I think there are a number of major flaws in the interface of all current IM systems. These flaws lead to a number of dysfunctional forms of interaction. I think that most of these flaws are due to the fact that IM systems are a direct descendent of email ( Read more... )

Today's post is unrelated to anything I've been talking about recently. Oddly enough, it starts with a link. For demonstration purposes I recommend that you open that in a new tab (because you've got tabs, right? everyone has tabs now!) and leave it running in the background ( Read more... )

I mentioned yesterday I might delve into this a bit, but first a weird note. I was talking to people about sub-leasing for the summer, and one of the places I went to talk to people at I met someone who I knew of from work. I think this is the first time I've ever crossed paths in real life with someone I've taken a complaint from with the police ( Read more... )

I mentioned a few days ago that i had a discussion with Mo about social safe spaces online. Now, let's be clear here, I strongly support the idea. Social safe spaces are important, and they tend to be difficult to establish and maintain online. There are examples of them, but to date they're mostly maintained through social means rather than ( Read more... )

One of the truisms when it comes to studying bureaucracies is that it doesn't matter what the org chart says, you only have as much authority as you have power. In organizations power comes from control of scarce but necessary resources. The most common one is money. If you control the budget, you can make people do what you want. It can also ( Read more... )

I had a few rounds of an argument with good ol' Alex back in the day about whether blogs were functional tools for community. Especially when compared to forums. I have maintained that functional communities are possible, perhaps even better facilitated, by blogs than by forums. It's time to revisit this discussion ( Read more... )

I attended a lecture on sustainability yesterday presented by L. Hunter Lovins. Lovins is one of the authors behind Natural Capitalism, which you can read at the link provided if you're interested. She's also one of the big names in the economic sustainability movement. She had a lot to say, and a lot of it makes quite a bit of sense, but a ( Read more... )

Sometimes coming up with a topic each day is difficult or time-consuming. Today I'm going to cheat and simply answer the comments in yesterday's post. I'd be interested to know what you guys think of this approach. Is it interesting? Does it allow for expansion? How does it shift power dynamics within the blog?

chgriffen and adamdray are both much more ( Read more... )

Building upon the general outline from yesterday, I'm going to talk a bit about ritual spaces. It's an idea I first ran into with relation to roleplaying in a post on the Forge by Meg Baker (I was going to link to it, but apparently the Forge search engine is down, so no joy on that front). As is often the case, I don't really know as much about ( Read more... )

Nearly a year ago I had an interview with Sarah Kahn over on my (now silent) blog. The topic was online freeform roleplaying, and it was an incredibly enlightening discussion. It piqued my curiousity and, eventually, wound up being one of the major things which caused me to get involved in it myself ( Read more... )