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Vol. 7, No. 31
8-16-07
1 Online civility part I
2 Anonymity on steroids
3 Linux laptops, new iMac, Vista patches, driving while distracted
4 Duplicate file removal
5 IE glitch
Interactivity abounds on the Internet, ranging from comment forums on nearly every newspaper, magazine, radio and TV channel site to news aggregator sites like Fark and SlashDot. Blogs number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and nearly every one features a comments section.
Chatrooms are also everywhere and devoted to every topic imaginable. While a forum is static with messages posted to be read at any time, chatrooms are dynamic and are meant for direct communication. Most chatrooms are text only but many also feature voice and even video chat.
This instant access to and ability to comment on information has changed the face of politics, newsgathering, marketing, scientific research and nearly every other facet of modern life. Unfortunately it also has a darker side that has become increasingly obvious. The complete and total lack of civility on the part of a large number of users.
This ranges from general rudeness like name-calling, to more serious infractions like threats of retaliation and of actual physical and sexual violence. This issue has been around since the web’s infancy through vectors such as IRC and Usenet but the ubiquitous nature of today’s instant input has brought the issue to the forefront.
I’ve seen this in places like Fark.com, where news articles on nearly any topic can devolve into a “flame war”, especially when it comes to politics and religion, but it’s no different on any forum. Topics as mild as recipes for tuna salad or a book review can bring forth vitriol the likes of which you’ll never see in person.
We seldom deal with this in our chatroom and when it comes up it’s taken care of immediately through kicks and bans, but I wanted some other viewpoints.
As I’ve mentioned I had a little trouble getting responses from bloggers but team member Matt Dattilo, owner of the blog www.opaquelucidity.com and podcast site http://mattstodayinhistory.podshow.com, and two members of a social network that features audio and video chatting that I’ll call Lisa and Alabama, responded to a few questions. For privacy reasons I’ll not list the URL of the chat website.
I asked the trio five
questions, starting with whether they've noticed rude and offensive comments
online and if so, if they thought it was common or isolated. All had seen it but only Lisa considered it
isolated. Alabama and Matt both felt it
was fairly common, with Matt adding that he thinks it’s “caused by a
combination of things, mainly immaturity
and the protection of anonymity”.
On the parity of rudeness
seen toward men and women they answered along gender lines, with the ladies
saying against females and Matt voting for males, although Matt adds the caveat
that he visits mostly male dominated blogs.
Alabama added “There is more rudeness against the female participants but
the females seem to get away with more if they are rude to others.”
When asked if any of them had
ever been threatened with either physical or sexual violence all answered in
the affirmative and all took the threat seriously, although the threat against
Alabama wasn’t physical or sexual in nature.
Matt was able to trace the location of his threat since it occurred on
his own blog, and Lisa says, “I take all messages seriously, people are
rude. Once someone who I thought was my
friend sent me a comment calling me a stupid
b****. Now that was a surprise”.
When the subject of whether
anonymity was the primary cause of the lack of civility online or if the
problem may be deeper the responses varied completely. Alabama says, “I do feel that anonymity has
given ppl more freedom to be rude to others. They make racist or
insulting remarks they would not usually do in their offline life” while Lisa
responds, “More deep-seated problems with
society for sure”. Matt combines the
options, opining, “As I mentioned above, anonymity does play a part.
However, I believe
our society, in general, is becoming less civil and more cynical. One
only has to visit a political blog/website forum to see what I mean”.
The response was unanimous to the question of whether they’d ever considered abandoning a blog or chatroom due to offensive behavior, although Lisa was a bit more adamant, with “Hell yeah”.
Online attacks, racist comments, threats, obscene behavior, disrespect. They seem to be present on every interactive system available, and the anonymity of the Internet certainly plays a large part, but I’m more interested in the actual origin of these venomous convictions that are thrust on the masses daily.
Next week what I consider one of the possible sources, which is almost as old as mankind itself… politics.
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
Lenovo, the world's
third-largest personal computer manufacturer,
has announced it will begin offering users the option of
pre-loading a Linux-based operating system on some of its notebook
computers, joining the ranks of other computer manufacturers in moving
toward a growing open-source market. That wailing you keep hearing is
Steve Ballmer:
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_6562262
The new all-in-one iMac, which was unveiled last
Wednesday, is "the most
incredible desktop computer we've ever made", according to Apple CEO
Steve Jobs. There's a Reality Distortion Field joke in here somewhere:
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single8957
Microsoft Corp. last week released the two
Windows Vista updates that
had leaked to the Internet at the end of July, but it won't say when
it will begin pushing them to users via Windows Update (or if enough
people now own Vista to make the effort worthwhile):
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=11&articleId=9029618&intsrc=hm_topic
A study by Harris Interactive found that an overwhelming
number of Americans favor laws prohibiting text messaging while driving.
Driving while stupid, however, still seems to be supported by at least those
Americans I see every morning on my way to work:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292413,00.html
Copy us on the good stuff,
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.mattstodayinhistory.com
Download of the Week
I don't know how it happened,
but I've got duplicate files all over the three hard drives in this PC I'm so
dependent upon. I have a feeling that
I'm not the only person with this problem.
That's where this week's download, "FindDuplicates" comes into
view.
This program isn't fancy--but
it is quick and easy to use. Drag and drop a folder onto the program's work
area, wait a few seconds (or more, if the folder's loaded with files) and
you'll see a list of duplicate files. It's also safe (and for experienced
users, inconvenient) because the program doesn't delete the dups. It just opens
Windows Explorer so you can do the rest of the job yourself. There's no
installation--just unzip the download file and click to run it. It's free here: http://www.find-duplicates.net/
Art Maley
Email Question of the Week
Q: Hey Everyone!
This is a weird
problem I’ve never had before. Just started today.
When I go to a
web page (any web page) and choose “View Source”, instead of being able to view
the source, My windows desktop folder opens instead.
Any idea how to
fix this?
A: Try this:
Go to Start >
Run > Regedit and head to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\View Source Editor\Editor Name
Change the
Default Key in the right pane to the path to notepad ( C:\windows\notepad.exe )
Hope it helps!
Daniel Williams
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