yUO R IN MY INTERNETS

[The Good Reverend Roger]

1. What is your litmus test for bad writing?
2. I figured as much. One could say that my megalomania blinds me, but you could also see it as my mind showing me a different possibility...

1.  Whether it's a coherent piece, or whether I have to struggle through angsty bullshit for no gain.

2.  Or you're just another fucked up moron with delusions of grandeur.  One or the other.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I got to about half way until it started reading as an oblique and uninformed criticism of either "us", or people like "us", "us" being the denizens of PD.

And not a particularly original or thought provoking critique either.

I didn't even get that much out of it.

No paragraph structure, no apparent point, and overuse of Dilbert words...just another pseudo-intellectual looking for a Starbucks.

[Janvier]

1. What is your litmus test for bad writing?
2. I figured as much. One could say that my megalomania blinds me, but you could also see it as my mind showing me a different possibility...

1.  Whether it's a coherent piece, or whether I have to struggle through angsty bullshit for no gain.

2.  Or you're just another fucked up moron with delusions of grandeur.  One or the other.

1. How do you know you stand to gain nothing if you haven't read it all the way through?

2. I like to consider more than just two possibilities. Which one do you think it is?

3. So here we go. Keep up, will you?

[Adios]

1. What is your litmus test for bad writing?
2. I figured as much. One could say that my megalomania blinds me, but you could also see it as my mind showing me a different possibility...

1.  Whether it's a coherent piece, or whether I have to struggle through angsty bullshit for no gain.

2.  Or you're just another fucked up moron with delusions of grandeur.  One or the other.

1. How do you know you stand to gain nothing if you haven't read it all the way through?

2. I like to consider more than just two possibilities. Which one do you think it is?

3. So here we go. Keep up, will you?

Keeping up with you would involve walking backwards.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

1. What is your litmus test for bad writing?
2. I figured as much. One could say that my megalomania blinds me, but you could also see it as my mind showing me a different possibility...

1.  Whether it's a coherent piece, or whether I have to struggle through angsty bullshit for no gain.

2.  Or you're just another fucked up moron with delusions of grandeur.  One or the other.

1. How do you know you stand to gain nothing if you haven't read it all the way through?

2. I like to consider more than just two possibilities. Which one do you think it is?

3. So here we go. Keep up, will you?

1.  For the same reason I don't need to read an L Ron Hubbard novel all the way through to know it's crap.

2.  Who cares what you like?  Seriously?  You.  Nobody else.  And since you have done your level best to insult everyone since your arrival, I am reasonably certain nobody is going to give you a chance at posting much of anything.  I know I won't. 

3.  Nope.  I plan to just keep harping on the same old shit until this thread is pretty much ruined.

How about you?

[Janvier]

1. What is your litmus test for bad writing?
2. I figured as much. One could say that my megalomania blinds me, but you could also see it as my mind showing me a different possibility...

1.  Whether it's a coherent piece, or whether I have to struggle through angsty bullshit for no gain.

2.  Or you're just another fucked up moron with delusions of grandeur.  One or the other.

1. How do you know you stand to gain nothing if you haven't read it all the way through?

2. I like to consider more than just two possibilities. Which one do you think it is?

3. So here we go. Keep up, will you?

1.  For the same reason I don't need to read an L Ron Hubbard novel all the way through to know it's crap.

2.  Who cares what you like?  Seriously?  You.  Nobody else.  And since you have done your level best to insult everyone since your arrival, I am reasonably certain nobody is going to give you a chance at posting much of anything.  I know I won't. 

3.  Nope.  I plan to just keep harping on the same old shit until this thread is pretty much ruined.

How about you?

1. L Ron is an asshole. I'm not.

2. Do you think I've really done my best to insult you guys?

3. Not the third level? Then I surmise you are a pussy 

Oh, and:
Egoist.
What if I am?
Give and receive.
Yup. And right now I'm taking. Which means I'm receiving while dishing out. TAKE IT!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

1. L Ron is an asshole. I'm not.

L Ron Hubbard is a festering corpse.  You are, in fact, an asshole.

2. Do you think I've really done my best to insult you guys?

Actually, yeah, I do.

3. Not the third level? Then I surmise you are a pussy 

Who cares?  You don't matter, really.  It's not like anything you've said so far has any value at all.

Oh, and:
Egoist.
What if I am?
Give and receive.
Yup. And right now I'm taking. Which means I'm receiving while dishing out. TAKE IT!

Posting gibberish doesn't help your case.  Of course, nothing will now, so knock yourself out.

[Payne]

The internet effect: A memetic analysis

Bullshit, there is no memetic analysis here, you're just using a buzzword without actually considering what it means. I HAET that shit.

This work attempts to hypothetize an answer to a number of questions about the effect of the internet on society:

If it did that, great, but all it does afaics is make shallow observations about communication and not much else.

Q: What are the effects of the advent of the internet on communication online?
A: Communication is reviewed and filtered on a lot more layers than normal communication, extending the level of complexity.

We could get online before the internet?!

The answer is probably true, in that before we could get online, we couldn't get online, and therefore couldn't communicate online.

Q: What paradigms are developed and what paradigms disappear within the altered form of communication?
A: Internet opens the road to the devolopment of any paradigm.
   However, if a paradigm is heavily resisted by the community it is introduced in,
   it will take a great amount of effort on behalf of the individual trying to introduce the paradigm.
   It could be likened to proselytizing to a machine, something a follower of God would probably frown upon in this country.

If you are using the word paradigm in the way I think you are, there is nothing special about this taking place online, it could happen in any form of communication.

You can never convince someone you are right if they truly believe you are wrong. It just doesn't work. And this has been happening since long before the internet.

A number of important paradigms to web communities are:
Constructive, or Good, is Cooperation, striving towards a "greater good". The people who engage in Good are praised and showered in symbolic virtues and, if they contribute much, the power to change the rules.
These individuals often go on to become Moderators or Admins, typically answering to the community, a set of rules and the owner of the website, who tends to delegate much of his or her responsibility and power.
Destructive, or Evil, is conscious deception, attempting to bend the rules and mocking other members. The people who engage in evil activities are resisted by the community and the "powers that be", because they just might show the rules to be deficient.

Good is on-topic: in line with the communities' themes and memes.
Bad is off-topic: responding in a way which, according to the community, is seen as non-sequitur to the content of the thread.

You are making assumptions, and painting with too broad a brush. Whats "good" and whats "bad" can change from community to community.

What seldom changes is the need to speak in a language everyone else understands, not because it's bad, but because if they can't understand you, why will they listen?

To what degree are these changes in communication and paradigms translated to "real life"?
A paradigm that can gain widespread acceptance in a web community could well be translated into a widespread off-line belief.
A paradigm that can only affect a limited number of people in a web community will be unlikely to become a widely held belief, but may transpire to everyday life in part or as a whole in the few.

Communication is communication, and people are people. Offline or off. As I've said, these methods and limitations in communication have existed for longer than the internet. A "Paradigm" from real life is as or more likely to transfer to the internet. Real life is bigger.

However, for these questions to be properly answered it is necessary to gain an extensive understanding of what online communication entails and how it has developed.
To this end, the first part shall consist of a number of investigatory essays into the nature of the information age.

Online communication is no different than any other. It's still words and/or concepts transmitted from person to person, usually in a common language.

Part I: The Information Age cometh

Subtopics:
- Concepts of the world wide web before its debut
   In a sense, anyone who is and was capable of abstract thought built (or builds) their own web.
   The world wide web can be seen as the resulting effort of all the people who have used it and all the people who have shaped it,
       as they have all (though some in only a limited way), contributed to what it is in the present.

And here you say what I have been saying, communication is communication, regardless of the medium.

- The early days: mail, usenet and HTTP
How much more serious the web must have been in those days, when there were no shiny banners, no YouTube, no pornographic imagery, none of those things to interest the base strata of society.
All the world's depravity and genius is present on the web today, where it began as a project for intellectuals.

I thought this was a discussion of communication, not a discussion of demeanor? Are YOU failing to communicate now, are you drifting off into some other topic?

- The dream of free information
In 1983, the GNU project was announced. Driving it was Richard Stallman's dream that information can be shared freely on the internet, if the information you get in return suffices as enough reward to keep you sharing.
Perhaps Richard should have better considered the fact that introducing many to the internet would logically lead to an increase in depravity and a general decrease of content. (This poke at Stallman is pretty unwarranted, and inspired more by my personal beliefs than objective analysis. Consider, for example, his Unix Beard.)

Perhaps, but Stallman was more interested in colleges and universities using this new method of communication. It was never really considered that every tom dick and harry would have a home computer on his desk in '83.

- Instant communication: IRC and instant messengers
Instant messaging evokes the illusion of dialogue, while robbing it of most physical aspects. In an IM conversation you are not going to be guided by body language, tone of voice, facial expression, or any other distraction we commonly encounter in real life. Exchange of ideas is filtered merely through the grasp of the others' language. One might thus consider communication online to be more "pure". However, the prospect of this purity can be scary to those who are guided more by physical aspects than by thought. Perhaps this is why convincing those on the other side of the "digital divide" proves so hard.

Here you are saying that communication is robbed of it's physical aspects, but yet you pursue a dialogue over the internet anyway?

I'm not sure you're actually following ANY train of though here, you really are just rambling and saying whatever comes into your head.

While what you say above is in many cases true, I'm not sure the conclusions you draw from it are valid, or that pointing it out actually MEANS anything in this context.

- Towards internet communities: Social networking, BBS, Blogs, imageboards and wikis
This is where proper exploration still lies in wait... One could imagine a sociological model in addition to a memetic or mechanistic one. I like memes. (and acid, obv )

WOW! You finally got around to mentioning memes in your memetic analysis! And exploration of todays internet communities entails, again, an exploration of ALL communication, because it's all the same.

An idea you still fail to grasp, and I doubt will even consider on reading this.

Why oh why did I waste my time reading and writing this all out?

[Jenne]

Payne, you must be bored and wired on something at this time of night.

[Payne]

Payne, you must be bored and wired on something at this time of night.

Insomnia.

My hate is keeping me awake.

[Jenne]

PURGE!  THOU MUST PURGE!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Why oh why did I waste my time reading and writing this all out?

The evidence would suggest a foolish sense of optimism.

[Payne]

Why oh why did I waste my time reading and writing this all out?

The evidence would suggest a foolish sense of optimism.

I should have unleashed on the fucker.

There is always tomorrow when he comes back and gets all retarded over my replies.

[Janvier]

Why oh why did I waste my time reading and writing this all out?

The evidence would suggest a foolish sense of optimism.

I should have unleashed on the fucker.

There is always tomorrow when he comes back and gets all retarded over my replies.

No need, I'm here.
Now, do you want to "unleash" now, as you say, or do you want me to respond to every one of your comments individually?

I won't restrain myself too much, so to make a bit of a head start:
Yes communication is robbed of its physical aspect, and yes I still pursue a dialogue.
And I wasn't following a train of though, I was following a train of thought.
O YES I AM A GRAMMAR NAZI TOO NOW

Edit: spelling

[Requia ☣]