I started the thread at Bobert's suggestion. I respectfully disagree with those who say that the way we interact with eachother here isn't behavior. If you watch any online community long enough, patterns emerge just like if you watch on offline society long enough patterns emerge. Those patterns can tell you a lot about the community and its members.

I have a professional academic interest in a few subjects that translate well to online communties, one of which is the difference between the way women communicate amongst themselves, the specific vocabulary, types of turn-taking speech, how much information is acknowledged and addressed by each successive turn-taker (poster), the specific number of unqiue pieces of information raised from post to post, how many posts can go by before a user re-states the information that was raised at the beginning and so on. This is similar to oral discourse analysis and may bore the hell out of all of you but I spent a lot of time at university studying these things - call me an egghead, I don't mind! The Internet is a new medium for discourse exchange.

I found the deal sites fascinating because they seemed to sort themselves out into distinctly female-only forums and co-ed forums where women were the majority.   It was through observing online language use that I noticed the pattern of sympathy-gathering and the online-bullying that grew up around it as societal correction. Once I started documenting these behaviors, comparing them across sites I began communicating with other academics with an interest in online expressions of aggression and bullying. We identified a number of unique behaviours and patterned responses. Male on male bullying certainly exists and can be easily observed in large film and media communities but less so in communities with a more balanced sex ratio.

For example, we do see some male on male bullying here on Mudcat but it doesn't seem to go anywhere or spill over into offline life the way it does on younger-skewed arts communities. This is of course, marvelous, and one of the reasons Mudcat is a pleasant place to be. I agree that there is a significant minority of "catters who have met or have met friends of those they interact with and this creates not just a strong bond and distaste for inter-personal nastiness, but an atmosphere that is pre-emptive against the kinds of agression that goes on so widely on other internet communities.

Like it or not, Online communication and relationships have replaced a large amount of the stranger interactions people would normally have if they could only gather with like-minded individuals outside their homes. Also, many people who would not ordinarily seek communication with others outside the home, find online communication enticing and so enter into social relationships without some of the people skills a more naturally social person would have. These things often lead to conflict in online communties and further lead to the development of social stategeies for handling said conflict. Moderators play a large role in handling this kind of conflict but the general membership's interactions and responses to conflict when it arises define individual communties.

I personally find Mudcat fascinating not so much for the beahvior that I DO see but for a lot of the behaviors I DON'T see.

Yes, we have lots of BS threads for arguing about religion, politics, issues and so on but that's not what I'm talking about when I mention conflict. Debates about those kinds of issues tend to fall into patterns of their own that don't differ much across the baord.

In typing about this, I would suggest that since the very nature of making music with people involves cooperation, give & take and generosity. Perhaps that is the unique social utlook that allows Mudcat to avoid some of the more unpleasant types of Internet interactions observed on so many other communities. I'd like to think that's it anyway!

I only began this thread because I made a long joke in the other thread about how the user in question could just pull one of the well-established Internet Death-Ruse scripts out thin air and use that to crate an entire new persona of his own widow.

Natural over-explainer that I am, I gave some examples of the Sympathy-gathering behaviors, of which, the Death-Ruse is the most famous. if that bores you all - sorry!

Give us a new topic to beat to death and I'll gladly give it a go! I can give you an example if you'd like:

Here on Mudcat, I've noticed that the reaction to frequently asked about songs doesn't coincide with FAQed topic responses on other similar communities. For example, on IMDB, people are rarely greeted with an "Asked before, answered before" response. That surprised me considering that most other film and media sites tend to greet frequently asked about subjects with derision. Gardening sites, Birding sites and other hobby/interest sites tend to greet frequently asked topic questions with patience and information, but only so much as is necessary.

Here on Mudcat, there is a mixed response, usually within the same thread! It isn't even the same people taking an "asked & answered before" approach.   Is this because there are some songs we just love hashing over again and again or are we simply more charitable as a whole? While we do see some older threads that have some huffiness towards students asking very general questions, those are quite rare responses.

I feel Mudcat is pretty unique in that the same basic lyrics or origin questions will be happily detailed in anywhere from 4 to 8 threads before people start simply linking to all the older threads. That's uncommon.

Reply if you wish. if not, I'll be over talking cat nonsense in the active kitty kat threads! Help me convince Bee not to call her new formerly feral kitten Snowball, but a more Cat-appropriate name such as Finnigan, Souser or Sir Fang the Ferocious! Anything but Snowball.....