Lurking... I don't think that we can put something in the public domain and then expect individuals to use that 'something' for a given purpose. We post because we have something to say, we say it because we want someone to hear, what they do with what they hear is up to them. If we expect that which we express to be used for a particular purpose, we probably ought to be very discriminating in our choice of places that we exercise that expression.
It boils down to the old saying "casting pearls before swine'.
There are simple methods to ensure against the average lurker if that is important. Make your posts available to only those who 'sign up' or 'log in'.
This sort of reminds me of the old debate that went on for years in the Anne Landers column; 'should the toilet paper roll deliver paper from the top of the roll, or from the bottom?'. That debate was about 'what is proper'. The argument for one direction or another went on for months, would fade, and then rekindle. I read it, and honestly, it was a 'lurking' kind of reading. I had absolutely no opinion on the subject. What was fascinating to me was how much effort people would put into this conversation. Every time I heard a new argument, it made me laugh for a half an hour. Here were literate, adult individuals actually contemplating whether the rotation of a tube of material used to remove most of the last traces of feces from their collective behinds was PROPER. I lurked that conversation for a long time, and it still makes me laugh. Hell, I wish I had more time to lurk, maybe I would laugh more... :-)
Ethical blogging? If anyone actually defined ethical behavior in an environment like the web, they would be 1)wrong 2)delusional 3)working on it for a very long time. There is no human alive that can even begin to understand the impact of their virtual web actions on the diversity of possible viewers. Anything put on the web is tossed into a fantastic catalytic plasma of human thought, emotion, motivation. You toss what you have out there, and the only ethical thing you can do is hope that some good comes of it. If you don't mean for good to come of it, then I suppose that is as close to unethical as you can get.
That all comes off sounding pretty cynical I suppose. But it is not. It is real, and it is an amazing and wonderful thing.
1 comment:
Lurking... I don't think that we can put something in the public domain and then expect individuals to use that 'something' for a given purpose. We post because we have something to say, we say it because we want someone to hear, what they do with what they hear is up to them. If we expect that which we express to be used for a particular purpose, we probably ought to be very discriminating in our choice of places that we exercise that expression.
It boils down to the old saying "casting pearls before swine'.
There are simple methods to ensure against the average lurker if that is important. Make your posts available to only those who 'sign up' or 'log in'.
This sort of reminds me of the old debate that went on for years in the Anne Landers column; 'should the toilet paper roll deliver paper from the top of the roll, or from the bottom?'. That debate was about 'what is proper'. The argument for one direction or another went on for months, would fade, and then rekindle. I read it, and honestly, it was a 'lurking' kind of reading. I had absolutely no opinion on the subject. What was fascinating to me was how much effort people would put into this conversation. Every time I heard a new argument, it made me laugh for a half an hour. Here were literate, adult individuals actually contemplating whether the rotation of a tube of material used to remove most of the last traces of feces from their collective behinds was PROPER. I lurked that conversation for a long time, and it still makes me laugh. Hell, I wish I had more time to lurk, maybe I would laugh more... :-)
Ethical blogging? If anyone actually defined ethical behavior in an environment like the web, they would be 1)wrong 2)delusional 3)working on it for a very long time. There is no human alive that can even begin to understand the impact of their virtual web actions on the diversity of possible viewers. Anything put on the web is tossed into a fantastic catalytic plasma of human thought, emotion, motivation. You toss what you have out there, and the only ethical thing you can do is hope that some good comes of it. If you don't mean for good to come of it, then I suppose that is as close to unethical as you can get.
That all comes off sounding pretty cynical I suppose. But it is not. It is real, and it is an amazing and wonderful thing.
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