curious
ozarque has a fascinating thread going on the topic of rudeness in e-language. My favorite post is this one. It poses a question that leads to a useful metaphor:"When I am in my LiveJournal, where am I?
"My LiveJournal is a(n) [X]."
It immediately became clear that people considered their LJs to be diverse places, including living room, front porch, office, gallery, and the common room of a linguistics department. The different conceptualization of virtual space influenced how each LJ user chose to shape conversations and deal with rudeness. The fact that different people chose different metaphors made blogspace as a whole a diverse environment, kind of like a city with residential and business and educational neighborhoods.
My blog exists within my personal territory; I think of it as part of my home, somewhere between living room and office (which are adjacent in floorspace). I want it to be an interesting and pleasant place to be. I try to encourage the kind of conversations had in my home, which are sometimes contentious but rarely vulgar or otherwise verbally abusive. If someone's behavior is sufficiently offensive, I may tell them to settle down, or hush, or go away. If there's a really obnoxious post, I may remove it, much as I'd scrub off rude graffiti left in my bathroom. For the most part, though, I prefer a light hand on moderation; I'm not a fan of censorship. You can tell that my blog is also workspace from its title -- "The Wordsmith's Forge" -- and I've noticed that many other blogs also clue their "location" in the title.
So I'm curious ... when you are in your LiveJournal, where are you?
