From emv@umich.edu Fri May 21 01:04:38 1999 Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 21:11:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Edward Vielmetti To: vacuum@egroups.com Subject: [vacuum] State of the Virtual Community (from Ross Stapleton-Gray) Welcome to Vacuum! Braddlee's message triggered this from Ross Stapleton-Gray, which I'd like to share with the group. Finding the right metaphor to describe what is going on with the expansion and dispersion of the net is a lot of fun. If you have ever been part of a community that's gone through an enormous change as new people have come in, some of what Ross is saying will evoke strong images. As usual comments back to me or to Ross, and I'll bundle up interesting replies periodically for this group to share. thanks Ed Edward Vielmetti emv@vacuum.mi.org http://vacuum.mi.org ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 01:05:54 -0400 From: Ross Stapleton-Gray To: Edward Vielmetti Subject: Re: [vacuum] State of the Virtual Community (from Braddlee) As Metaphor Man, this is the sort of seed that inspires a lot of images... One that leapt to mind (and probably because I'd started in on a draft of a piece about it) was of the interplay between the water and the land as the watertable rises: when "the Net" began, as a hodgepodge of different systems, from ARPANET, to the WELL, to the Cleveland FreeNet (man, that brings back memories... I remember having an account there, and when Peter Harter was heading NPTN, before becoming a suit for Netscape, and now, probably, a surplus attorney for AOL...). In those days, each pool was separated by the land, and, consequently, an insular community. The pools differed considerably, though each was populated by comparable types of creatures--they all thrived in small, techie-flavored pools. (This is why, as a former Sovietologist, former intelligence analyst, former Michigander, I don't feel all that unlike the folks I know from the WELL, many of whom are granola-crunching, sandal-wearing Bay Areans.) Over time, the water level has risen. The first, substantial changes came when small pools became large enough to experience "large pool phenomena" (e.g., where there were so many folks around that cliques formed to "pool" like-minded folk within the larger pond, for comfort, security, or whatnot), or where pools merged to form larger bodies. For some years, to an observer on a hilltop, the pools were getting larger; at some point, especially post-commercialization of the Internet, it's looked more like the remaining islands of land have been shrinking. Somewhere in the middle, during the transition from mostly-land to mostly-water, a lot of interesting pools got overrun and flushed into larger bodies (though, as with the ocean, there remain a lot of interesting tidal pockets, deep-sea grottoes, stagnant Sargasso seas, etc.). The WELL got overrun a year or two ago, when management decided to affiliate with other services, and when the Engaged front end allowed other species of non-Picospan life to breeze in and out more casually. A number of the more exotic life forms disappeared, though many, especially the ones cemented by barnacles to the sides of the pool, will stay there until they die. Usenet is like the mouth of the Mississippi, where a permanent "dead zone" ebbs and grows, and slowly meanders, as a consequence of all of the fertilizers and other effluents poured in upriver. Ross _____________________________________________________________________ Ross Stapleton-Gray TeleDiplomacy, Inc. director@embassy.org 2503 Columbia Pike, Suite 118 Arlington VA 22204 http://www.telediplomacy.com +1 703 685-5197 / 5257 fax ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BrainPlay.com has 10,000 gift ideas for kids! And, for a limited time, you'll receive FREE SHIPPING on every toy, video game, software title, video, and more at BrainPlay.com! http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/272 eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/vacuum http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications