ka (02/02/83)
The article on computers in the February issue of Psychology To- day has a section on USENET-like systems which makes two points. 1) Communication over computer networks results in flames. From the descriptions it sounds like USENET is comparatively free of flames. I would guess that USENET users, being typi- cally more experienced than the participants in the study, realize that flaming is not very effective for converting other people to your point of view. IBM took the plunge into networking with a system that was in- formally dubbed GRIPENET because employees used it to flame about the company. GRIPENET was canned rather quickly. 2) Computer networks result in more egalitarian communication. It is harder for one person to dominate the discussion over a computer network. Social status has a much smaller role in computer discussions that in face to face discussions. Actually, on USENET there seem to be a number of heavy sub- mitters and other people who rarely if ever submit anything, so maybe the results on small networks don't fully apply to some- thing the size of USENET. Kenneth Almquist