
  • Connecting Duke, UNC
  • "nature of USENET ... result of design"
  • "fundamental unit ... individual post"
  • Unique message IDs
  • Informal network
  • Anyone can post
  • Direct comm possible (go to email)
  • "Anarchic" (119)
  • Bigger nodes can volunteer to take on greater burden
  • Concern with dialing charges (a la Fido)
  • BUT! Funding from DEC, Bell Labs (120)
  • Governance: "Quasi-anarchic cabal", "ruled by norms" (120)
  • Gateway to ARPA listservs "legitimized" USENET (121)
  • By 1992, 60% of USENT traffic transmitted on IP, 40% via UUCP

Contrasting WELL and USENET

USENET

  • Less emphasis on seriality
  • Messages come in semi-asynchronously
  • Many possible tools
  • Threading, quoting features of newsreaders, not built in

WELL

  • Strictly linear timing
  • Faster
  • Single interface

"Correspondance" v. "conversation"

  • Corr takes longer (121)
  • Conv more spontaneous

Development of a group

  • "Regulars" become
    • "Communities"
    • with "cultures"
    • or "battlefields"

FAQs

  • Like "textbooks" (128-9)

"Mass medium" ?

  • Potential worldwide reach
  • But every reader has equal ability to respond (130)

Citizen journalism on USENET

  • Comparison to Rodney King (130)
  • (Jump off to Fiske?)

Mass media coverage

  • Hysteria over sexy USENET postings (131)

Grassroots: BBS Culture

"If a BBS (computer Bulleting Board System) isn't a democratizing technology, there is no such thing" (131)
  • Self-propagating
  • Difficult to eradicate
  • Not reliant on government-funded internet
  • But PCs and telephone network
  • "Political tool"
  • "Raw, unmediated alternative to mass-media culture" (132)
  • Comparison to zine writers
  • 1993, 60,000 boards in the US alone (132)

First BBS

  • Ward Christensen
  • Randy Suess
  • 1978
  • MODEM protocol, 1977, Ward Christensen
    • MOdulator-DEModulator
  • XMODEM, 1979, Keith Peterson + Christensen added error correction
    • "hobbyist high technology" (133)
    • Christensen: "single most modified program in computing history" (133)
    • Public domain
  • Randy Suess + Christensen, 1978, CBBS, (Computer BBS)
    • Jan 16, Chicago
    • SNOW DAY from WORK
    • "all the pieces are there, it is snowing like @#$%, let's hack" (134)
    • Let to Chinet, chicago area bbs
  • November 1978 issue of Byte discusses "Hobbyist Computerized Bulletin Boards"

CommuniTree, Santa Cruz

  • 1978
  • CommuniTree BBS
  • "The Tree" (134)
  • Active til at least 82-83
  • ORIGINS, create your own religion project started on the board
  • Allucquere Rosanne Stone, early participant (135)
  • Little monitoring, high privacy, soon overrun with "adolescent boys"
    • "in practice, surveillance and control proved necessary" (135)

Fido BBS

  • Calling CBBS in 80, 81
  • Moved to SF in 1983
  • Wrote Fido #1 for fun in December
  • Collabo with Tim Pozar
    • Pozar and Rheingold were acquainted via WELL
  • Fido #2, Baltimore, Jan 84
  • Several dozen Fidos by end of 84

Fido BBS philosophy

  • TJ == "skateboarder, a gay activist, and an anarchist who hates the idea of suppressing any kind of free expression of ideas" (136)
  • First version of Fido included off-topic area, "anarchy" (136)
  • Fido sysop philosophy: "thou shalt not offend; thou shalt not be easily offended" (137)
  • Rheingold quotes Gibson, re: cyberpunk, "the street finds its own uses for technology"

FidoNet

  • Grassroots network of BBS
  • Primary obstacle == long distance calling charges
  • 1985, 1200bps modem could send 3 single spaced pages for $.25 transcontinental
    • Middle of the night, cheapest calls
    • "National Fido Hour" (138)
    • "All telephone bills were paid by the sysops" (138)
    • Net map moved from totally distributed to subnet/gateway layout (138)
  • Initial implementation == Fidomail (private)
    • Fido user in Dallas wrote == Echomail (public conferencing)
  • First Fidocon Colorado Springs 1986
  • 10,000 nodes by 1991

Fido gateways

  • Tim Pozar starts working on internet gateway (139)
    • FidoNet has 100k users on 10k nodes in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia
    • But Rheingold calls internet gateway "the ultimate connection" (139)
  • Ken Harrington from SRI recruited to the project
  • First gateway node in a SF radio station!
    • 40 gateways by 1991

Example BBSes

"When you walk down the street in your city or town, it is likely that at least one of the people you see everyday is a BBSer" (144)
  • Combat Arms
  • Catholic Info Network (CIN) (142)

Multi-user dungeons and alternative identities

  • Some potentially useful stuff about gender-bending, deception, identity construction
  • Lots of tech details
  • Some discussion of Bartle

Real-time tribes

  • IRC as "spectator sport" (177)
  • Open in a "window" during the work day
  • Old CMC tech
    • User chat/ unix talk on Timesharing systems (as old as 60s) (178)
    • CompuServ CB
    • Minitel messageries
    • Fujitsu Habitat

Original IRC

  • Jarkko Oikarinen
  • U o Oulu, Finland
  • 1988

Importance of play

  • Some discussion of chat, gaming in context of research (179-80)
  • "best programmers" doing fun stuff

Japan and the net

  • Izumi Aizu, guide
  • Aizu didn't take entrance exam for university
    • Srsly limiting his tradl career opportunities (199)
  • Born 1952
  • Influenced by 1968 student protests in US, Paris, Tokyo (200)
  • Wrote first Jp-lang guidebook to Apple PCs in 1983 (200)
    • High Technology Communications
  • Inst for Networking Design (203)
    • Who were the financial backers?

TWICS

  • Started by Jeff Shapard
  • Partner Joichi Ito
  • Online network serving greater Tokyo

Metanetwork and forest preservation

  • Using BBSes to rally intl support for forest preservation (201)
  • 1985
  • Mayor Tomino set up free computer lab for citizens to communicate w govt officials (202)

Karaoke

  • Words on screens connecting people AFK and online (204)

Deregulation

  • 1985
  • Enabled more reg citizens to use modems

COARA

  • Cafe COARA, social area on a system design for biz comm (206)
  • Very vocal presence of women
  • Opened new courtship opportunities
  • Why do people use it?
    • For diversity of opinion (207)

Key figures

Govenor Hiramatsu

  • COARA member since 1986
  • Trying to balance high tech development + eco preserv

Shumpei Kumon

  • Former prof at U of Tokyo
  • Intellectual framework for Hypernetwork
  • 1960s leftist, activist, later disillusioned

Kumon's theory

  • 3 "games"/stages of the development in human civ (209)
    • Prestige Game
    • Wealth Game
    • Wisdom Game
  • Wisdom involves knowledge sharing (210)

Social emulation

  • Adapting computing notion of emulation to transnational communication (211)

Transnational BBSing

  • COARA linked to Santa Monica PEN, 1990? (212)

Joi Ito history

  • Born in Kyoto (conservative) (217)
  • Mother was from 18 gen ruling-class, father was merchant-class
    • Problematic union
    • Fam moved to Detroit
  • Moved back to JP at age 14 for Nishimachi Intl School, American School in Japan
    • Learned "Tokyo street language, street smarts, and computers" (217)
  • Attended Tufts and U of Chicago
  • Dropped out to start TWICS w Shapard and be a DJ in Tokyo clubs

Télématique and messageries roses: a tale of two virtual communities

  • CalvaCom
  • Minitel
  • Télétel
  • Worldnet

Accessing Fr services from CA

  • Rumors of messageries rose
  • Little evidence on USENET, IRC (221)
  • Befriended Parisian member of Electronic Networking Association

CalvaCom

  • Dialup system like the WELL (221)
  • Co-founder Lionel Lumbroso
    • Working as a technical interpreter in late 1970s
  • Calvados, one-man project written for Apple II at beheast of American U of Paris dean Steve Plummer (222)
  • By 1985, Calvados had 3k users and was making ~$100k/mo
  • Rewrote the software for all PC users and created many diff discussion areas ("cities")
    • Mainly computing topics (223)
    • Some "catch-all" areas like "free expression"
  • Hired most active users to be "animateurs" or hosts (223)

Calva culture

  • No barn raising
  • Little brainstorming
  • Mostly argument and goofing (224)
  • Former admins suggest that French has rich public spaces (cafes) and maybe that is why they don't have online conviviality
    • (Why not credit obvious selectivity of WELL???)

Minitel

  • dirigiste
    • political regime that actively promotes/regulates/funds cultural/tech development for the public good
    • Fr govt (226)
  • Early 1970s, Direction Générale des Télécommunications (DGT) charged w upgrading phone sys (226)
    • 1978 Nora-Minc report called for "the computerization of society" (226)
  • Télétel project (videotex) to replace paper phonebooks
    • Le Monde reported that télématique was threatening the tradl press (Sep 27 1980) (227)

Hacking Minitel

  • User of pilot deployment in Grétel hacks central service to communicate in real time w other users (227)
  • Michel Landaret, resp for Grétel observed users exploiting a real-time help system to chat with each other
    • Rather than squelch, he implemented it as a feature and it became very popular (228)

Free minitel terminals

  • Primary opposition came from newspapers who feared extinction (229)
    • Turned out quickly to be not a problem

Minitel services

  • Expected to be a system for info services but chat was most popular (230)
  • Sex chat services esp popular
  • New biz enabled by centralized telephone company that can bill customers on behalf of 3rd parties (230)

Moral panic over minitel sex

  • Popularity of sex services affected other areas of the net
  • Churches and others were upset
  • but 1991, 89% of the population opposed censorship (233)

Users ultimately determine uses

  • Feenberg on minitel
  • "Human dimension" emerges beyond the intended uses of the designers (234)

UK systems

  • Dave Winder, member of CIX, London-area community
    • Herestoby (here's toby)
    • Dwinder, Wavy Davey
    • Disabled, wheelchair bound, but sharp witted and hilarious
  • First joined Prestel, similar to CompuServe, 1989

CompuLink Information Exchange (CIX) (235)

  • Started in 1985 (same year as TWICS, WELL)
  • Aimed at conferencing
  • Used software called COSY
    • Predates the WELL's PicoSpan and TWICS' Caucus

Here's Toby

  • Private conference within CIX
  • Only 7 members (including Dwinder)
  • Vulnerable topics, sex, health, emotions

Electronic frontiers and online activists

"Tom Paine would have published Common Sense on a computer bulletin board", Dave Hughes (241)
  • Hughes, military trained libertarian living in a "small town" in Colorado
  • Activism began by opposing a local ordinance regulating home-office work (243)
  • Lead to more local, county-level organizing

Big Sky Telegraph (BST)

  • BBSes in rural Montana schoolhouses (244)
  • Frank and Reggie Odasz
  • Developed Chariot conferencing system
  • Two $50k grants to train rural teachers
  • Willard Uncapher from ASC went to Montana to study the effort
    • Believed that the local culture and not the tech would determine its efficacy (247)
  • BST went online Jan 1, 1988 at Western Montana College
    • Early adopters were Women's Resource CEnter (248)
    • Jody Webster emphasizes the dev of social skills

BST + Net

  • BST first gateway is to FidoNet (249)
  • FidoNet transports to internet
  • Distance learning initiative connected science students in Montana to MIT

BST + Native American users

  • Native American Share-=Art gallery on Russel Country BBS in Hobson, MT (250)
  • Enable cultural teaching+learning, self-archiving
  • Built on established AInet (American Indian Network) by John Mohawk (250)

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) origin myth

  • Harper's sponsored a private chat between Phiber Optik, Acid Phreak, Barlow and others
  • Lots of animosity (253)
  • "I became less their adversary and more their scoutmaster" Barlow (253)
  • Jan 24, 1990 Secret Service raid Phreak's house, hold mom up
    • Also raid Craig Neidorf of Phrack, Steve Jackson games
    • "Operation Sun Devil" (254)
  • FBI, etc v unclear about the nature of the crimes they are investigating
  • Barlow, Kapor, and others concerned about the obviously ill-informed law enforcement operation (256)
  • Founding board = Barlow, Kapor, Brand, ...
  • Founding funds = Kapor, Gilmore, Woz, ...

Early EFF activities

  • Public outreach via WELL conference
  • Office established in DC, staffed by Jerry Berman
  • Office established in Cambridge, staffed by Cliff Figallo (ex-WELL director)
    • Cambridge office dedicated to education soon closed as EFF focuses on legal/lobbying efforts

Steve Jackson Games

  • Cyberpunk RPG materials confused for computer crime manual (254)
  • Took 2 years to come to trial, destroyed SJG's biz
  • Judge reprimanded the Secret Service investigators (259)
    • Government rested their case, didn't even call their witnesses

Rheingold warning

"Any freedoms we lose now are unlikely to be regained later" (260)

NGOs/ Non profits + CMC

CompuMentor

  • Dan Ben-Horin
  • Connecting volunteer mentors with non-profit orgs for tech support (262)

EarthTrust

  • Connecting branch offices with $1000 workstations + MCIMail
  • Environmentalist org

Cities + CMC

Santa Monica PEN

  • Launched in 1989
  • Ken Phillips, director of Information Systems Depart in Santa Monica City Hall
  • City wouldn't fund PEN but HP donated $350k in hardward and MDG donated $20k in software
  • Small population: 3000 registered users, 500 regulars, 50 "hard-core" posters (271)
PEN Action Group, SHWASHLOCK
    • SHowers WASHing machines LOCKers
    • For homeless
  • Bruria Finkel, August 1989 proposal
  • July 1990, SM city council allocated $150k to build SHWASHLOCK (269)
  • PEN terminal installed in a homeless shelter

St. Silicon's Hospital

  • 1984 research project, Case Western Reserve Univ
  • Dr. Tom Grunder, dept of Family Medicine
  • "St. Silicon's Hopsital" BBS
  • Larger version of the project received funding from AT&T and the Ohio Bell Company

Cleveland Free-Net

  • 1984
  • 7000 reg users, 500 calls/day

Natl Public Telecomputing Network

  • Modeled on NPR and PBS (273)
  • Funded by volunteers/ nonprofits

End of frontier?

  • 1993
  • Major companies getting involved
  • Building fiber, cable infrastructure
  • Lobbying
  • Convergence

Disinformocracy

Cautionary tale: Prodigy

  • Neither ARPA nor BBS roots
  • More similar to videotex
  • Advertising, commercial services
  • Lesson of failed videotex = ppl not interested in info w/o social interaction (277)
  • Privacy concerns
  • Censorship
  • Pricing is high on private messages (30 free per month lolzzz) (278)
  • Users can't go to court to challenge censorship based on 1st amend

Criticism: Commoditization of public sphere

Criticism: Surveillance, control, disinformation

  • Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham
  • James Carey opposing the "technological sublime" (286-7)
  • Langdon Winner, Mythinformation
  • Foucault, Discipline and Punish
  • Robins, K. and Webster, F. Cybernetic capitalism: Information, technology, everyday life
  • Gary Marx, MIT, on tech + privacy

Criticism: Reality/ hyper-reality

Afterword

  • Big telecomm blundered in with lots of resources, little awareness
  • Tensions between govt + grassroots
    • TWICS shutdown temporarily after offering full-net access (302)
  • National Information Infrastructure (NII)
    • New Gore initiative attempts to balance interests of biz / users
    • Infrastructure to be built by private industry
    • But the infrastructure should be an "open platform" (304-5)
    • Racing to implement during a Democ administration
  • Major TV moves
    • Clipper chip
    • Interactive TV
  • Barlow met w Gore
    • Posted big rant to Net / published in Wired
    • "I am now very nervous about the government of the United States of America" (308)
  • Joi Ito demonstrated Mosaic and HTML to Rheingold in 1994 (308-9)
    • Ito created Tomogaya "Net-zine" (310)










Jump offs

  • First instance of term "thread"
  • Jaques Vallee, Network revolution, 1982
  • Murray Turoff, Network nation,
  • "Cyberspace is where your money is" -- @JPBarlow (75)
  • Boardwatch archives?
  • Which radio station housed first Fido/IP gateway? Pozar technician there?
  • Langdon Winner, Mythinformation
  • November 1978 issue of Byte discusses "Hobbyist Computerized Bulletin Boards"
  • Robins, K. and Webster, F. Cybernetic capitalism: Information, technology, everyday life
  • Fred on Chinet?
  • First Conference on Cyberspace 1990, Austin Texas
  • CompuServ chat was called CB
  • Get Xu's thesis
  • Ask Shoko about TWICS and COARA
  • John Quarterman, "cartographer of the Net", The Matrix (215)
  • Willard Uncapher, "Rural Grassroots Telecommunications", ASC researcher
  • Pamela Varley, PEN case study in MIT Technology Review, 1991
  • Lotus, Marketplace, CD-ROM
  • E.M. Forster, The machine stops
  • Ito Tomogaya "Net-zine" (310)
Retrieved from "http://kevindriscoll.org/wiki/The_virtual_community"
Personal tools