meta, yes that's me in larslarson's photos and involved with ya on the gcbh project. as for stephen, i do believe he has more to add and i have learned quite a bit at times from him....as for the validity of quondam as a predecessor of the blog. i believe the difference between the two is as a discursive element. quondam is inherently self-referential in a continuously unfolding way, where as the postopolis crowd is inherently discursive in that posts to particular entries can lead to new entries. and then there is archinect within which we all play various roles. i was thinking a bit about the discussions going on here this morning.....
if when we felt like we were struggling to recognize our fellow archinectors when we met up last week it was because here we are de-physicalized in our interactions. here we seek out others with similar inquiries or experiences and recognize each other by these types of similarities or differences. we are truly de-physicalized in our interaction. to suddenly have the interaction physicalized is a surreal thing. i wonder how the archinect panel went...i wish i could have made it for that.
yeah, thanks quilian for the update on the archinect panel. and it would have been great to get oana out for the archinect panel or for our hang out session. has anyone heard from her lately?
i was wondering about oana also.so talented, smart and funny. she and i used to talk all the time over voip while she was in spain. and im'd quite a bit while she was at school. but since she's been in the states, i've hardly talked to her. but i know she's having a great time.hi oana!
hopefully someone else can come an augment this...i have to be brief...new job...
Bryan Finoki introduced the Archinect panel, offering a brief history of the site's creation and early developments. He handed the mic to chief-editor John Jourden who then added a few thoughts, specifically on the schoolblog project. Quilian began, followed by myself, Enrique and Jill. we briefly discussed our schoolblogs and general involvement with Archinect. Susan gave a brief account of her 7 years on Archinect, and how involvement in this community played an important role in her eventual decision to apply to MArch programs...
John and Bryan and everyone else passed the mic back and forth, addressing questions and sharing additional thoughts.
everyone shared a personal narrative about involvement with archinect. for most of the comments i've offered on this thread, i've had notes to refer to. since i was sitting on the panel for this discussion, i didn't write any, so i apologize if this is lacking content...
regarding my brief time with the mic - i took the chance to talk primarily about mapa and the GPCL project. i think it's obvious, but that effort demonstrates the power of a virtual community to institute change in the physical world.
perhaps someone else can chime in...there were 7 of us...
i've usu been critical of quondam in the past because, honestly, it's not for me. it's certainly got it's audience.
but i've never gotten the feeling that it's in any way a DISCUSSION. unless you call interchanges between stephen and his alter-egos a discussion.
there are certainly a wealth of interesting things at quondam and in stephen's site there are hints of blog-dna, but what stephen's claims of origination fail to acknowledge is the extent to which the format, the content, and, most importantly, the social interaction and trading of knowledge and opinion in blogs like bldgblog are different.
@ Puddles,
If "Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid."
Then are Lurkers being selfish?
I would think not, although perhaps a post every 100 views is a good rule?
@ Quillian I for one took idiot almost as a complement.
Ie: The idiot savant
thanks so much for representing archinect john, geoff, ap, quillian, susan, enrique and bryan! i wish i could've been there with you. any video footage of the archinect panel?
well, i'm no expert on the meaning of the word "idiot" or ancient greece or probably much of anything else for that matter...but yes, i do feel that under the original definition that the "lurker" could indeed be considered a selfish person. i suspect that it's also possible that pure lurker (someone who only observes and never gets involved) might also qualify as a kind of second class citizen. that is, although part of the community, never taking the pro-active step to shape the community in any way.
but honestly, i don't know. the nice thing about wiggles original reference to idiots was that it actually forced me to study up on the word rather than assuming that i knew its meaning just because it's been in my vocabulary since about kindergarten.
wow...it been a long time since i've actually read an entire thread. i usually just ignore everyone and end up posting whatever is on my mind at that moment.
perhaps using a word like idiot and referring back to a root origin that is no longer used and has changed meaning through first latin, then old french and then old english to become the word it is today. perhaps the greek "idiotes" should have been used. perhaps this choice of word usage sheds some leukos on the matter.
Archinecters Quilian Riano, Susan Surface, and Javier Arbona talk shit about Postopolis!
Then, as the Postopolis! party begins, Archinect chief editor John Jourden (far right) talks to Geoff Manaugh (in yellow shirt) and GM's wife (orange skirt), as John Hill/Archidose (plaid shirt and flip-flops, long hair) stands behind a crowd that includes Chris Lasch of Aranda/Lasch.
Also, the comments/post ratio doesn't factor in one person looking many times (again, as far as I know), so the high viewing to posting ratios of some threads may be due to those of us who love the sound of our own voice re-reading and re-re-reading what we've written over and over again. Not that I do that, of course.
In my very sloppy assessment, it seems most threads have about a 20% posting to viewed ratio. The really good threads - considered comments, on topic, delving into a single idea/building review/construction problem/licensing issue etc. - have fewer people reading them but the people who are reading them are more engaged, so the ratio is higher.
My little laptop statistical analysis, completely personal and non-scientific. Archinect probably does have access to better info on all our posting habits.
That pic of Wigley is so, so wonderful. It really makes me laugh.
Sure, people like Stephen, Alexander Trevi and Kazys Varnelis should be involved in this kind of event. This was Postopolis' first outing, and perhaps on subsequent versions of this event (indeed, this should be an annual thing), then more people can be involved. Don't fault the organizers for so-called "omissions" when they were preoccupied with the logistics and the content of the event. Believe me, it was a hell of a thing to organize. I'm willing to bet that they would have wanted more people involved.
If you want to play the history game and properly recognize the idea of posting stuff on walls, then perhaps you should look way back before Quondam. Indeed, at the 1932 MoMA Modern Architecture show (the Johnson/Hitchcock thingy), Le Corbusier's drawings for the Centrosoyuz, etc, were not actually drawings, but blown-up photographs from the Ouvre Complete. How conceptually different is that from spray-mounting blog entries inside the Storefront? Not much, especially if you consider what the Ouvre Complete truly is.
So, I just played the history game ... and it got me nowhere. It won't get anyone anywhere.
To wit: the Clip/Stamp/Fold followed the same tactic. Covers of various magazines were also plastered along one wall. Noone seemed to cry foul when that happened ... perhaps it is indicative of how to curate architectural writing within a (literally and figuratively) circumscribed space.
i don't why this that should be involved in this event. it is done and done with the people who have involved.
it was not a historical survey of who and when, that is down the line whole another historical survey show, maybe a book.
this, rather, was an action-reaction-response-generate-post-unpost-talk, discuss and show +,+,+, whatever, performance meets venue, meets content, meets medium, meets other people, kind of a thing by itself. a show, an event. live ammo.
i am glad it happened. it announced the new territory to more people. i think people should move on and use the medium to expand their work. postopolis! is done. you want to keep doing work? go ahead and produce. thanks for the pics.
how the fuck mystery guest javier ended up there? he was supposed to be here in la. he is a mover and shaker and one jet set publishing genius, a paradigm in this business.
i wonder if selma hayek from ugly betty was with him speaking spanish and everything.
i watched ugly betty when it was on telemundo or univision i forget which one, gee i sorta figured that when betty got those glasses and braces off and got a new do that she'd be muy bonita! but i liked xica better. some great brazilian telenovella there. watched it all dubbed into spanish. a language i don't speak.
wasn't really my point. nothing is new under the sun, we already know that.
the point is, why was presenting the blog and architecture idea so much more successful this time around than last or all other times undocumented in our history? (although obviously not all conversations/lectures were about this directly at least)
Not my point either, but oh well. As for your clarification, who knows? One reason is certainly the fact that web self-publishing is now a much more common occurrence than before. But that is an obvious reason. Other than that, I have no idea.
Mark, be careful not to draw hasty conclusions. Some of what I said was provisional and depended on either a transcript of the interview or your feedback. Now that I have it I’m grateful and better acquainted with your specific point of view, which by the way is pretty refreshing coming from .edu, although your reputation precedes you so it’s not all that surprising.
For the record I agree with part of Kwinter’s knowledge activism thesis which suggests watching and waiting are attitudes of commitment. So my view of lurkers is certainly more nuanced than the antiquated, though sometimes appropriate definition, re private—a definition which seems especially apt when looking for ways to describe the sedentary state of democracy in the West, but there are very encouraging signs of renewal, starting with blogs and social entrepreneurialism.
The Internet has forced a reappraisal of the “idiot line” by providing me with some interesting empirical evidence. I’m not referring here to the prevailing enthusiasm for emergence, complexity theory or evolutionary biology. However, some studies I’ve read are compellingly devoid of the customary supine conjecture. Scott Page’s essay about how diversity trumps ability is a good recent example. But we’re not talking about problem solving here per se, and this is where my issue with your claim lies. To ascribe the epithet “idiocy” to blogs, categorically, folds simple engagement into an ethic of instrumentality. So when you say “the usual thread meltdown through idiocy”, I say, so what. And, if so what, where’s the idiocy? There’s no there there. No end point necessary. It’s just a celebratory mosh pit. I will concede however that in a different context where a goal is an explicit good and the venue is framed accordingly, you may have a point. In those cases however, there is usually, or should be, an active moderator of some sort present. Maybe.
Normally I wouldn’t be so persistent in finessing the point but you are a public figure with sufficient integrity to incline many others toward appreciable consensus or worse, uncritical capitulation. In addition, it’s no secret that traditional media’s initially haughty dismissal of the blogosphere and its attendant vices (alleged) is due to a “hearing in tongues, speaking in ears” misunderstanding of the medium, not to mention professional jealousy. They used to think the blogosphere was a vast virtual drosscape but have been of late, irony of ironies, frantically trying to catch up with blog culture and in the process reconstituting their raison d’être and internal editorial structures. You probably wouldn’t want your nuanced “idiot” opinion and old media’s prejudice to be mistakenly conflated by others any time soon. Semantics matter sometimes. Vado’s refinement of the point through etymology @ 10:42 is spot on. Think of it as an act of epistemo-determinism (see Kwinter).
Now to the meat. You’ve hinted at this already but I’ll say it categorically: Trust the swarm, embrace the “idiocy” and the "idiotes"; or get used to a very quiet room with a bunch of compliant drones. I witnessed first hand the canonical flame wars that galvanized the discourse around online-community governance in the early Internet/Web era. Brand’s The Well and later Rheingold’s Electric Minds contained some of the most exhilirating threads and EGO I’ve ever seen. The carnage that inevitably ensued resulted in a bifurcation that took years to resolve itself. Some stomped off behind a masonic firewall and others slugged it out in open chaos trying to craft a modicum of civility with sometimes Swiftian rules.
Those early experiments gave me a keen sense of what a healthy ecology of mind might feel like. I spent equal time both behind and in front of the firewall. Each has their place depending on your pleasure principle but the metaphor you bring to the space is key. It was hard watching brilliant people engage in a self-defeating bloodsport. So hard in fact that I was pushed back onto my assumptions with a singular intent: find a way to navigate all of it, drop the negative metaphors and wade in with an open heart, patience, judo skills and a radical reinterpretation of Arendt.
There are few people that can block, dodge & parry with equal aplomb in the blogosphere. I know of a few examples and they are a wonder to watch, however inconsistent they may be. There should be a course designed for exquisite blog hosting inside every major .edu. A new army of Jedi bloggers would be a boon to humanity and degauss the received notions of interdisciplinarity. When I was hosting a group online years ago we used to deliberately call out the lurkers from the shadows with the most outrageous tactics. These usually worked quite well and I’ll give you an idea of what the effect was by way of an anecdote:
When I was a young sprite I went camping with a bunch of buddies and some lame brain (me) decided to throw a can of Campbell’s tomato soup into the fire. Nothing happened and we forgot about it and returned to where we were sitting ‘round the blaze. Well, about an hour later the can went ballistic, sending us flying back onto our asses. The fire was extinguished in the process and we were all covered with splotches of soup, soot and live embers. Everywhere around us were these little pieces of lit embers, we were each these moving gallactic clusters and the whole scene looked like a star field. We were all silent for a few minutes until the shock and threat of injury or Armageddon wore off and then as it dawned on us what had happened we all burst out laughing. We laughed so hard that one us even vomited from the abdominal contractions.
Mark, lurkers to me are potential cans of Campbell’s tomato soup. That’s one of the reasons I called you out. I’m glad I did. I believe we all need more of this kind of conversation. That’s why I loved Postopolis. It was celebratory, canny, as you would say, and clever. The selection of the Storefront venue was just brilliant. I know of few ad hoc events that out of the gate managed to be as vital and charmed. Whatever insights are gleaned from the post-mortem I’m sure will be put to good use for the next event but there’s nothing like the electricity of a “first” well-played don’t you think?
I’m in the middle of reading Cocteau’s biography but I assure you there was no Dada in my second paragraph. Both idiot references were considered a “good”.
Which is why I said “your flagrant “idiocy” has now made you one of us. Welcome to Archinect!” What was required was a refinement and airing of the etymology.
I also look forward to more of your posts. I assure you your first one in this thread was anything but a candidate for the “idiot column”, as you understand it. Maybe you can set up a pseud account and call yourself “wiggles”. I like the “agitation” it connotes.
Tip of the hat to namh, metam, AP & 765.
George Bowering had this to say about the human intellect in his This I believe statement.
Archinect @ Postopolis!
wasn't oana in nyc? her blog was so great, it would've been cool if she could have attended.
oops, didn't mean to bump us into the next page. please see quilian's post in the previous page for his recap.
meta, yes that's me in larslarson's photos and involved with ya on the gcbh project. as for stephen, i do believe he has more to add and i have learned quite a bit at times from him....as for the validity of quondam as a predecessor of the blog. i believe the difference between the two is as a discursive element. quondam is inherently self-referential in a continuously unfolding way, where as the postopolis crowd is inherently discursive in that posts to particular entries can lead to new entries. and then there is archinect within which we all play various roles. i was thinking a bit about the discussions going on here this morning.....
if when we felt like we were struggling to recognize our fellow archinectors when we met up last week it was because here we are de-physicalized in our interactions. here we seek out others with similar inquiries or experiences and recognize each other by these types of similarities or differences. we are truly de-physicalized in our interaction. to suddenly have the interaction physicalized is a surreal thing. i wonder how the archinect panel went...i wish i could have made it for that.
yeah, thanks quilian for the update on the archinect panel. and it would have been great to get oana out for the archinect panel or for our hang out session. has anyone heard from her lately?
i was wondering about oana also.so talented, smart and funny. she and i used to talk all the time over voip while she was in spain. and im'd quite a bit while she was at school. but since she's been in the states, i've hardly talked to her. but i know she's having a great time.hi oana!
hopefully someone else can come an augment this...i have to be brief...new job...
Bryan Finoki introduced the Archinect panel, offering a brief history of the site's creation and early developments. He handed the mic to chief-editor John Jourden who then added a few thoughts, specifically on the schoolblog project. Quilian began, followed by myself, Enrique and Jill. we briefly discussed our schoolblogs and general involvement with Archinect. Susan gave a brief account of her 7 years on Archinect, and how involvement in this community played an important role in her eventual decision to apply to MArch programs...
John and Bryan and everyone else passed the mic back and forth, addressing questions and sharing additional thoughts.
everyone shared a personal narrative about involvement with archinect. for most of the comments i've offered on this thread, i've had notes to refer to. since i was sitting on the panel for this discussion, i didn't write any, so i apologize if this is lacking content...
regarding my brief time with the mic - i took the chance to talk primarily about mapa and the GPCL project. i think it's obvious, but that effort demonstrates the power of a virtual community to institute change in the physical world.
perhaps someone else can chime in...there were 7 of us...
ah, cool...overlap. good recap quilian, and nice point regarding the meet-up, futureboy.
i've usu been critical of quondam in the past because, honestly, it's not for me. it's certainly got it's audience.
but i've never gotten the feeling that it's in any way a DISCUSSION. unless you call interchanges between stephen and his alter-egos a discussion.
there are certainly a wealth of interesting things at quondam and in stephen's site there are hints of blog-dna, but what stephen's claims of origination fail to acknowledge is the extent to which the format, the content, and, most importantly, the social interaction and trading of knowledge and opinion in blogs like bldgblog are different.
i don't know. i consider myself among the idiots.
@ Puddles,
If "Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid."
Then are Lurkers being selfish?
I would think not, although perhaps a post every 100 views is a good rule?
@ Quillian I for one took idiot almost as a complement.
Ie: The idiot savant
thanks so much for representing archinect john, geoff, ap, quillian, susan, enrique and bryan! i wish i could've been there with you. any video footage of the archinect panel?
that's compliment. not complement.
ditto SW.
@ Vado Retro,
Apparently I AM an Idiot !
well, i'm no expert on the meaning of the word "idiot" or ancient greece or probably much of anything else for that matter...but yes, i do feel that under the original definition that the "lurker" could indeed be considered a selfish person. i suspect that it's also possible that pure lurker (someone who only observes and never gets involved) might also qualify as a kind of second class citizen. that is, although part of the community, never taking the pro-active step to shape the community in any way.
but honestly, i don't know. the nice thing about wiggles original reference to idiots was that it actually forced me to study up on the word rather than assuming that i knew its meaning just because it's been in my vocabulary since about kindergarten.
wow...it been a long time since i've actually read an entire thread. i usually just ignore everyone and end up posting whatever is on my mind at that moment.
perhaps using a word like idiot and referring back to a root origin that is no longer used and has changed meaning through first latin, then old french and then old english to become the word it is today. perhaps the greek "idiotes" should have been used. perhaps this choice of word usage sheds some leukos on the matter.
Archinecters Quilian Riano, Susan Surface, and Javier Arbona talk shit about Postopolis!
Then, as the Postopolis! party begins, Archinect chief editor John Jourden (far right) talks to Geoff Manaugh (in yellow shirt) and GM's wife (orange skirt), as John Hill/Archidose (plaid shirt and flip-flops, long hair) stands behind a crowd that includes Chris Lasch of Aranda/Lasch.
Both photos by Jill Fehrenbacher. (Thanks, Jill!)
People on Flickr seem to like this photo...
It's the speaker with Mark Wigley's voice coming out of it.
is that the truth or an urban myth?
100% truth!
that's mark wigley?
He's smaller than you'd think...
it reminds me of:
or this:
Geoff Manaugh
Total Entries: 471
Total Comments: 549
so based on these stats, this would be the opposite of lurking right?
almost as many thread starts as comments in/on threads...
but how many times has he looked without either posting or commenting. there's no published statistic for that, right?
Right, puddles, as far as I know.
Also, the comments/post ratio doesn't factor in one person looking many times (again, as far as I know), so the high viewing to posting ratios of some threads may be due to those of us who love the sound of our own voice re-reading and re-re-reading what we've written over and over again. Not that I do that, of course.
In my very sloppy assessment, it seems most threads have about a 20% posting to viewed ratio. The really good threads - considered comments, on topic, delving into a single idea/building review/construction problem/licensing issue etc. - have fewer people reading them but the people who are reading them are more engaged, so the ratio is higher.
My little laptop statistical analysis, completely personal and non-scientific. Archinect probably does have access to better info on all our posting habits.
That pic of Wigley is so, so wonderful. It really makes me laugh.
Metamechanic ...
Sure, people like Stephen, Alexander Trevi and Kazys Varnelis should be involved in this kind of event. This was Postopolis' first outing, and perhaps on subsequent versions of this event (indeed, this should be an annual thing), then more people can be involved. Don't fault the organizers for so-called "omissions" when they were preoccupied with the logistics and the content of the event. Believe me, it was a hell of a thing to organize. I'm willing to bet that they would have wanted more people involved.
If you want to play the history game and properly recognize the idea of posting stuff on walls, then perhaps you should look way back before Quondam. Indeed, at the 1932 MoMA Modern Architecture show (the Johnson/Hitchcock thingy), Le Corbusier's drawings for the Centrosoyuz, etc, were not actually drawings, but blown-up photographs from the Ouvre Complete. How conceptually different is that from spray-mounting blog entries inside the Storefront? Not much, especially if you consider what the Ouvre Complete truly is.
So, I just played the history game ... and it got me nowhere. It won't get anyone anywhere.
To wit: the Clip/Stamp/Fold followed the same tactic. Covers of various magazines were also plastered along one wall. Noone seemed to cry foul when that happened ... perhaps it is indicative of how to curate architectural writing within a (literally and figuratively) circumscribed space.
For the record: Trevi and Varnelis were invited and were unable to participate for personal reasons.
Bryan spies on the crowd...
i don't why this that should be involved in this event. it is done and done with the people who have involved.
it was not a historical survey of who and when, that is down the line whole another historical survey show, maybe a book.
this, rather, was an action-reaction-response-generate-post-unpost-talk, discuss and show +,+,+, whatever, performance meets venue, meets content, meets medium, meets other people, kind of a thing by itself. a show, an event. live ammo.
i am glad it happened. it announced the new territory to more people. i think people should move on and use the medium to expand their work. postopolis! is done. you want to keep doing work? go ahead and produce. thanks for the pics.
how the fuck mystery guest javier ended up there? he was supposed to be here in la. he is a mover and shaker and one jet set publishing genius, a paradigm in this business.
i wonder if selma hayek from ugly betty was with him speaking spanish and everything.
i watched ugly betty when it was on telemundo or univision i forget which one, gee i sorta figured that when betty got those glasses and braces off and got a new do that she'd be muy bonita! but i liked xica better. some great brazilian telenovella there. watched it all dubbed into spanish. a language i don't speak.
So what *I* want to know is...
Who was hooking up with who and how often and where?
I hooked up with Rice to Riches .... I had, like, 5 pints of rice pudding.
was that anything like the heinz bean scene from the movie version of tommy?
More like the cover to The Who Sell Out
I know it's one of the most classic bits of graphic design, but I've always hated the Heinz label design...
Orhan... You missed it... I was in L.A., Mark Wigley style, on the Venice boardwalk.
vado the original ugly betty (betty la fea) is a Colombian soap opera. Specifically it is from Bogota, very heavy local accents.
Smokety Mc Smoke Smoke
wasn't really my point. nothing is new under the sun, we already know that.
the point is, why was presenting the blog and architecture idea so much more successful this time around than last or all other times undocumented in our history? (although obviously not all conversations/lectures were about this directly at least)
yeah i was talkin about xica bein brazilian. and why wasnt it called blogopolis???
i watched a horribly dubbed Boyz in the Hood on UniVision last night.
how did they spell boyz?
i have also enjoyed watching the miss venezuela pagent on telemundo. this thread has been hijacked.
Metamechanic ...
Not my point either, but oh well. As for your clarification, who knows? One reason is certainly the fact that web self-publishing is now a much more common occurrence than before. But that is an obvious reason. Other than that, I have no idea.
so if everyone is makin blogs and self publishing how does the average working man have time to filter all of the pulp to get to the juice???
Mark, be careful not to draw hasty conclusions. Some of what I said was provisional and depended on either a transcript of the interview or your feedback. Now that I have it I’m grateful and better acquainted with your specific point of view, which by the way is pretty refreshing coming from .edu, although your reputation precedes you so it’s not all that surprising.
For the record I agree with part of Kwinter’s knowledge activism thesis which suggests watching and waiting are attitudes of commitment. So my view of lurkers is certainly more nuanced than the antiquated, though sometimes appropriate definition, re private—a definition which seems especially apt when looking for ways to describe the sedentary state of democracy in the West, but there are very encouraging signs of renewal, starting with blogs and social entrepreneurialism.
The Internet has forced a reappraisal of the “idiot line” by providing me with some interesting empirical evidence. I’m not referring here to the prevailing enthusiasm for emergence, complexity theory or evolutionary biology. However, some studies I’ve read are compellingly devoid of the customary supine conjecture. Scott Page’s essay about how diversity trumps ability is a good recent example. But we’re not talking about problem solving here per se, and this is where my issue with your claim lies. To ascribe the epithet “idiocy” to blogs, categorically, folds simple engagement into an ethic of instrumentality. So when you say “the usual thread meltdown through idiocy”, I say, so what. And, if so what, where’s the idiocy? There’s no there there. No end point necessary. It’s just a celebratory mosh pit. I will concede however that in a different context where a goal is an explicit good and the venue is framed accordingly, you may have a point. In those cases however, there is usually, or should be, an active moderator of some sort present. Maybe.
Normally I wouldn’t be so persistent in finessing the point but you are a public figure with sufficient integrity to incline many others toward appreciable consensus or worse, uncritical capitulation. In addition, it’s no secret that traditional media’s initially haughty dismissal of the blogosphere and its attendant vices (alleged) is due to a “hearing in tongues, speaking in ears” misunderstanding of the medium, not to mention professional jealousy. They used to think the blogosphere was a vast virtual drosscape but have been of late, irony of ironies, frantically trying to catch up with blog culture and in the process reconstituting their raison d’être and internal editorial structures. You probably wouldn’t want your nuanced “idiot” opinion and old media’s prejudice to be mistakenly conflated by others any time soon. Semantics matter sometimes. Vado’s refinement of the point through etymology @ 10:42 is spot on. Think of it as an act of epistemo-determinism (see Kwinter).
Now to the meat. You’ve hinted at this already but I’ll say it categorically: Trust the swarm, embrace the “idiocy” and the "idiotes"; or get used to a very quiet room with a bunch of compliant drones. I witnessed first hand the canonical flame wars that galvanized the discourse around online-community governance in the early Internet/Web era. Brand’s The Well and later Rheingold’s Electric Minds contained some of the most exhilirating threads and EGO I’ve ever seen. The carnage that inevitably ensued resulted in a bifurcation that took years to resolve itself. Some stomped off behind a masonic firewall and others slugged it out in open chaos trying to craft a modicum of civility with sometimes Swiftian rules.
Those early experiments gave me a keen sense of what a healthy ecology of mind might feel like. I spent equal time both behind and in front of the firewall. Each has their place depending on your pleasure principle but the metaphor you bring to the space is key. It was hard watching brilliant people engage in a self-defeating bloodsport. So hard in fact that I was pushed back onto my assumptions with a singular intent: find a way to navigate all of it, drop the negative metaphors and wade in with an open heart, patience, judo skills and a radical reinterpretation of Arendt.
There are few people that can block, dodge & parry with equal aplomb in the blogosphere. I know of a few examples and they are a wonder to watch, however inconsistent they may be. There should be a course designed for exquisite blog hosting inside every major .edu. A new army of Jedi bloggers would be a boon to humanity and degauss the received notions of interdisciplinarity. When I was hosting a group online years ago we used to deliberately call out the lurkers from the shadows with the most outrageous tactics. These usually worked quite well and I’ll give you an idea of what the effect was by way of an anecdote:
When I was a young sprite I went camping with a bunch of buddies and some lame brain (me) decided to throw a can of Campbell’s tomato soup into the fire. Nothing happened and we forgot about it and returned to where we were sitting ‘round the blaze. Well, about an hour later the can went ballistic, sending us flying back onto our asses. The fire was extinguished in the process and we were all covered with splotches of soup, soot and live embers. Everywhere around us were these little pieces of lit embers, we were each these moving gallactic clusters and the whole scene looked like a star field. We were all silent for a few minutes until the shock and threat of injury or Armageddon wore off and then as it dawned on us what had happened we all burst out laughing. We laughed so hard that one us even vomited from the abdominal contractions.
Mark, lurkers to me are potential cans of Campbell’s tomato soup. That’s one of the reasons I called you out. I’m glad I did. I believe we all need more of this kind of conversation. That’s why I loved Postopolis. It was celebratory, canny, as you would say, and clever. The selection of the Storefront venue was just brilliant. I know of few ad hoc events that out of the gate managed to be as vital and charmed. Whatever insights are gleaned from the post-mortem I’m sure will be put to good use for the next event but there’s nothing like the electricity of a “first” well-played don’t you think?
I’m in the middle of reading Cocteau’s biography but I assure you there was no Dada in my second paragraph. Both idiot references were considered a “good”.
Which is why I said “your flagrant “idiocy” has now made you one of us. Welcome to Archinect!” What was required was a refinement and airing of the etymology.
I also look forward to more of your posts. I assure you your first one in this thread was anything but a candidate for the “idiot column”, as you understand it. Maybe you can set up a pseud account and call yourself “wiggles”. I like the “agitation” it connotes.
Tip of the hat to namh, metam, AP & 765.
George Bowering had this to say about the human intellect in his This I believe statement.