|
| |
|
Sunday, June 01, 2003 |
|
|
Some online articles by the late David Lochhead, former Professor of theology at the Vancouver School of Theology, and an early shaper of the thoughts and visions of many concerning the Church and Online Community,
10:39:32 PM 
|
|
|
David weinberger blogged an event called "Digital Genres", and one presenter explored the use of "hypertext" in ancient documents (ie. the Talmud):
David Rosenberg Rabbi Rosenberg is talking about the Talmud and the Internet. His question: Is the Talmud just like the Internet? The 6th Century text is printed with commentary all around it. [Illustration] Traditionally it is studied by people in pairs, taking turns reading it aloud and then arguing over the meaning via reference to the commentaries. The Talmud's hyperlinked presentation is like the the Internet. But the Internet is "insufficiently oral" and is much less fixed than the Talmud. Blogging is like commenting on the Talmud, but not every commentary counts as part of the Talmud. He asks what difference it makes whether the Internet is like the Talmud? Are we saying that the Talmud is hip or that the Internet is holy (or both or neither). "Suffice it to say, the Talmud is not just like the Internet."
1:33:34 PM
|
|
|
"No matter what virtual personae I may create, they are all personae of the person typing the words, a person with a social security number and a single, fleshy body that is not nearly as nimble as its online voices are" (Small Pieces Loosely Joined, P. 175)
In talking about the close relationship of online personae and the "person behind the words" (or "behind the blog"), this observation brings to the surface a long standing problem I sense: that I often, to my chagrin, find myself feeling a LOT LESS articulate, a lot more impatient, and a lot less convincing than I perceive myself to be online. In other words, I have comments and emails about my weblog which express appreciation for the things I explore in my weblog. Offline, face-to-face, my experience is often dominated by that "glazed over" look I get (or perceive) from "recipients" of my offline rants. This comes from family members, acquaintances, and is probably ocurring by some of the Weblog readers from whom , of course, I will NEVER hear. The offline, face to face "failures" highlight the difference between the online personae I have, and even "feel" as I sit in front of my computer with my Weblog software fired up and ready to post some new thought, some new "discovery" via another's blog thoughts or their blog discoveries pointing to another.
1:23:56 PM
|
|
|
The previous post and some to follow in the next few hours and days are coming from my reading (re-reading) of the final chapter of Small Pieces Loosely Joined. I've been having a different experience of this book a year later as my first reading was just prior to the begining of my "Weblog" startup (and instrumental in turning my attention to the Weblog phenomenon along with "Gonzo Marketing" by Chris Locke). Now, almost exactly a year later after my first reading, I sense that I know more of what is being said.
It's all much more familiar territory. I have been explosed to the terminology and the favorite topics among the Weblogs that I read (like JOHO and SmartMobs --- and also having read the book Smart Mobs ---- and Doc and e-Church and other "Church bloggers" and "Social Software" discussions, and on and on through the gamut of things which link to things I link to. The RSS feeds and Trackbacks and Comments which weave a different kind of Distributed Conversation which I think is BIG STUFF for the Church. We need to get a grip on it; to "be there" and get to know the procedures to build these distributed conversations.
The experience of hearing David, along with AKMA at Vanderbilt about 4 weeks ago, suggested to me that I go back and re-read Small Pieces since I felt that in hearing David and resonating with the things he was saying, I was probably much more in tune with the things he had written about a year ago. Not that my first reading wasn't postive. It was. One of the reasons I bought the book was that I figured it would be a "re-reader" to which I would want to return, and perhaps explore some of its points in later discussions (it being a "Theory of the Web" and all, and being sociological and psychological and even theological in its exploration). After a year of reading JOHO the Blog and then the Vanderbilt visit, I knew that I would have an increased "in-tune-ness" with what Small Pieces explores.
12:51:56 PM
|
|
|
"[The web] is creating a new , persistent, public space where our extended bodies can go" (p. 174, Small Pieces, Loosely Joined)
This goes to the heart of the debate that IO first took up in 1993-94 (and on past and into today) about what kind of "community" can be had in "online" spaces, and in "online ways". I said then, and still say, different, sometimes and even often BETTER interaction, and in some cases, can "cover for us" during times when the "real world" is not being especially kind to us.
The "external scaffolding" idea David W. draws from Andrew Clarke in the final chapter of Small Pieces (entitled "Hope") is the idea of using a kind of "note-taking" to help us with "managing" the information of our lives. When we are able to do things like "review" and "re-explore" old threads of conversations long ago begun, and do this as if all of the participants are still huddled around talking about it (which they may be, via notifications of some fourm systems, or may not be -- even so, we can always bounce off of the ideas intorduced in that thread and start something similar but new, with a new set of respondents).....or to be able to carefully craft a written expalnation of an idea that we may otherwise have been too unsure of our ability to "perform it" well enough NOT to embarass ourselves.....this removal of a social/public intimidation bariier can serve to help us see that we are not alone in our thinking in this way....all of the "external scaffolding things like this which enable us to "maximize" the communications between us, and the exchange of ideas and knowledge which is made richer still by the amount of "network connections" to it (as in Metcalfe's law)....these "helps" and "tools" embodied for us in technological frameworks have "social" and therefore "spiritual value".
12:44:09 PM
|
|
|
Wow. What an awesome and totally relevant to what I'm "into" kind of a conference. Man, I even had a friend who went to Chicago to some Religious Bookseller's convention. I am constantly amazed at how much is going on "out there", and how, despite my subscribing to so many feeds from so many writers and presenters on Social Software kinds of things, that I miss something like this.
On the other hand, I got no job and no money, so this would be a tease and a frustration to me anyway. Except, I get to "be there" via the Bloggers, which makes me all the more anxious to get to a place where I can get me some "Live Blogging-enabling equipment" and get over to some big events in the Church community and show 'em what can be done.
So here's a case where I am SO anxious to get a job with someone who is sincerely interested in doing something about integrating Weblogs as a serious platform for serious communications. The CBF, the UNited Methodists, a nd the American Baptists are ALL having big events (and the first two are rather close together, in Ashville on June 24-26, and in Richmond the very next day, June 27-29) . There's also 3 groups or organizations I would LOVE to pay a visit: Sojourners (D.C.) , Church of the Saviour (also in D.C., actually right down the street from each other in Adams Morgan), and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board (also in Richmond).
11:19:13 AM
|
|
|
In reading a blog of a David Weinberger talk (linked by AKMA in his blog of the same talk), I saw a cpomment posted by David on that blog. Another item in the differences between Comments and Trackbacks (besides the fact that Comments are made on the server of the blogs being commented upon, and Trackbacks are made on the "commentor's" blog...thus creating a kind of "distributed conversation") is that Comments posted by a reader are often more personally directed to the receiver of the comment. Trackbacks are intended to speak to the wider audience (even though the comment is known to be "for the public as well", it is usually written with more of a "one-on-one" feel). Before Trackback, or on blogs without access to or use of this feature, the comment will more often take the form of a public , many-to-many style with an eye to perhaps inviting more comments.
Funny how I'm writing this in Radio, where this feature is not available (to my knowledge). I installed Movable Type and migrated most of my stuff over (still a few kinks to iron out, like some links to longer articles which had used Radio shortcuts for links --- titles of articles in quotes that Radio translated into a href tags with links as the page was constructed and uploaded), and I installed it mostly out of the desire to use the Trackback feature. I have been copying posts from Radio into MT usually daily. I guess I'll put this one over after I copy yesterday's into MT.
10:32:52 AM
|
|
| |
