Thread-president in an Usenet medley
Alle van Meeteren
Usenet is as a noisy marketplace.
It is hard to distinguish the voices there. A thread-president can annotate on
these voices and structure them. The voices will become tuned to one another.
That will heighten the intensity of Usenet-debates strongly.
Usenet (also known as Newsgroups) is a
much frequented, open and dynamic meeting-room in virtual public space. Usenet
is easy to visit thanks to its close (spatial and technical) relation to the
e-mail function. Everyone can post a text on Usenet. Such a text is accessible
to everyone. It is archived by Google.
At the beginning Usenet was an instrument to inform people; nowadays social
entertainment seems to be the strongest drive to use it, but it has the
infrastructure to become the pivot of the public debate.
This contribution to Fusedspace describes a method to structure the texts
posted on Usenet. The result is an optional structure that facilitates debates.
There will be no interference in the freedom to publish everything one thinks
fit. But there will be signposts available, pointing out the relation of a
posting to the topic of the meeting.
In real life, gatherings have formal or informal leaders. They steer the clash
of ideas and words to a conclusion within the borders of the common quest.
Social codes are their controls. The chairman distributes the scarcity of speaking-time,
thus allocating the listen-time of the listeners.
On Usenet, writing-time need not to be regulated.
Every participant can write when and as long as he wishes. No president directs
the meeting with an eye on his watch, focusing on the goal of the meeting.
Everyone who publishes on Usenet, has to decide for
himself what is good for the common quest. If one disregards the relation
between a posting and the official topic according to the subject-header, his
contribution runs the risk of serving only a personal, mostly hidden purpose, If that happens frequently, soon no topic will be common. In
a mountain of texts, only a few contributions, if any, still honour what is the
common quest. Much reading-time is wasted. Or, worse, Usenet is forsaken.
If Usenet allocates reading-time more efficiently, it realizes its pivotal
potency, thus increasing the impact of virtual space on the public domain,
stimulating the debate, enhancing social coherence.
If the subject-headers really reveal the topic of a debate, more people are apt
to participate. They will get what they are looking for: a meeting around the
topic of their choice, with an efficient investment of their time. And they
will find that topic more thoroughly exposed.
A chairman-afterwards, a THREAD-PRESIDENT (TP), can help interlocutors to
allocate their (reading-) time efficiently. If the TP marks the postings
according to their relation to the topic of the debate, he leaves a track of
hints for the readers, pointing to the relevance of a posting to the topic e.g.
to the point, beside the point, an overview, straight, argumentative, part of a
flame-war.
The markings of this TP will also give a kind of bearing to the discussion.
A TP is not appointed. By nature, he is the person responsible for the
information in the subject-header. Everyone can make himself TP by changing
that header, thus starting a new debate on a different topic.
A TP needs instruments to make his task obvious and manageable. First of all,
Usenet has to agree on what will be coded.
Furthermore, a software-tool needs accommodation. The newsreader (NR) can be
seen as the virtual ears and voice with which a person enters the Usenet
meeting-place. So, it is also the essential communication tool of the TP. If
the role of the TP is useful, an accommodation of the NR to the TP-role is
self-evident.
Nowadays NR's place a posting that responses to a former posting, below that
former posting. Threads of texts are formed (Image 1). For the TP-function an
NR has to be modified, so that it will show the vision of the TP on the
relevance of a posting to the agenda, together with the organization of the
postings in threads. (Image 3).
The modified NR presents a list of the appointed codes. The TP selects the one
that he finds appropriate. The NR sends the code as a normal posting. But the
same TP-modified NR, used by a reader, will translate the code into a signal in
or around the subject-header. There will also be a free field for a short
TP-identification. As a result, the time-ordered thread will have topic-related
orientation points.
The decision to recognize the TP-role has to be made by the visitors of Usenet.
Usenet discusses this on the newsgroup 'nl.misc', but for the sake of the
jury's independence and of the submission's anonimity, the jury may not partake
in this newsgroup.
Some people ascribe the charms of Usenet to its anarchic character. But,
everyone can take or leave the "TP-burden" (active or passive) just
as he desires, so Usenet will stay open and dynamic, with respect for the
objectives of everybody, without losing any freedom.
Once the TP-role is accepted, Usenet will enjoy the benefits of co-operation.
Next to the freedom to publish what one likes, there will be a method,
supported by an instrument, to co-operate in exploring a topic.