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BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society
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Subject: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Dave'sWife Date: 13 Nov 07 - 10:53 PM I have started this thread at Bobert's kind suggestion. Over in another thread, I revealed that I cannot escape my book learnin' as an anthropologist even while online and that I often find myself drawn into observing certain emerging patterns of behavior on Mudcat or other online communities. Academic indoctrination overtakes me and I find myself observing, documenting, categorizing and theorizing about online behavior here and elsewhere. This came up in what was a light-hearted thread about the prospect of killing off a screen persona. Kill-joy that I am, I began to joke about and then relate the details of emergeing patterns of behavior in large internet communities that center around just that thing - the deliberate ruse of the death of a user's persona. Here is a link to that thread so you can go and read my posts there: Death of a Forum persona In that thread I described the patterns that one tends to see online when a female user on a deal site decides to kill off her persona and re-emerge as a grieving family member of the dead persona. I described the motivations for engaging in such and act, the potential rewards and the potential downsides. I also described similar acts of sympathy-gathering that don't involve death but do invloce the tellong of a tale of escalating tragedy and woe. I further described the roles various community members choose to assume in response to these sympathy-gathering actions, including the role of the Vampire "truthsayer from the darkside" who emerges as a vigilante keeper of the forum laws to punish the Sympathy-gathering behavior. I described how such behavior tends to manifest here on mudcat and how it differs from large deal websites. I believe this has a lot to do with the large male presence here and the generally older demographic. Deal sites have a huge influx of young women from lower income backgrounds who join the sites to try and save some money. Mudcat on the otherhand draws people with different motivations - a desire to share an interest in an art form. Rather than re-tread what I said in the other thread, I will leave it to others to bring some of those issues over here for discussion. In the meantime, I will dedicate this thread to the discussion of observed ONLINE Mudcat behavior patterns and how those ONLINE behaviors may affect OFFLINE life for forum members, forum members' families and perhaps the world in general! Behavior doesn't happen in a vaccum. It happens because there is something to be gained from behaving that way. The gain can be fore the individual, the community or both. Sometimes the gain that is sought is viewed as harmful or destructive by the community or a user or users who observe it. Let's talk about patterns of behavior here. Who benefits from them, why we do various things, why we say certain things. Let's explore how we interact as a community and how our interactions compare and contrast with other observed online communities. I believe Mudcat has avoided some of the nastier patterns I described in the other thread specifically because of our demographic make-up and our motivations for being here. Here's where we hash out such theories. Bobert can go first. OK? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 13 Nov 07 - 11:37 PM Why analyse when you're having fun? Mudcat just is. Oh, and what do you mean by "deal" sites? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Janie Date: 13 Nov 07 - 11:40 PM Interesting. This is the only on-line community I participate in. I will occasionally go onto a Dave's Garden forum, or one of the Organic Gardening forums seeking very specific plant or gardening info., but don't ever 'converse' on those sites, or even lurk. Didn't know there were coupon sites, much less that they include forums or message boards. So I have nothing to compare Mudcat to. My observation about the 'Cat is that it is really not much different than a 3-D community in terms of how people interact, alliances, etc. Aside from demographics and motivation, keep in mind that a very significant minority of people who post with some frequency on the 'Cat also have met each other in 3-D. This seems particularly true of the posters in the geographically smaller UK where so many festivals and events are reachable by a reasonable day's drive, and Mudgathers appear to happen with some frequency. While we are more spread out in the USA and Canada, there are events like the Getaway that some attend year after year, regional music festivals where 'Catters seek each other out. In addition, if we are traveling on vacation, we are likely to give a shout to a Mudcatter we know lives in an area we will be visiting. Mudcatters in different countries both offer, and take advantage of offers, from 'Catters from abroad for room, board, a good visit and a song circle. And so the entire network has a stronger 3-D element to the community. If you come and visit me, and you also have a 3-D connection with another Mudcatter I have not met, tell me neat stories about your last visit with them, then they have a 3-D presence for me that they might not otherwise have. I'm gonna guess these rather widespread real life encounters also influence our virtual community. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Janie Date: 13 Nov 07 - 11:47 PM On second thought - what Kat said. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Amos Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:35 AM For one thing, you're analyzing something that is not really "behaviour". It is posting in a text box. It is easy to take cyber-inter-actions entirely too seriously and grant them the weight and power of an order of reality they do not in fact have, much like the watchers in Plato's cave grant substance to the shadow forms on the wall. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Dave'sWife Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:21 AM 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..... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: John MacKenzie Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:45 AM Whichever way you cut it, there are still people who take web sites too seriously, and are illogically affected by things that others post. In fact they go a long way toward confusing it with real life, their own in particular. So they behave on line accordingly. The meeting one another more often thing the we Brits have over the US, isn't always an advantage, as other variables like physical appearance, and poor personal hygiene come into play. They say that getting married is the best way to spoil a beautiful friendship, well the same can be true of over familiarity with ones cyber friends. Remember the old joke, 'My wife and I were deliriously happy for 18 years; and then we met each other' Giok |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bee Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:22 AM I find these observations interesting, because there are patterns to communication, and in this case we have a new form of written communication which can be indulged in by geographically seperated people. I've noticed, not so much on Mudcat, where we tend towards an older crowd, but on other large boards, there can be interactions between older and very young people that aren't really likely in real life. For example, on a very large religious forum I visit, you can see seventeen year old creationists arguing fiercely with fifty year old geologists about the nature of the Grand Canyon. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: gnu Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:54 AM Grand Canyon? Wow. Like, deep, eh? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Rapparee Date: 14 Nov 07 - 08:57 AM Well, of COURSE they're arguing about the Grand Canyon in a religious forum! They SHOULD be arguing about the holey there! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Mrrzy Date: 14 Nov 07 - 09:18 AM Analyzing IS fun. Posting IS a behavior. I'm all for it, closet anthropologist that I am! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 14 Nov 07 - 09:49 AM While I understand the arguments for such a thread, I think some may hesitate to post freely mindful they may be being analysed. I mean no offence, DW, but it reminds me of the time I went to a movie with an anthropologist friend. She talked the whole way through and was unable to just sit and enjoy the movie; too busy analysing. I also really did wonder what you meant by "deal" sites, as I am not familiar with that term. kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Amos Date: 14 Nov 07 - 09:52 AM Well, okay. Maybe I should reword my remark about behavior. Posting behaviors are communication behaviors, and of course they form patterns. And it is true they denote emotional interactions and even refer to incidents of actual force, socoial pressure, and such. But the patterns of communication --especially in an abstract cyber-site -- are NOT mapped to the real universe of action, and the dynamics of motion, force, survival, and so on in any reliable way, certainly not in any one-to-one mapping scheme. So you are talking about a very abstract level of relationship, containing no smells, no sweat, no hunger, and no fulfillment of real physical need, (except for the exchange of admiration which is very deepseated). In spite of this, it iis true there are very real exchanges going on here, and a lot of feeling gets put into what is said. My remark above was intended simply to emphasize the real-world difference. There is no specific gravity to a thread. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Amos Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:11 AM And another part of this: to engage in erecting an identity, finding the site, and exchanging messages, is a fairly abstract, sophisticated skill set. In order to even begin to acquire that skill set, you need to learn to use a keyboard, probably a mouse, understand pointing, and clicking. You have to (in order to do that) put a complex computing device in place, know enough to hook it up, and understand the rudiments of networking. Then you have to find some time in your real-day concerns to plug it all in, fire it up, log in and find a thread to post to. Given all these departures from human nature, how can you characterize anything that happens on top of all that as "native" behaviours? It strikes me like trying to analyze the psychology of a bunch of Puccini dramatis personae, or like the gals in the hairdresser shops who have lengthy discussions on the psychology, emotions, and motives of completely fictitious characters in soap operas. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Peace Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:12 AM Once the anthropologist has 'entered' the study, the results become circumspect. Good luck with it, however. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: MMario Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:24 AM Amos, Amos, Amos! Most people on the internet (I won't say here on the 'cat because we *know* we are a cut above average) do NOT setup their own computers, may not know how to login to it, have rudimentary keyboarding skills and most definately do not understand even the rudiments of networking. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: wysiwyg Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:28 AM "Native" is going to be a problem because no one was born here. "Behaviors" is going to be a problem because the only people available to respond to the questions are the people here now, who maynot have been here long enough to have their own,m indivuidual view of long-term trends, and who, if they were here for a long time, were immersed in the activity and not detached observers, and even if they WERE detached, they cannot and do not speak for the whole."Society" is going to be a problem because its active make-up changes every day. The longer people have been here, the more I think they are likely to tell you this thread is not interesting, helpful, accurate, or relevant, and the less likely I thgink they will be to participate. This leaves you with "now," with people who are foolish enough to think they can capture Mudcat, and that studying a community of which they are a part is fun and entertaining. DW, let me ask you this-- if what I describe above were true of an island community to which you traveled for a study, would you conduct that study while a member of that group, and how? Finally, and most obviously-- would you limit your population sample to the island's local bar habitues for all of your observations and interviews, or would you hope to be allowed into other venues? Because this is THE BS SECTION, and the whole purpose of this site is THE MUSIC SECTION. Lotsa folks who participate actively in that section never venture down here, quite intentionally. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bert Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:40 AM ...generally older demographic... I think yiu need to do a bit more studying Luv. Here you are supposed to say "You're a bunch of old farts" *GRIN* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bee Date: 14 Nov 07 - 10:53 AM I'm failing to understand why some appear to oppose the relatively non-judgemental observation of a type of communication behaviour, a human interaction, yet all here are comfortable observing, dissecting and critiquing folk music and the people who perform it. Susan, for all intents and purposes Mudcat, including both aspects, music and BS, is an island, and the people who imbibe are as much a part of the community as the tee-totallers up top, and are often the same, as on a real island, and of course there are visitors and leavers, as on a real island. Count me in as one of your 'foolish' people - anthropology can be at least as entertaining and revelatory as music, and I see no reason to go on as if it was a case of hauling the outhouse off its pit. I think Dave's Wife means this to be entertaining, interesting, not some kind of clinical disapproving dissection of people's quirks and habits. And Amos, any five year old can manage a computer and an internet connection nowadays, and any ten year old can find, join and participate in an online community (hopefully with parental oversight, but trust me, they can set it up their own little selves). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: George Papavgeris Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:01 AM I think there is one thing that differentiates Mudcat from other internet sites dedicated to common interests: Many Mudcatters have met others in person, many are firm friends in real life, attend the same clubs or festivals, and several have even married other Mudcatters! This is true not inly in the UK but also in the US and Australia. Events like the Getaways have even bridged the country and continent distances. And every time a Mudcatter visits another country, resident 'Catters are always ready with hospitality, introductions to events or even arranging gigs and house concerts. Just as meeting someone puts emailing them on a different plane (much less likely to take offence at something one writes, for example), the same applies here. So you need to factor that in. The other thing you need to consider is that many of the 'Catters come here not only for the common interest in folk music, but as a social circle, for the companionship and camaraderie, even though much of it is of course just "virtual". The BS section plays an important role there. Just like in any specialist café or bar, much of Mudcat talk is general. And that's fine by me and others, though I am sure it dies frustrate those who would rather all talk concentrated on folk or blues or whatever. Most of all though you have to allow for the fact that the Mudcat accepts no "tall poppies". Though we have many whose expertise or knowledge or talent in a given area is second to none, this is not the forum for self-aggrandisement or overmuch advertising. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: wysiwyg Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:06 AM Susan, for all intents and purposes Mudcat, including both aspects, music and BS, is an island, Yes, that's why I posited an island in my post inviting DW to think consider the scientific method as it would relate to the topic she has proposed; one problem with such a study that energes as soon as you try to think of it as a study is that it's a moving island with a constantly-changing population which is an overlapping subset of the site's intended target audience. And also-- just occurring to me now-- what behaviors of the lurkers can be studied? The statistics are not gatherable, but another BIG purpose of Mudcat is to make material available for people who may never post, and whose visits here are assumed to range from idle curiosity about a song they like, to serious music research. IMO no reasonable study could be conducted under the research parameters available. It has nothing to do with outhouses-- I just think the whole concept is badly flawed in a number of respects serious antrhopologists would not ignore. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Azizi Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:07 AM Anaylzing is first or second nature to my nature. Consequently, I find threads like this interested even if I don't post to them. I think that the Mudcat community {or every subset [group]within this community or communities} could benefit from engaging in more meta analysis. Here's one online definition of meta: meta prefix meaning one level of description higher. If X is some concept then meta-X is data about, or processes operating on, X. For example, a metasyntax is syntax for specifying syntax, metalanguage is a language used to discuss language, meta-data is data about data, and meta-reasoning is reasoning about reasoning. This is difficult to explain briefly, but much hacker humour turns on deliberate confusion between meta-levels. http://dict.die.net/meta/ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Azizi Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:10 AM I should add that I think every individual and every group could benefit from more analysis about the ways they "live move, and have their being". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:29 AM I would consider the premise of this thread to be one of the more chilling aspects of induced self-censorship...plus we have some very brilliant people who can and have completely upset any academic apple carts about such data. In that, I could see some fun.:-) Bee, the difference is the music section is meant to be more scholarly, therefore people may respond in a more serious fashion. Bandwidth used to also be very much of a consideration, so people did get shouted at for wasting it when they forgot/didn't know how to search for subjects already covered. Something some people continue to do. One other thing which follows some of what Susan said, anyone who truly wants to study this would have to go back to the beginning and really look at the changes which have come about over the years. Some of them are profound and positive, others are profound and a detriment, imo. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: catspaw49 Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:34 AM Now while I love you all and it may be true that as an oldtimer here I resist analysis and all that......I have to admit the truth of what Wyzzy said up there and say this now.....in the best possible light but with the sarcastic voice of the dimwit Italian-heritage male. Grabbing my dick in my right hand and facing forward, left arm crooked back and hand pointing towards me, "Hey.....I gotcher fockin' native analysis shit right here." Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: John MacKenzie Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:36 AM Well that stopped it getting too anal Spaw. G ¦¬] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bee Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:43 AM Well, 'Spaw, I get your 'point', but frankly the same could be said for lots of the folk music analysis that's indulged in on Mudcat, like so: "Hey.....I gotcher fockin' folk music analysis shit right here." And I've certainly seen that very sentiment expressed in some of the 'what is folk and what isn't' threads. I'm sayin', what's the fockin' difference, except that dave's Wife is an anthropologist and you or George P. are a musician. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: bobad Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:46 AM That should put Mudcat's intellectual level ranking right into the toilet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: catspaw49 Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:57 AM say what? .....lol.......hard to believe.......... uh....yea.... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:58 AM analysing things is rubbish. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: MMario Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:00 PM and if Rt Hon Sir jOhn from Hull says so, then it is so! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:26 PM That's not all he is, Bee. He and several others have to pay more for their coffee due to their Pee-Aitch-Dees! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:34 PM I think the behaviors Dave'sWife describes are typical of individuals who've had considerable exposure to role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. To them, the Internet is a super-sized gaming place where anonymity allows them to push the role-playing concept to extremes. I don't believe the typical Mudcatter is prone to those behaviors because most of us have not spent hours and hours actively pretending to be someone else. We don't easily make the shift from real self to persona. Oh, there have been a few infamous role players around here, but for most of us the face we show on the Mudcat is the same one we wear every day. That doesn't necessarily mean we're more mature than our role-playing younger-generational counterparts, only that we tend to express our immaturity in different ways. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bee Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:01 PM Kat, I mighta guessed that. ;-D Bee-Dubya, I don't think Dave's Wife is in any way saying the same exact behaviours are found on Mudcat. She's just interested in a lighthearted examination of broadly defined behaviours that are found on Mudcat. Also, the behaviours she described as occurring on the 'Deal' forums are not likely a product of role-playing games, because the forums involved catered mostly to women, who are far less likely to have bothered with rpgs, though of course, some do. I did, but that was pre-internet and you were face to face with all the other players. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bill D Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:08 PM Oh, my....there is SUCH a wide disparity in how various individuals treat this forum, and thus act and RE-act in it. Our old Some post in an abstract, neutral way simply to give & get information, and couldn't care less what kind of person asnwers them, while others "wear their persona on their sleeves" and have large portions of their emotional being invested in the 'relationships' they form here. Some regularly keep us informed of their RT life and all its ups & downs, while, with others, we never know much about what their everyday lives are about. I think there are probably several Phd theses waiting for psychologists and anthropologists who want to analyze 11 years of this strange CatBox and track its persona thru all the paths......just following the various forms of humor could fill several chapters of a book. This place IS a community, just as much as the houses and people in your town or neighborhead....except that certain rules and behavior patterns are obviously affected by the medium. Humans are perhaps 35,000 years old, with written language for 6000? or so...but we are barely out of the virtual Stone Age in figuring out how to relate to one another in forums like this...and other forms of online communication. When we had to write letters to engage in "flame wars", it affected what was said, and was usually better thought out than 'instant replies' we contend with now. ....for me, this medium allows me to learn more about myself as I write, refine and respond....but I will NOT be sharing whether I had a fight with my wife or am depressed about the illness of a relative. Well...*smile*...maybe in a few PMs. Fun, huh? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: wysiwyg Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:09 PM Spaw, Hm, maybe next time I opine so carefully and thoughtfully I'll just grab your dick first, and wave it, and see how that affects/improves my point. :~) ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bill D Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:19 PM give me advance warning....I want pictures! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Amos Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:24 PM Hmm... Cat abuse? Anyway, I was commenting the other day that the MOAB alone could provide enough rich vectors to provide several PhD theses (did I spell that right?). A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 14 Nov 07 - 02:27 PM Sorry, Bee, I should have said a higher price for a cup of coffee at McDonald's, or so he claims.:-) Bill's right. There are years and years worth of study, not just the humour, but the way the story threads came about and the characters created, etc. It's been fascinating, but, again, not my cup o'tea to analyse it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bill D Date: 14 Nov 07 - 02:37 PM Coming soon to a theater near you! "Shane Meets Cletus & the Reg Boys and invite .gargoyle & Lady Penelope to Dinner" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: PoppaGator Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:31 PM This is interesting enough, to me. (Interesting enough that I just read the whole thread up to here.) I neither condemn nor endorse efforts to figure out what the hell is really going on here. After all, I'm never quite sure myself. Besides real-life meetings in addition to forum interaction, we also have another avenue for communication, specifically one-to-one, in the form of PMs (personal messages). I know Dave's Wife is aware of this, since she and I recently traded a couple of PMs regarding the area of Ireland where both my family and her husband's (i.e., Dave's, I guess) come from. Whatever a "deal site" is*, I wonder whether they offer the same PM mechanism that Mudcat does. Certainly, this would be a factor in analyzing interaction, etc. (Of course, PMS are essentially private and their contents would not be available to a researcher ~ except that, as a participant, said researcher would have access to his/her own off-forum messages). * (I suppose that if I were to read through that entire other thread, I might learn more. Haven't done so, though, not yet anyway.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: fat B****rd Date: 14 Nov 07 - 03:46 PM Catspaw, I gotch your swinging dick native analysis, swingin. I i don't know what it means either, but I love you all |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: gnu Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:11 PM Can't we all just get along little doggy? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Bill D Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:25 PM Little Hawk has a head start |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: catspaw49 Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:33 PM aw geez Bill, that one was really bad.....and quick as well.....LOL....In the best traditions of Mudcat, such as they are, and Art Thieme, whatever he is!!! Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 14 Nov 07 - 05:59 PM You still have to use the tripod, Spaw? Ready, set, aim! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Desert Dancer Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:36 PM This thread is a study in itself: it's almost Mudcat in a microcosm... intellectual curiosity; insider resistance to inquiry out of the "norm"; rampant scatalogical rowdiness... ~ Becky in Tucson |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: gnu Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:37 PM Tripod? Big doggy? Doc told me not to lift anything over ten pounds. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: katlaughing Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:43 PM He has to be careful, gnu, when he takes aim over the bridge, that it does not get all muddy (and that's a mighty high bridge!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Native Behaviors in Mudcat Society From: Rapparee Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:48 PM (\Delta x)(\Delta p_x) \geq \hbar/2 (\Delta y)(\Delta p_y) \geq \hbar/2 (\Delta z)(\Delta p_z) \geq \hbar/2 Ergo, any analysis would be futile. You can do some, but you cannot do all. |
