Kairos Meet The Author Series

The authors of "Hypertext Reflections" and Response Editor Jennifer Bowie

The Authors are:

• Mike Palmquist, associate professor of English at Colorado State University.
• Will Hochman is an assistant professor of English at University of Southern Colorado
• Beth Kolko is an assistant professor of English at University of Texas at Arlington.
• Emily Golson is an associate professor of English at University of Northern Colorado,
• Jonathan Alexander is a lecturer at the University of Southern Colorado.
• Luann Barnes is a research associate with the Center for Research on Writing and Communication Technologies at Colorado State University.
• Kate Kiefer is a professor of English at Colorado State University.

The following is the log of the Session.

@join Kaiors

Kairos

A large room with distant light walls and lots of hazy, but too bright, light. There are several large pillows on the floor, and in the front of the room there is a small platform stage with a group of comfortable chairs. Type 'up' to step up on the platform stage.

Mick says, "Welcome to the first KMTA MOO session ... this MOO session is being logged for possible edited publication in the next or some ensuing issue of the journal."

Mick says, "To that end, if each of you would please identify yourself and your institution or affiliation, we can find out who's in the discussion."

cath quietly enters.
cath arrives.
cath waves to everyone

raylene quietly enters.
raylene arrives.

Mick is Mick Doherty, Internet Editor, Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau; Editor & Publisher, _Kairos_

Cynthia quietly enters.
A small swarm of 3x5 index cards blows in and disperses, revealing Cynthia.

MikeP says, "MikeP is Mike Palmquist, from Colorado State University"

mday is Michael Day, South Dakota Tech

Jennifer says, "Jennifer Bowie, RPI, _Kairos_ Response Editor"

Mick says, "Mike is one of our authors. If you have a role in the production of this hypertext, please note it as well"

cath is catherine spann, u of arkansas at little rock

bil is Bill Ruhsam not currently affiliated with anything, just interested.

bethk is Beth Kolko, from the University of Texas at Arlington

true is true, UFlorida

Janice is Janice Walker, University of South Florida

Douglas-E is Douglas Eyman, Cape Fear Community College, _Kairos_ CoverWeb Editor

LeeH says, "LeeH is Lee Honeycutt, RPI"

mday was an editor for this hypertext

Mick points to http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/2.2/features/reflections/bridge.html for those not looking at the text(s) in question.

julia says, "Julia is Julia Ferganchick-Neufang from UALR, contributor to this issues coverweb with "Harassment Online"

nickc hmmms, two Mikes, a Mick, and now a Nick, might need to change a name

Cynthia is Cynthia Haynes of UT-Dallas and Lingua MOO

will says, "will is will (hochman director of writing at the u of southern colordo"

Mick says, "and our gracious host, Cynthia. Thanks!"

Cynthia smiles.

GregS is Greg Siering, Ball State University and Kairos.

Brad quietly enters.

Brad arrives.

Cynthia says, "Jan is unable to attend, it's 2am in Norway...but he sends his warm greetings :)"

MikeP says, "MikeP smiles too, but doesn't know how to do it yet."

true [to Cynthia]: wimp

Mick says, "I believe we should start with the assumption that most people here are at least familiar with theHypertext Reflections webtext published in Kairos 2.2 ... if you aren't, that's fine -- jump in to discuss issues, theory, whatever!"

GregS [to Douglas-E]: switched my pueblo browser prefs to NS. :-/

LeeH says, "Mike, hit a colon followed by smiles"

julia snickers at MikeP because she, too, feels very unsure of herself here

will will thinking

raylene says, "Raylene ais Raylene off Slippery Rock University"

MikeP smiles

Joel quietly enters.
Joel arrives.
Joel smiles.

Eric quietly enters.
Eric's stream of bits swirl in and make themselves at home.

barrym quietly enters.
barrym arrives.

LeeH says, "I saw you smile"

mday says, "2 AM is just when I get going! What's wrong with that guy? (^_^)"

Mick says, "We have left the format for this initial KMTA open-ended in order to allow the readers -- participants -- to write it, much the way pomo hypertext theory insists electronic cimmunication should happen anyway."

julia waves to barry, glad to see a familiar virtual face

cath hugs joel

will [to Eric]: hi

Mick [to barrym]: you have your class here too?

Cynthia says, "the problem is he can't get into his office after midnight there, and he doesn't have internet access in his apartment :)"

Mick continues ...

Melissa quietly enters.
Melissa arrives.

mday howdy's

barrym [to Mick]: they're on their way

Eric falls over in a dead faint

mday er howdies

will says, "Eric what?"

jaynee quietly enters.
jaynee arrives.

Mick says, "Any issues either int he content or the format or the porcess of poutting together this multilingual text are fair game here;ask the hard questions, and we'll see where it goes from there."

nickc [to Cynthia]: doesn't midnight last for a few months at some point?

true wishes Jan a cellular modem and a laptop for christmas

Eric says, "is that *jan* who has no net connection in his apt, or somebody else? "

barrym [to julia]: there may be more familiar faces her than you think

Cynthia [to nickc]: that's in July :)
Cynthia [to Eric]: Jan in Norway...yes

LeeH [to Jennifer]: I'm at home at 2119 15th Street

malissa quietly enters.
malissa arrives.

Mick coughs and bangs the virtual gavel.

Eric faints again

Cynthia will convey all good wishes to Jan :)

Elizabeth quietly enters.
Elizabeth arrives.

Mick says, "Would our host authors like to start the conversation with any statements, questions of the readership, and/or commentary on the writing and publicaiton process?

nickc turns to proscenium and waits for Mick to go on

MikeP says, "I'd start by saying that this was far more work than I'd imagined it would be."

tari quietly enters.
tari arrives.

will says, "well, i'll pick up some of the acw thread and wonder about our readers..."

true waves to tari

nickc [to MikeP]: I wondered about that when I saw about six links in your name

tari says, "hi hi, sorry i'm delinquent."

will says, "excuse me, mike, go ahead..."

mday amens that, Mike. You folks put in a tremendous amount of work.

julia says, "here here! to the work issue; I had no idea what kind of time hypertext involved"

Mick says, "For those who've arrived since 7:05, this MOO meeting is being logged for possile editied publication in a future issue of Kairos. Please identify yourself at some point so we can contact you for appropriate permissions."

bethk [to mday]: mike did the bulk of it. without a doubt.

will says, "mike did a large part of the work pay attention to the man behind the curtain!"

MikeP says, "I think we put in at least as much work in the project as a print article for a refereed journal. But I found the additional challenge of organizing it pretty stiff."

virginia quietly enters.
virginia arrives.

Brad says, " Good evening all."

nickc says, "forthe group, is the work worth it? Is there a qualitative difference in hypertext that'd've been lost doing it less complicatedly?"

Mick wonders how the authors decided what order they would be listed. For that matter, on your vitae, do you list this as a collaborative project or do you point the URL to your individual piece and claim sole authorship?

Aimee quietly enters.
Aimee arrives.

malissa says, "hello everybody"

virginia says, "virginia says I am finally on"

julia says, "since this was my first hypertext, I felt as though I had to first invent the pen before putting words to paper (to offer a print analogy) :)"

jaynee says, "Hello everyone"

Mick . o O ( great analogy! invent the pen ... )

Eric is eric crump who hereby gives whatever permissions are necessary or unnecessary for any republication for any reason of words he may or may not say this evening

MikeP says, "It was worth it. I don't think we could have played with the text as much had we tried this in linear text. And since that was part of what we were doing, it had to be in hypertext."

Douglas-E says, "Hypertext organization is almost always a difficult task--we've been taught how to organize linearly, and now we need to unteach ourselves when writing non-linearly."

mday says, "Mike, MikeP and, as you saw, so did the editors. But it came out wonderfully."

Aimee says, "hi folks!"

jaynee waves to Aimee

virginia says, "hi-aimee"

bethk [to nickc]: one advantage of the format is that we were able to discuss different incarnations of the project and include those various versions intact.

will says, "I'm not sure that's key mick, but what I think may be of interest is that this might be the first hypertext from a conference that gets online, skipping print entirely..."

tari is Tari Fanderclai and can be contacted at tari@ucet.ufl.edu

Mick says, "[speaking in a tangent thread] please continue the discussion ... but I'd also like to hand part of the floor to Dr. Barry Maid and his crew ... thanks for coming. What kind of class is this?"

mday really liked the metadiscursive elements, in which your readers got to find out the stories behind the main story.

barrym [to Mick]: so formal?

MikeP says, "I found the historical aspects of this kind of intriguing. It certainly changed the way we thoguht about revision of the core texts."

malissa says, "our class explores the topic of power in cyberspace"

barrym says, "this is my "Power in Cyberspace" seminar"

Emily quietly enters.

paulx quietly enters.

will [to Emily]: hi

MikeP says, "Hi Emily"

barrym says, "I think they've got the power"

bethk [to Emily]: Hi there. Welcome.

julia wishes she could get power in cyberspace :)

Janice wiggles her toes powerfully in greeting to barrym's students

malissa says, "only when Barry gives it over!"

mday says, "Because so much of what we do in academic writing and publishing is sterile, cut from the tangled webs of context from which it comes."

true shuffles papers, trips over a book, and generally makes all sorts of noise on the way out the door.
true tiptoes out.
true goes home.

Mick says, "Authors, were there describable, recognizable "Power issues" in your text creation?"
cath waves back to janice

MikeP says, "Yeah, this is probably my only journal article with a picture of me running a track meet."

julia says, "I certainly felt "powerless" at times!"

nickc [to MikeP]: how much of the history was revised? Don't mean that facetiously, but how much of history was reunderstood in new ways as you progressed and kept history active?

Emily smiles

Brad grins and shivers

will says, "...the power of poetry! I loved smuggling in some poems into an academic gig...always!"

MikeP says, "Nick, I think we had to work around a lot of issues -- some involving power issues, and others arising out of working at a distance."

Cynthia sets up the program for Kairos

Mick [to will]: smuggling? Really? That's how you felt?

Luann quietly enters.

mday likes the idea of history in progress. We change and learn as we reinterpret the ways things happened, and the reasons. Your web demonstrates that.

Brad says, " nice work Cynth."

MikeP says, "The distance issue was a real obstacle. We probably could have cut our workload in half had we met face to face -- or even on a MOO."

malissa says, "what power issues did you confront in designing your hypertext, Mike and Nick?"

will says, "when the hypertext was a conference session it had different issues than being a kairos hypertext..."
will says, "power, i mean"

nickc [to mday]: exactly, like _Ceremony_ by Silko--history and memory alway being reinvented

canadian quietly enters.
canadian arrives.

MikeP says, "When we shifted to Kairos, we suddenly had to worry about an enduring product."

mday is teaching Silko now, Nick! That's where it came from. Bingo!

Mick recalls there were lots of technical problems at the session at CCCC. Did the editing process give you a sense of power over the text that the live presentation didn't?

LeeH [to MikeP]: Did you ever use the telephone to coordinate production. I think we forget about the phone these days.

Eric sees the iron claw of Robert Boyle's ghost beginning to loosen its grip on academic writing, it clutches, misses, slips, graspes, gasps, desperate....

MikeP says, "I think we tried to make the Kairos piece more "academic" than the conference
talk

will says, "we were also challenged in the second tier to make our links work and we used more rhetoric than tech, I think"

barrym [to MikeP]: do you really see the webbed work as "enduring"?

bethk [to Mick]: If not power, then at least reduced anxiety related to the technology (if not the actual artifact)

MikeP says, "Lee, we used the phone a lot, but never for a conference call."

nickc [to malissa]: I'm just a reader, not a writer on this one

Osborne quietly enters.
Osborne arrives.

julia nods

Eric wonders the same thing barry wonders. enduring?

Mick [to nickc]: NEVER "jus a reader" ... always a writer. Yah?

nickc says, "was the conference like live theater and the kairos piece like film?"

will [to barrym]: much of my work in the piece was collected over years, so yes, I believe it's enduring!

MikeP says, "Barry, I see the Web as fairly enduring. I think we'll be archiving Web texts for many years and we'll have access to them more easily than to print texts.t"

mday says, "good question, Barry. Shouldn't the web be perpetually changing to reflect new realities and instances? Or do we need a "dead" version for the dead tree lovers?"

barrym [to mday]: my point exactly, Michael

cath thinks an evolving presentation would make it more enduring

julia says, "maybe not enduring, but certainly more accessible. "

nickc [to Mick]: well, if you want to be theoretical, yeah, but as a practical matter, in terms of sweat equity and hard work, no way

Emily says, "how about a historical version"

tari thinks "enduring" doesn't need to mean "fixed and solidified"

Douglas-E [to mday]: or do we need an archived (but not print) version--so we can keep track of that changing history?

mday says, "evolving is a good word for it too, cath."

Janice agrees with ikeP

Mick applauds Tari.

Janice . o O ( or MikeP rather )
Janice blushs.

barrym [to Douglas-E]: now that *is* interesting..maybe an evolutionary text

MikeP says, "One of the points I made in our reflections was a shift toward texts that grow over time and reflect the contributions of many authors/readers. I suspect that there is a place for both evolving texts and "dead" or at least static texts."

bethk [to mday]: I don't think we need a dead version for dead tree lovers. But a dead version can be wonderfully rich. Several times I've wanted earlier versions of the web to show students, for example. But why would we have to kill trees to archive? Couldn't we archive offline? Save trees *and* memory?

Eric says, "flannery just rediscovered modeling clay. she loves to make bunnies, trees, dragons, boats, kangaroos... "

cath nods tari - enduring = more lastingly useful

Eric says, "then smash them and start again"

LeeH [to MikeP]: One thing I noticed was the difficulty in reading the hypertext down to the level of detail wanted. For example, as a researcher, I wanted to know more about the measures you used, but I couldn't find any information readily available on these.

Eric says, "her mother is exasperated. she wants to save the figures, let the clay dry, paint them, put them on the mantel (when we get one). "

mday says, "Doug, I guess that would be fine, as long as there were multiple overlays of versions, kind of like those transparencies of the human body systems we had in our encyclopedias."

Eric says, "flannery just wants to *make*. she doesn't really want to *keep*"

mday says, "Beth, I was being silly about the dead trees. That wasn't very nice, was it?"

Eric says, "process is more enduring than product ;-)"

julia says, "in our printed, hardcopy histories what do we learn? perhaps if kept our history in flux, it would be easier to improve?"

Douglas-E [to mday--now]: that would be the next "killer app" for hypertext!

MikeP says, "Lee, I'm not sure you'd get those in a print text either, but I'd be happy to include them."
will has disconnected.

Joel nods Eric bigtime. Revision at its most basic. Ain't no such thing as product...it's all process

The housekeeper arrives to remove will.

barrym [to julia]: or at least more honest

Eric hi5s joel

cath thinks eric is giving an object lession here

nickc says, "I like static text, hyper or otherwise, sort of like dipping my hand in a stream and cupping some water. With archiving I can have my water and drink it too."

mday says, "Yahh doug we'll patent it, right? OverlayWEB?"

MikeP says, "Alas, Will, come back."

bethk [to julia]: i can see the use of fixed versions of memory

julia says, Barry, Good point!

GregS [to julia]: in many ways, I like to see those histories or theories frozen in their timely contexts. I enjoy looking at C&W articles from various years and seeing the changes, the assumptions, the radical shifts in ideas and attitudes.

Jennifer nods to GregS

LeeH [to MikeP]: Just curious if you developed these yourself or used existing ones. There are a couple existing ones that measure computer anxiety, but it looked like you developed your own for this. How'd you go about this?

Mick archives his work for DCVB every week so he can show comnputer-challenged admins the difference in quality progressing.

bethk [to mday]: umm..if killing trees qualifies as not nice boy am i ever guilty

Elizabeth has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to remove Elizabeth.

will quietly enters.

Emily [to julia,]: sometimes its fun to see we've come back to where we started.

julia says, " I do too, Greg, but the more I read of history, the more it amazes me how little we learn from our mistakes (and others' of course)"

MikeP says, "Lee, I developed most of the measures or borrowed them from studies I'd been involved in earlier. With the exception of the comptuer and writing anxiety scales, it was home grown."

Jennifer says, "Not learning from mistakes is a very goos reason to keep those mistakes around, in some form"

Emily [to julia]: we may learn, but choose not to employ what we learn

bil [to julia]: But will people learn better from a hypertext standpoint? Or will they learn more shallowly. Hyptesxt lends itself to skimming

mday says, "Beth, me too. Sigh. so much paper, so little time."

nickc [to julia]: in large part because we can't recall the mistakes or know they are there to be learned from; also because we think we can avoid them

Douglas-E thinks the trick to archiving may be choosing which version (and what process or product even) to archive--archiving everything would be too cumbersome to be useful...

julia says, "Emily, one of my students in Rhet History used a wonderful metaphor or a rising spiral, always coming back again, but to another place!"

bethk [to mday]: naming is important. Is it paper, or is it kindling?

nickc nods Douglas-E

Emily [to nickc]: do you think we try to make up for mistakes as we read hypertext. Do we choose paths based on our understanding of past mistake"

mday says, "good pt. Beth. Re-use every scrap too."

Mick says, "Authors, who is your idealized audience for this work? Who should read it and why? What kind of graduate class would it be used in? Undergraduate? Professional seminar? Where will it affect scholarship?"

Brad says, "That which can be named is not Eternal."

LeeH [to MikeP]: Which scale did you use for computer anxiety?

Emily [to julia]: I like it!

GregS thinks that in the next five years there will be more 'history pages' on the web, back rooms of sites that either provide previous versions of documents or at least record changes that were made over time... somewhat like version histories of software.

bethk [to Emily]: good question

nickc [to Emily]: no, or at least that's not been my experience, except in so far as I see where a link is going and know I don't want to go there because I've been already

Mick [to GregS]: I disagree -- these will exist, but offline on CD-ROM rather than on the WWW. Why use the space?

bethk [to Emily]: or do we choose paths absed on familiarity and comfort

julia would like to see someone write "Plato's Socrates meets hyptertext: the perfect dialectic"

Janice [to Mick]: or they could be "created" on the fly and served up on the www on demand

MikeP says, "I'm imagining our audience as writing teachers interested in computers and writing. And grad class full of folks who are or want to be teachers."

Douglas-E [to bil]: I tend to skim about equally on web and in print--depending on the content, so while hypertext may indeed make the reader more likely to skim, I think that that is not necessarily a bad thing...and kind of makes sense in a nonlinear reading pattern

mday says, "However, the proliferation of multiple versions of everything may contribute more to info overload. Unless we can better figure out how to know which version we want, and when."

Emily [to bethk]: I don't know. my experience with this crowd is that they are risk takers. They don't take the comfortable way.

will says, "wasn't it socrates who complained about writing being too static?"

GregS [to Mick]: because the web is all about online sources. what good does it do me if whatitsname.org has those records offline someplace?

julia smiles at barry

nickc [to julia]: Eastgate published David Kolb's _Socrates in the Labyrinth_, which does that pretty much

Mick [to bethk]: we just might have that Plato 's Socrates in hypertext next issyue, as am atter of fact. Brilliant submission cam e in last week.

MikeP says, "Yup. The more text online the better."

julia hopes someone defines comfortable as she's forgotten what it means

Eric says, "what we need is a SocratesBot here"
Eric grins

Brad says, " T"

bil [to Douglas-E]: I do agree on the broad-ability of the net to allow you to skip wherever your mind may wander, but it does not allow itself to be very linear. Given that most of the western workd is currently being taught to think in a linear fashoin, the net causes some stress to peole (like me) who attempt to use it for informational purposes

Mick says, "My favorite question about a hypertext -- Jennifer will recognize it, for sure -- which came first in this webtext, the content or the form?"

julia says, "Exactly, Will, which is why I think he would have loved this!"

nickc [to GregS]: but a Cd-Rom with a browser interface will solve that. Assuming the links imbedded are still active and there.

Joel lights cigar and winks at barrym's class

MikeP says, "In this case, the content came first. THen the form. Then new content that reflected the form. In most of my work online, the form follows the idea and the text follows the form."

will says, "Julia, I agree! "

GregS [to nickc]: then you start talking about access issues... and costs.

julia says, "Yes, bill, I feel that way as well. I need an index, a map, or I feel very lost"

Luann [to bil]: do you really believe you have the ability to skip where ever you want on the web?

nickc [to ]: br

bil [to julia]: Exactly! Sometimes I get so frustrated,m skipping from search engine to search engine trying to find some owne piece of info

will will wishes he could sing the hypertext after the discussion, or at least his ego does...

nickc [to GregS]: but you're always already talking about access and cost anyway

Douglas-E [to bil]: yeah, I see your point. The web is still primordial--it hasn't evolved to the point of self-organization...

Emily [to MikeP]: I'm just curious about the form issue. When you decided to to do your presentation, didn't you know it would be in hypertext?

Mick says, "Will, it seems to me that poetry and hypertext share the characteristic of using words (and images, textual or otherwise) to create a certain *Form* -- and that it's truly the form that emerges which matters most. What say ye?"

barrym [to Douglas-E]: if it does, mightened it be self-defeating?

Brad says, " will it evolve there?"

julia says, "but I'm sure the way we learn to think and read is chaning as we speak/write and it will change our language and thought in ways we can't even imagine yet"

MikeP says, "Emily, in this case I was adapting text from a print document (thus the ease of writing a hierarchical text), so I didn't worry as much about the form."

cath likes will's idea - hyperttext score conductor

barrym looks around and thinks the group here prefers primoridial goop

Jennifer agree with Julia

will says, "I'm a big believer in organic forms (shades of new crit!) and don't necessarily feel primordial or lost on the web, just text happy!"

nickc [to Mick]: form can shape content (think of water in a jar and the shape the water takes), but those limits also allow a great deal of freedom because they answer many questions, freeing up others

Mick says, "Sandye says hello from downstairs, having changed "Monty Python's Holy Grail" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer.""

Janice [to barrym]: primordial goop--sounds yummy

bil [to Luann]: I don't thingk that we have the ability to find what ewe need yet. There has yet to emerge a comprehesicve engine or index that would allow you to find anything anywhere. I certainly hope that one is coming, power to the programmers!]

Brad agrees with will.

barrym [to Janice]: I thought you'd like. Mai tai flavored?

GregS nods bil. One thing I likto mick I get to tape buffy each monday while carmen is in class.

Joel [to barrym]: yum. I just had a bowl of P.G. for dinner

bil pounds his spellchecker back into being

julia thinks she ate primordial goop for dinner

nickc [to Mick]: tell her to flip back and forth and watch Buffy the Grail Slayer

GregS oozes messages together. :-(

Joel seems to have barely beet julia to that one

Jennifer smiles at Nick And Mick

Joel says, "er, beat."

bil laughs.

julia chuckles at joel

mday says, "when we find the comprehensive engine or index which will lead us flawlessly to all the informationwe need, will we have found God?"

MikeP says, "Can we carefully exam the form content issues involved in these mixed metaphors?"

julia thinks beet goop is yummy

bethk wonders about the form/content question

cath [to mday]: or Guide

LeeH [to bil]: "Bil, Apple is working on a textual search engine that can summarize an entire text and give back a short synopsis that is suprisingly accurate. It's tools like these that will make the web much easier to use

bil [to mday,]: no we will have found his terminal

Janice . o O ( I don't know of anything that 'comprehensive' for print either though )

Mick says, "I may have missed an answer when I asked this earlier -- but to what extent are you all taking individual ownership of "your part" of the text? Will it appear on vitae as collaborative, or in some other more-credit-taking form which will help in tenure review. (Not sarcasm -- a realconcern!)"

Melissa says, "there is a search engine that exists to search existing search engines"

nickc [to bil]: xmtl is an attempt at that, where page writers agree to categorize their work with metatags, much like Lib. of Cong. does for books, to help make searching more rich and efficient

Douglas-E [to barrym]: yea, I prefer goop most of the time too, but I think it depends on your goal as a reader--looking for information is different from reading fiction or theory; therefore, an organized facet of the web would be useful in creating a Borges-inspired encyclopedia of knowledge, but the other stuff wouldn't necessarily want to be constrained in that fashion.

Jennifer [to mday]: maybe not god but will we be gods w/ information so easily available?

Luann [to maday]: do you think that is ever possible without economic consideration, ie big bussiness hearding us in their directions?

bethk [to Mick]: a good question. I do a good deal of collaborative work, mostly two-authored works. I actually chose not to put this article on my itae for this year, simply because I'm not sure how to resolve this issue

Mick will just keep throwing out prompts while the discussion ignore him and moves merrily along. That's the way it should be ...:-)

bil [to nickc]: Hmmm. haven't heard of that one. This is what I get for leaving school. Dropping out of the mainstream :)

barrym [to Douglas-E]: so maybe what we really need is a goop organizer, like the way Eric's kids play with clay

julia says, "my hypertext was "single authored" but couldn't possibly have come into being with out tech help from Barry and Doug. Should I share credits on my vita?"

GregS [to nickc]: but a lot of folks don't want to trust meta tags to provide information on documents. there is an aweful lot of "fraud" going on in advertising surrounding meta tag "misuse."

MikeP says, "I'm treating this like any of my other dozen or so collaborative articles and books. (well, two books, the rest are articles.) I think the humanities tend to have real problems with co-authorship, but I hope that's going to change soon."

bil [to GregS]: Yes, I've seen a lot of that on word searches

will says, "Mick, I think for my part I don't know how many "chips" I'll be able to cash in on the pub, but I do appreciate the opportunity to offer some good ideas that I've been living with this past decade..."

Dene quietly enters.
Dene arrives.

nickc [to GregS]: can't have a community without trust. Maybe the I-net can't support community after all.

mday was just trying to point to the fact that transparency of meaning and navigation in any media is really a myth, and that most of the work/play is in messing around in the goop. Goop is not tranparent.

Luann [to Mick]: we are kind of like herding butterflies.....

Eric nods yes to julia

barrym [to MikeP]: humanities types? change?

canadian has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to remove canadian.

mday says, "just look at all the goop on your screen!"

Osborne has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to remove Osborne.

bil [to nickc]: but we have many communitites right now that do not trust. Call me cynickal but it s true

Mick [to Luann]: -- there's the title for this MOO session. "Herding Butterflies." That's wonderful. Jennifer, write that down! ;-)

bil laughs.

MikeP says, "Barry, it was a real problem when I arrived at CSU with my emphasis on collaborative work. But they're getting used to it. I got tenured, anyway."

Eric flutters

Cynthia flitters

bil chortles in his variant flight path

Mick is flustered

Jennifer [to Mick]: Write write it down? type maybe ;)

nickc [to bethk]: I'd change the entry on the c.v. as fits where you're sending it. If you're applying to a place where you know there are scholars who value collab (like Ohio State where Lunsford is), list it as collab and point to the whole,

GregS sighs to nick and shrugs. He actually read about court cases where people were sued for copyright infringement for using a competitor's brand name in their meta tags to draw in that competitor's customers. Oooh, Mick, new Kairos strategy!!

cath always brakes for butterflies

barrym [to MikeP]: well, they would have been crazy not to

Mick [to Jennifer]: "write" and "type" are synonymous here ...

Luann [to bil]: word searches are tricky at best, in our site, have yet to get a search function to work. I personally think searches, at this point at least, are serendipity

Janice [to MikeP]: I think that's a real problem for many of us doing electronic work, since so much of it is collaborative

nickc [to bethk]: if they don't value collab, list your part and present it as 'chapter' in book type of thing.

Laughing-Gull quietly enters.
Laughing-Gull arrives.

Mick [to GregS]: no joke., I'm researching that for the City of Dallas right now. We can't, for instance, put "Houston" in our meta-tags.

Douglas-E [to GregS]: and our competitors are...?

GregS nods nick on different versions of the vita

bethk [to nickc]: a good point. i dont plan on going anywhere at the moment, and there's no complaints locally re: what else is going on, so i'm avoiding the issue for now

bil [to Luann]: Serendipity? I'd call it rather an act of god (or Satan) depending on what you're looking for

bethk grins

will says, "actually, most of our texts are pretty identifiable, but mike an luann did plenty of links and conversions too"

Brad says, " word searches are great if you know how to ask the Q."

jaynee nods to Brad

MikeP says, "But I think the attitude that valuable work is the product of single minds is going to change. It seems somewhat hypocritical, for instance, for a postmodernist to suggest that we need to focus on single-authored works."

nickc [to will]: yeah, but they're not places you want to be for too long--tension is high and nerves are frayed where there's no trust

malissa says, "good point, Brad"

Cynthia [to GregS]: I heard that called 'spamdexing' where you enter as many keywords in your metatags to draw in more hits

barrym [to MikeP]: that really only happens in the academy

Janice [to MikeP]: T&P committees may be slow to change, however.

Luann laughs demons in the works.....I like it

julia says, "Regarding word searches, I thought project 17 had interesting comments on sex and word searches--interesting suggestion at the end too!"

Emily [to nickc]: nice point about trust

nickc [to GregS]: I think a formal metatag proposal and code might change that. i read about the case where a law firm sued anothter over metatag descriptons

Eric notes that Excite's spider no longer even looks at meta tags for that very reason. the information isn't trustworthy.

bil says, "Project 17 had an interesting angle. I'm suprised it stayed up as long as it did. I'd have thought it would have crashed from hits withing a few minutes"

Luann [to brad,]: word searches can be as hard to replicate as DNA

GregS nods mikep And in many ways, faculty want to see that we are active in the professional community. I cannot see a better way to be involved in that professional world that to be working closely with colleagues around the nation. That is much more involved than a solo pub in some journal.

Eric says, "too many damn rhetors out there ;)"

Brad [to nickc]: heavy.

Janice agrees with GregS

Eric says, "Project 17?"

Brad grins.

barrym [to Janice]: you're right about speed...but some units have a positive history..csu has been working with computer types for ever in english

Mick says, "A question about Jonathan's text -- I know he's not here right now -- it alone among the seven contributions is not, in and of itself, a hypertextual approach to presentation. What made it appropriate to the entirety? Did associating it with othe rhypertexts make it a hypertext in and of itself?"

julia says, "Bill's coverweb contribution, Eric"

Janice [to barrym]: Yes, thank goodness for the exceptions!

MikeP says, "It seems to me that many grad students could benefit by getting involved in these sorts of collaborations. It gets their name and work out in the profession and helps build contacts. Just a thought."

Janice [to MikeP]: Good point.

GregS brb... must set up the vcr to tape Buffy.

Eric says, "oh yeah"

nickc as grad student, Nick nods MikeP's observation

Eric hides under the desk

barrym [to Janice]: I don't expect anyone here will even think to not accept Julia's work..at least they better not

will says, "i asked jon to help out at a late point and valued the queer aspect of his work as a way to offer more depth of in our teaching lives..."

Luann smiles computer types in english......hummmm sounds familar

MikeP says, "Mick, we debated for quite a while about revising Jonathan's text, but decided that linerar texts are so common on the Web that it served as an anchor along our continuum of linear to web text."

Dene says, "I think it is subversive not to crate a hypertex twhen it is expected:)"

LeeH [to MikeP]: Mike, I think your attitudes about the value of collaborative work on right on target, but at many schools, they're looking for at least a high percentage of solo publications during tenure reviews. But things are changing, as you say.

julia wants a desk to hide under too

MikeP says, "I also think that Jonathan's text is a hypertext -- it links out to several sites and to other docs in the Hypertext Reflections article."

will says, "jon did include links he uses pretty regularly as part of "WebEd" at usc"

Magill quietly enters.
Magill arrives.

Dene says, "So does this mean we are defining what a hypertextual document is, once and for all?"

Douglas-E says, "So reflections also reflects different genres of hypertext (?)"

Jennifer shutters "Once and for all?"

Dene giggles at the prospect and the hubris:)

will says, "jon also offered a good balance as we dealt with some gender issues..."

Emily says, "maybe jonathan interpreted the connections to collaborators texts as hypertext. Is he here?"

Mick is just playing Devil's Advocate here -- but to continue, that claim seems to logically conclude that any text with links isa hypertext. And (here's Landow, I guess) that means the footnoted paper text is technically (or a-technically) a hypertext. Is that part of your Reflection? :-)

MikeP says, "Hi Dene. No way. I think, for instance, that the Web was a major step backward in the interface design of hypertexts."

cath waits for mikeP to explain

Mick smells an Eastgate plug coming up ...

MikeP says, "Yes, a footnote is a link. Hypertext doesn't need to be computerized, at least not in principle. Check out good old Vanevar."

Melissa says, "I agree with Mick...just because a text has links doesn't make it truely hypertextual"
will says, "the project began as hypertext on hypertext for a 4c's conference session..."

Douglas-E [to Mick]: I think there are just different types of hypertext--much like there are different types of books...

Laughing-Gull [to MikeP]: "So does Ted Nelson"

Mick watches Melissa and Mike P square off ...

nickc [to MikeP]: yes, in many ways, but in large part that was caused by the 'open standards' model it was once based on (pre-Netscape or IE standard or nothing days).

bethk watches the definitional argument with interest

MikeP says, "Cath, think of what the first Web documents looked like (and how they functioned). We were doing much more sophisticated work in Hypercard, ToolBook, Storyspace, etc."

Brad says, "Doesn't the *hyper* part of hypertext come from the *hyper*link?"

Emily [to Doublas-E]: It might be fun to try and categorize the "different types".

Melissa says, "If the major content of the piece is presented in a linear fashion...it's not hypertextual...it's linked"

barrym thought the hyper came from too much sugar

jaynee laughs at barrym

malissa says, "I thought the hyper came from all the hype"

LeeH has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to remove LeeH.

Mick says, "Whatever "steps back" we've taken with the web in htext design, we've more than gained and made up for with the increased access provided by public hypertextual clearnghouses. No longer is hypertext design controlled by either academics or computer dudes."

Brad says, "What's next: caffinetext?"

Jennifer agrees with Melissa. "However a linked linear document is more hypertextual than a non-linked one

Luann [to barrym]: or hanging out in too many coffeeshops

MikeP says, "The Hyper part does come from hyper-link, but the idea has been around forever (well, at least in Ongian Time). We were working with hypertext long before Ted N. invented the term."

Emily says, "I thought the hyper came from hyperbole"

Mick [to Douglas-E]: Heh, I wrote one my exam questions about that.

Douglas-E [to Emily]: sure--there's a spectrum which ranges from list-of-links, through the kind of hypertext that Jonathan's work represents--and finally to what we're referring to as "native" hypertext.

Emily [to Douglas-E]: go on

Luann [to Jennifer]: or do we need to look at what it means to read hypertextually

Melissa [to Jennifer]: that's true

MikeP says, "Speaking of the Web, I'm glad it's evolving. I'm still trying to get my Web pages to do what I could do three years ago with products designed for PCs and Macs."

Laughing-Gull [to MikeP]: "absolutely, but he coinmed the term."

Mick says, "jonathan's work is *clearly* not Moulthropian "native hypertext." That's not a criticism -- it's very good writing. But I think it's uncotrovertible fact."

will says, " i think hypertext involves readers and we need to understand taht readers have better computers than most of us are using..."

Janice thinks we won't know what the definitive "hypertext" is until the next writing technology is invented, and we begin looking at how it is changing.

Douglas-E [to Mick,]: oh, so that's where I got that idea ;)

Jennifer says, "Wouldn't the hypertexuality lie more in the reader than the authors?"

nickc agrees with MikeP, and can't forget what 'as we may think' imagined--a machine to automate what we already did with notes, references and memory

mday reads some books hypertextually, esp when in a hurry. The TOC, index, and notes allow us to do that.

Mick oohs Jennifer

Melissa agrees with Jennifer

Mick points to the title of the new colun in Kairos -- "As We May Link."

Luann [to mday]: absolutely

mday says, "Something about the WILL to be non-linear?"

Janice [to Jennifer]: Good point.

will says, "will agrees with Jennifer and nods ...alot!"

cath [to mday]: I 've noticed the same thing, skipping all over in books now

Dene says, "Had that argument with Nancy Kaplan years ago that many people have been readinghypertextually long before the notion of hypertext came about"

Jennifer says, "Even a linear document can become a hypertext w/ the right reader as a hypertext can become linear with the "right" reader"

Dene smiles at mday

Mick [to cath]: books? Are those the things you print out from the web to read?

Janice :'s ways of reading print are definitely changing as a result of reading online

nickc nods Jennifer

raylene has disconnected.

The housekeeper arrives to remove raylene.

MikeP says, "I've always distrusted the term non-linear. I like multi-linear and was reassured when Bolter used it in his address to C&W a few years back."

cath grins at mick

Dene nods at MikeP

julia thinks an interesting connection to this edition and reading would be gender and reading: creating meaning from gendered perspectives

Eric [to Jennifer]: which is why *somebody* needs to develop automated reader-initiated links and lexias on the web.

Jennifer thinks back to a class she had one summer...

mday actually teaches that, and has a web somewhere in a Kairos past that talks about how and why we HAVE to think hypertextually in order to survive in this info-laden world we academics call home.

Mick [to MikeP]: P howbout "extra-linear" == what a great fouble-meaning pun.

malissa says, "julia, please explain a bit""

jaynee [to julia]: I agree

Dene says, "Eric, sounds like Peseus you are referring to"

Laughing-Gull says, "Perhaps books broke the hypetrtext string and put everything linear and now we are ready to return to hypertext pre Guttenburg.""

mday says, "So scanning and skimming are very important."

Brad [to Mick]: Howbout pseudo-linear?

nickc says, "and lines don't have to be straight to be linear eitehr"

Eric says, "eventually the distinction between reader and writer, already getting flimsy, will become historical curiosity. the terms are obsolete"

Emily says, "would myday's text be considered a dead tree?"

Mick says, "We don't think hypertextually. Catherine Smith wrote an article about that in Selfe & Hilligoss, and a refutation also appeared - forget the author -- called 'Hoopertext." We are mapping out thinking process with what the current technology allows, not the reverse."

Eric [to Dene]: ??

mday says, "It might be. Dead bytes? "

Eric [to Dene]: ya mean somebody already *did* it? and they didn't tell me?

Dene says, "Perseus, you've heard pof it?"

bil [to Eric]: I'm sorry eric, I have to disagree. As much as I'm a good reader, I am not a good writer, the two are not synonymous

Laughing-Gull [to Mick"of]: course we think hypertextualy, Ah what was I saying?"

MikeP says, "Mick, do you think we don't link new ideas in what we read/see/hear/etc. to what we already know?"

julia wonders if we (she) don't loose something when we skim; it becomes a habit and difficult to get seriously into a text

cath nods to julia

Emily [to MikeP]: don't we do more than link...I remember something about transform

Brad [to Mick]: McLuhan said something like: The angst of today comes from doing tomorrow's job with yesterday's tools

nickc [to Mick]: map,map,map,map,map,map-->we've mapped well before computers.

MikeP says, "[to Julia] I have to say I'm having a hard time skimming this."

bil [to julia]: I've read many boods more than once where I'll see entirely new things the second or third time that I skipped entirely the first. Some formsn of art/communication tdo not let thmselves to skimming

Eric [to bil]: but I'm not talking about relative quality. I'm talking about the *functions* --the roles. merged & converged. wreaders & riters.

mday says, "Well, thinking sure is chronological, but it jumps around a lot. Like Devo said, it's never straight up and down. It's a wiggly world."

Douglas-E [to Mick]: but if we didn't already think hypertextually, then how could we have read (and written) print texts that are rife with intertextuality--both intended and reader-generated?

GregS [to julia]: depends on your purposes of reading at that moment. Rosenblat got going on such issues in somewhat different contexts)

Luann [to julia]: do you like we are alway aware of everything we absorb when we read?

Mick [to julia]: Exactly -- my committee complimented me on my wide breadth of reading and knowledge, and hammered me for my ability to read closely and comment on details. I miss the trees for the forest, as it were. And I've been working almost solely in hypertext since 1993.

nickc [to Mick,]: hell a poem is a map

Eric laughs & wiggles about

MikeP says, "[to Emily] Yes, I think we do a lot of transforming, but I've been a big fan of Scardamalia and Bereiter since grad school."

will says, "to eric Louise Rosenblatt described the continuum of readers texts and authors in l938!"

bil [to Eric]: Yash, but you can't *function * as writer without some ability to regurgitate what is in your head onto some media be it hypertext, books, film or whatnot. Reading is fundamentlaly different. Your'e categorizing and addssimilating

barrym [to Mick]: I did that in the mid-70's. what's my excuse?

Emily [to Mick]: what committee. Why do you need close reading?

julia says, "Mike, yes, I agee, it all moves too quickly; thank goodness for floating boats!"

Luann [to julia]: :laughs trying to type to fast can be dangerous, that should be think not like

Eric [to will]: it's taking us a long time to catch up with Louise, eh?

Mick [to barrym]: psychometric drug use?

MikeP says, "Thanks for the pause"

GregS often leaves close reading to those who forget their eyeglasses.

Eric slaps 'Are We Not Men?' on the CD player

nickc says, "but you know, Mick, you're right, there was never hypertext before computers and true hypertext is disk-based with the best software and the ability to write into the nodes"

Laughing-Gull has disconnected.

will says, "yes, rosenblatt is not know well enough but at least hypertext helps me see her lit theory in more usable terms!"

barrym [to Mick]: at the places I went to school? ;-)

julia says, "rosenblatt is a wonderful example; b/c she tells us that our purpose determines, in many ways, our results when reading--if I'm skimming, I find it very hard to switch modes and read seriously."

MikeP says, "[to nickc] Ouch"

Emily [to nickc]: that's an interesting take...the ability to write in nodes. How do you develop such a thing?

Mick [to barrym]: many people have compared hypermedia to drug use. Dr. Leary and Mr. Gibson come to mind.

Jennifer says, "If written would a conversation be a hypertext?"

Luann [to nickc]: really? what about a box of note cards kept when doing research?

bethk [to nickc]: and how are you defininf these writeable nodes?

barrym [to Mick]: I know..my class just read Dery. He's got a chapter on the net and drug use

Joel [to Jennifer]: no, it'd be a MOO log.

Mick [to Jennifer]: maybe the better question is, if oral, would a hypertext be a conversation?

cath [to Mick]: both are mind-expanding

MikeP says, "I think a hypertext would be a chorus"

nickc [to Emily]: in say, Storyspace, you can open an already authored node in the hypertext and make changes to it, literally write your reading into it

GregS [to julia]: I agree, and often when I am in a hypertext reading mode, I do find it hard to start reading long passages. But I have also been in htexts that are bouncing around more than I want, where I need more in-depth, linear development.

Douglas-E [to julia]: exactly--hence the need for differing web-forms; in this case, perhaps form can dictate content. and vice versa.

Mick [to cath]: and both lead tot he death of the author.

Joel [to Mick]: no, it'd be a MOO log

Dene says, "would any of you consider Aquinas's _Summa_ a hypertext?"

cath [to Jennifer]: this is written conversation - is it hypertext?

Joel smiles wry

malissa says, "Jennifer, even if written, you wouldn't be able to move around in it easily. You couldn't access it in a non-linear fashion. So, I wouldn't think so"

Brad [to cath]: both can be harmful if done too much.nickc [to Luann]: cards are sequential, one after another in a box,from front to back

Eric [to bil]: if it's *possible* to be functionally literate as a reader but *incompetent* as a writer, it's at least very rare. I wouldn't get too hung up on brilliance or poetics. people will use words and images to communicate. they just won't identify as being a *reader* or a *writer* because the move from consumer to provider of information will become so seamless as to make the terms impractical, not worth the brain cpu cycles to bother with :)

mday says, "I'm thinking it's just mincing words, whether we think hypertextually or not. In one version, we do. And if you hold thinking up to another definition, we don't. I think it's both/and."

Mick [to Joel]: you're very tired, aren't you?

bil [to Mick]: a verbal hypertext would make an interesting conversation cause you'd be jumping around in time as well as space

Jennifer [to Joel]: right noww it is but it will not be as log

Luann [to nickc]: but the order is not necessarily static

bil [to EW]:

bethk [to Eric]: you really think the distinction between producer and consumer will fade?

nickc [to Luann,]: no, but it's still one after another, whatever the order, even if you go back

bil [to Eric]: Ok, I can agree that the better a person is a t reading, the better they are a writing, simply through exposure.

Emily says, "This was funbut I have to go. Thanks for inviting me"

Eric [to bil]: which are you right now. ok. and *now*. then *now*. are you reading with your fingers on the keyboard? I am. how long do you read before you write. how long do you write before you read? the process is being compressed. the two functions moooooshed together. still separate, but not as separate as they once were, and more separate than they will be!

Emily has disconnected.

Luann [to nickc]: an additional thought, do we not read even hypertext in a sequential fashion?

Eric nods bethk

Douglas-E nods mday (from a few lines back)

nickc [to Luann,]: yes, therefore all hypertext is linear

bil hmmmmms at Eric. "Intersting. I'll have to consider that (as I type :() )

MikeP says, "Good point, Luann. That gets back to the multi-linear idea. We don't read two texts simultaneously. (At least, not well.)"

Jennifer [to bil]: so now you are thinking typing and writing :)

bethk [to Eric]: in what contexts? what about webtv?

julia wonders if skim-reading has a counterpart in skim writing

Eric grins at bil & buys him a beer

Luann [to nickc]: yep!

barrym [to nickc]: like all geometry is euclidian?

Mick [to Luann]: oh sure ... this is the standard Talmud-as-hypertext argument (Porush, Rosenberg, etc.) ... as longa s we exist in an alphabetic consciousness, we cannot experience anything multilinear.

bil chugs with glee!

jaynee [to julia]: Interesting thought

Janice . o O ( at least here you can jump back and read what you just responded to.... )

Melissa [to Luann]: what do you mean by sequential fashion...explain

nickc [to barrym]: only geometry laid bare is Euclidian

The housekeeper arrives to cart Laughing-Gull off to bed.

will says, "is reading with fingers on keyboard like listening but thinking about what you will say next...maybe not."

bil [to e4ic]: now we bring up the necessary skills for this type of environment- typing. Without good keyboarding skills you ar lost, expecially here !

barrym [to nickc]: so we're then talking about bare hypertexts?

Jennifer [to will]: it has similarities

Eric [to bethk]: hmm. maybe not in webtv. maybe. but webtv is not equal to the web, either

nickc [to barrym]: that's the naked truth

barrym always sets NIck up

Eric [to bil]: true. typing is way more important than literature now

Brad averts his eyes.

nickc [to Brad]: bear with us

bil says, "As I pound my Spell checker pback into being agian"

Janice [to nickc]: you mean bare with us?

Eric says, "middle school should be devoted entireloy to keyboarding skills"

bil chokes and dies along side his typos

barrym [to Janice]: not in my class. this is arkansas

MikeP says, "I can't bear it."

nickc [to Janice]: no beer with me?

Mick says, "Beth, this thread sor tof reminds me of your use of the"fence" metaphor ... are we settin gup fences, gates, etc. by even having this discussion?"

Douglas-E [to Eric]: and punning skills

Janice [to nickc]: only if it's imported

MikeP says, "I could use a beer."

Brad says, " hic!"

Eric nods Douglas-E

bil 's buying

Joel [to MikeP]: just get one from beerym

bil says, "If you can ind me.... :)"

Mick reminds all that this is for "pub"-lication ...

nickc [to MikeP]: what ales you?

bethk [to Eric]: not today. in a few years, though...? There's an awful lot of people out there making arguments that downplay the distinctiveness of electronic discourse and the way it complicates that very division between producer and consumer. (and those are the folks who seem to have the attention of the policy makers)

barrym [to Joel]: I owe you one

bil groans at mick

Jennifer [to bil]: I can find you

bil [to Jennifer]: Not quickly

MikeP says, "[to nickc]: I'm actually a lager man, myself."

Brad says, " hic!"

barrym [to bethk]: until the policy makers get online, and get caught up in it

Mick says, "Cynthia, I know Jan is not here at present -- but how does his concept of 'cyphertext" fit into this discussion?"

julia hopes a publication will include her drinking champagne!

Joel [to MikeP]: lager than whom?

MikeP says, "[to Joel]: good think I didn't say Pilsner."

Mick thwaps Joel. THat will be enough, young man.

The housekeeper arrives to cart Emily off to bed.

barrym [to Joel]: lager than some of the stout ones here

Luann [to julia]: a bit of the bubbly sounds good!

Cynthia [to Mick]: Actually quite well...cyphertext includes the in-MOO text, the reader/player, and since MOO is hypertextual as well, it's all related

bethk [to barrym]: Some of them *are* online. But they are invested in maintaining that division. Theyare not going to want to construct cyberspace as something that eradicates a fundamental cornerstone of the current economic order

Janice thinks maybe our emphasis on defining this stuff has to do with our need to evaluate it

Joel applauds barrym's punmanship

bethk sheeshes and steps off her soapbox. Sorry

julia says, "Luann, in celebration of the Kairos issue--cheers!"

bethk [to Mick]: and about the fences-- in some ways, yes

bil [to Janice]: That's the great thing about the net, as soon as it's defined, it's different! Definitions are constatntly changin (so is spelling)

barrym [to bethk]: I dunno...sometimes you *can't* prevent things from changing

will says, "to beth, I think many of the electronic naysayers don't feel what we are feeling now...online text feels different and you have to spend time in it...i think the drug metaphors are ok because this text is addicting..."

Luann [to bring]: in a bit of MOO discussion, does anyone find it useful/necessary to make gender declarations in online discussions?

Cynthia [to Mick]: although we had thought about it in terms of a MOO 'room' being the text one is reading, so that we would be 'inside' the text talking to other readers, the author(s), recording our thoughts alone while inside the text...and/or all of the above

nickc [to bethk]: but cyberspace grew out of that order--military industrial complex--and it's being given over to the corporations that got fat on that order--no surprise really

Mick [to Cynthia]: so Jennifer's comment about how the hypertext "happens" in the reader rather than the writer is the essence of cyphertext, in both realtime environments like this and more asynch texts like the Reflections piece?

Eric [to bethk]: fortunately, cyberspace is *already* constructed and constructing as something that eradicates (or fundamentally changes) the cornerstone of the established economic order

MikeP says, "Beth, I couldn't agree more. In 1992, we did a year-long study for IBM. Their goal was to learn how to take advantage of the new ways of presenting info online. And they were very interested in maintaining their ability to make money off of the new developments. It was difficult, in some ways, working for them, since I saw so much of an emphasis on retaining their investment in linear texts that were simply "online" as word processed files."

Mick [to Eric]: have you been reading Marx & Engels again?

Cynthia [to Mick]: I think her comment had to do more with 'where' the production of meaning occurs...but I could be wrong

bethk [to will]: but how do you account, then, for all the electronic naysayers who are online, who do spend time in MDUS and MOOs and feel nothing like we do? The fact is we approach words in a way that is different than many people, and that influences how we "see" this environment

Eric [to nickc]: but even so, they are changing in the process. becoming network entities.

julia [to barrym]: "got it"

barrym agrees with beth on that one

barrym [to bethk]: our minds were corrupted already

Jennifer agrees with Bethk

will says, "the same way I account for some liking v woolf and some not..."

Brad sticks his tongue out at Jaynee.

nickc [to Eric]: I don't think they're changing so much as co-opting, much the way Woodstock was co-opted beforethe concert was over (the original one)

Eric [to Mick]: I'm always getting accused of reading people I never read. marx. freud. foucault. never read a word of them. wonder how they got in my head?

Cynthia [to Mick]: so cyphertext would include that and go one step further and include a synchronous reader element...plus a synchronous reader/author and reader/reader interaction

Mick says, "Authors, a technical design question -- I notice almost no bellsa nd whistles [tm] in your text. Conscious decision? Collabroative deisgn choice or unilateral or individual?"

barrym [to Eric]: collective unconscious..especially true of marx

nickc [to Mick]: you know how to quote a cite

cath [to Eric]: osmoosis?ve

julia [to Eric]: "me too! people think I've read much more than I have

julia hopes none of her history students are hear :)

jaynee says, "Bad Cath, bad"

bethk [to will]: i agree about the v. woolf argument, but I'm really interested these days in how really defining policy is evolving based on particular interpretations of what is actually occuring when people communicate online.

julia says, "here that is"

GregS [to Mick]: I thought the use of javascript this much was bellsy... but clean and transparently-designed.

will says, "to nick you remind me of Waler Benjamin's essay, "in the age of mechanical reproduction--he raises similar issues about art"

MikeP says, "Mick, what do you mean by bells and whistles? "

Eric [to cath]: must be it!

Joel hopes his comprehensive exam committee will have this problem with *him*

Luann [to cath,]: that or are we projecting what we have read onto eric?

jaynee [to julia]: Your future ones might be :o)

Eric [to julia]: maybe we're just brilliant?

Mick [to will]: speaking of Woolf, my lovely bride is working on a book chapter [eyes Dene-the-Editor] with a working title "Crying Woolf on the Internet: A MOO of One's Own."

Eric says, "probably not ;)"

barrym [to Joel]: I've faith they well...you've always had the ability

Jennifer [to Mick]: cool :0

cath nods to luann

julia [to Eric]: "I'm SURE that's it!

Mick [to MikeP]: animated Gifs. Push/Pull technology. CGI scripts. Stuff like that.

nickc [to bethk]: and the dominate metaphor there is a killer--law and order and taming the frontier metaphors on the one hand, and free-market, find a way to charge metaphors on the other

julia smiles at jaynee

bil says, "As someone who is not even close to an education in rhetoric or english, I'd have to say that it is difficult to appreciate, sometimes, the ins and outs and philosophy of the (pardon) phreaks of the net, namely everyone who can make a case for the potential of the hypertext environment and *really* know what they are talking about. I am simply a user. I come across Kairos and I am esposed from the outside- I do not really understand half of what is said due to the large basis in historical literature/philosophy etc. To expect the majority of net users to grasp what you feel or think about all this is not a good bet"

Janice says, "No "public intellectuals" here?"

Mick nods Bil. A crucial point. What is our target audience? That's why I asked the authors that question earlier ... are we narrow-band or wide-band?

MikeP says, "Mick, I think animated gifs are overrated. Tend to pull the reader's eye toward less important things. We didn't use CGI scripts because we're not programmers, and we didn't have access to your server (although I suspect you would have put them up for us had we asked). But we really didn't have a need for them to do what we wanted. We did make use of client side image maps, floating windows, and a search function."

nickc [to bil]: you're exactly right--we're a closed community with our discouse and assumptions and do spend a lot of time preaching and refining the preaching tothe converted

bil [to Mick]: Kairos is very narrow band in my opinion. I do have a wide reading base but I still ahve to look up a lot

will says, "what's a public intellecutal?"

julia [to MikeP]: "are images less important than text?

bethk [to nickc]: Right. We're seizing upon the potential we see (Like you were saying re: IBM, Mike), and seemingly puzzled when others don't see the same dynamics we do. I'm not sure we're doing the best job about communicating the very significant differences one can cosntruct from this medium

Eric [to julia]: no!

susanh quietly enters.
susanh arrives.

Eric suddenly realizes he's not mikep

Brad [to bil]: Anyone on this space.

Mick notes it is 9:15 (in NY -- only 8:15 here!) ... and we should start to wrap up.

Cynthia is going to head to Cowtown, but wants to thank everyone for coming...contratulate the authors present, and the Kairos staff...marvelous new meeting series! great turnout! see you on the flipside :)

Janice [to will]: someone who speaks to the "educated reader" (like bil) instead of just "talking to ourselves" like we do in our journals

Aimee [to MikeP]: images vie for attention over text

barrym hands Mick some ribbon

julia [to Eric]: "agreed!

Brad [to bil]: anyone brave enough to put thier ideas out *here*.

nickc waves to cynthia

Cynthia waves.

Jennifer waves to Cynthia

MikeP says, "Julia, I think images can be even more important than text. But it's a rhetorical decision. We provided both an image map and a table of contents, for instance. And we used both images and titles to signal links on our home pages."

bil waves

bethk [to Cynthia]: Thanks for hosting this

Mick would like to ask the authors to perhaps present one or two thoughts or questions they might like to see pursued further in mail or newsgroup or some such forum, spurred byu your experience and by this MOO?
will says, "thanks cynthia"

Janice thanks the authors for tonight and for their htext

Cynthia says, "it's our honor and privilege to have you all here :) and Jan would say the same :)"
Cynthia waves.

Brad says, " Three Cheers."

nickc [to bethk]: I think the book John and Dene are editing might be a place to break out of our audience assumptions

Aimee says, "images vs text in hyperspace"

bil [to cyntia]: :thanks, it's been educational

Mick hugs Cynthia bye

Cynthia has disconnected.

bethk [to Mick]: I'm curious as to whether people think the web needs a history. and why?

barrym [to bethk]: it will happen. depends on who's gonna spin it

bil [to bethk]: What is history?

susanh has disconnected.

Melissa says, "Melissa is Melissa Britt, mrbritt@ualr.edu"

bethk [to bil]: you got me.

susanh has connected.

Brad says, " H="

bil says, "History is traditionall written by the winners or the loudest or the best funded..."

malissa says, "interesting topic, aimee. Do you think that text is still more privileged thanimage, or if they share equal space on the net""

MikeP says, "Mick, I'm curious about people's ideas concerning evolving hypertexts that are coauthored by many readers/writers."

jaynee says, "jaynee is Jaynee Linkous, JCLINKOUS@ualr.edu"

Brad says, "A history will happen if we record it/need it or not."

malissa says, "malissa is Malissa Mathis, MKTRANTHAM@ualr.edu""

Aimee says, "there is no privilege that I can see. Only competition for our attention"

Mick would love to see this conversation continue in a public forum, such as ACW-L or, if you all would subscribe, to CFest-L, the local LinguaMOO list.

Dene says, "MikeP, what's the difference between what you suggest and let'as say Beowulf?"

nickc [to malissa]: and aimee, I'm blind to images--use a text-only browser whenever I can (also means no color and fancy fonts)

Brad [to bil]: I don't think that will happen here.

bil [to MikeP]: Coauthored hypertext should be easier than a co-authored novel. Less cross-pollinatein

barrym [to MikeP]: maybe that *is* history

Douglas-E [to bethk]: I think the web has a history and will continue to create a history, whether we think it needs one or not; the question is whether we think it necessary to record the artifacts of those histories.

malissa says, "aimee, but if the text is used more, wouldn't that be a privileging of sorts?""

julia wishes someone would represent deconstruction in visuals

Mick smiles. Ask for a few concluding questions, get a few dozen quick responses. Always gettin' MOOre than you askfor in here ...

bethk [to Douglas-E]: right. that's a much better version of what i was trying to ask. thanks

bil [to Brad]: Yes, but a history of the net will be so fragmented that it will be pointless to try to follow more than one small part of it

barrym [to nickc]: but you've always been image-challanged

nickc [to julia]: Magritte's This is Not a Pipe series of paintings did that.

Jennifer [to bil]: are you sayinmg a history of the net would be a hypertext?

cath [to bil]: but that is the nature of h-text, no?

julia wants to publicly thank Douglas-E for his work on the coverweb--excellent work!

Brad says, " This is unique in that the WWW is creating its own history independant of *the people in power*."

MikeP says, "[To Dene]: Middle English? Actually, I'm thinking it's easier to collaborate on a web document that supports it. How do you become part of a canonized text? But I see the connection. Same with the Odyssey."

jaynee agrees with Brad

Douglas-E thanks julia.

Dene shakes her head in agreement abou the Odyssey

bil [to Jennifer]: No I'm saying that it will be difficult to get anything menaingful, as it sits now. who knows what'll be here in five years, make that three...

barrym [to MikeP]: you want to work some of that into workplace writing as well?

Mick [to julia]: you'll get your chance. One of our KMTA MOOs in January will be a coverweb MOO.

Luann [to Brad]: is that possible because is in not the people in power that have computers?

julia [to Mick]: "sounds fun!

Aimee says, "pictoral images vie for our attention all over the environment...and are permutating the web too. Not subscribing tyo pictures is a conscious choice..if you don't want the barrage..."

Dene says, "MikeP when we talk about the poet of the Odyssey, the Homer everyone refers to, we are talking about many many contributors and collaborators on that project"

Mick [to Luann]: or rather, the people with computers who have power?

MikeP says, "I want to thank the Kairos staff and my co-authors for a wonderful experience. So, THANKS."

Dene claps for the authors

Brad [to Luann]: Not for long.

Mick applauds

Jennifer smiles and claps

barrym applauds as well

will smiles

MikeP says, "Barry, that seems like a reasonable idea."

Aimee stands for a standing ovation
Melissa joins the applause

malissa says, "thanks for letting us graduate students moosy around""

mday claps

The housekeeper arrives to cart Cynthia off to bed.

bil watches the crowd go nuts.

jaynee says, "Thanks for letting us (the class) lurk"

barrym says, "I'd like to thank all of you for being kind enough to allow my class to join in"

Luann [to Mick]: good point learn to wield them much in the same way language can be used

bethk says, "TMy thanks as well, to the Kairos folks and to the coauthors"

Eric [to Luann]: yeah. what it did was change *who* the people in power are :) power is now in the hands of 15 yr olds across the land. they have it. they know it. we lost it when we weren't looking. :)

susanh has disconnected.

Mick [to malissa]: you *do* know that most of us are graduate students too, don't yuou? Talk about Power in Cyberspace ...

nickc [to malissa,]: heck, there're more grad. students here than you think

julia thinks graduate students have much to offer us and thanks them for coming

Luann [to Brad]: what do you mean not for long?
-----------------------------------Joel------------------------------------

* * * JOEL APPLAUDS WILDLY FOR AUTHORS * * *


____
/JOEL\
|-----===
| @
| C _\
| <
\____/
|___| _
/ \____/ |___
| _______|__/ /
| |__/
| _________/

barrym [to MikeP]: mail me if you wanna talk about it

will says, "feels like yankee stadium here"

Brad says, " and us undergrads. "

MikeP says, "Yes, Dene, that's why I made the connection. I think it will be easier to do that kind of work on the Web, though."

nickc [to MikeP]: and the homepage becomes the hearth and the place where the traveller is rested and feed before they are asked their story

Mick [to barrym]: get these grad students of yours to come play with Kairos. Did they even know I'm a graed studnet, and Nick, and others/

bil says, "Just out of curiosity, was there any non students here other than I"

MikeP says, "Mick, I think we're all grad students. Some of us just get paid more."

Dene says, "Boy they were 'biting at the bit' to leave:)

Luann laugh could it be monday night football?

Mick [to bil]: well, technically, I'm not a grad student any more. I'm out of academia indefinitely.

mday waves

nickc [to Mick,]: I'm only a grad student til August '98, at which point, if I'm not, the life insurance kicks in and Barb's got a nice black dress

Dene waves to mday

MikeP says, "By the way, have you guys seen our job announcement. I hope you'll consider applying."

Mick [to MikeP]: hiring ABD?

Joel quietly enters.
Joel arrives.

MikeP says, "You need to have a Ph.D. before September. I don't know what would happen if you showed up without one."
MikeP says, "Maybe we'd yell at you."

Mick [to MikeP]: not me, Sandye. Don't think that'll happen, though.

Joel says, "sorry. :} BallState Writer Workshop."

Mick [to MikeP]: OK, but you can only YELL ON SCREEN.

The housekeeper arrives to cart susanh off to bed.

Douglas-E [to Joel]: what's the IP?

MikeP says, "This has been great. But I've got to get back to work. Alas. Thanks.

Mick slams the gavel.

-- End log: Monday, November 10, 1997 9:36:57 pm LinguaMOO time --