Are you interested in Web 2.0? Maybe you are taking a course on the topic soon. Hell, maybe you are teaching a course on the topic soon ;) Whatever it is, last month the new-to-me but old-to-the-internet Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication had a special issue on social network sites. Besides just trying to tackle the problem of defining a “social networking site” – which at least is a more manageable task than defining the mostly meaningless in my mind phrase “Web 2.0” – there is a a somewhat interesting study of who, demographically, does and does not use social networking sites. There is also an interesting article on identifying what in practice causes a reader to react to an email as a flame that connects nicely with a recent article in the New Scientist Blogs summarizing research on why people flame online when they would not behave the same way offline. Good stuff to bookmark and read when some free time comes along….
Glimpses of the websurfing habits of a computer science professor, obsessive crafter, occasional gamer, and all around geek
I’d like to thank you for prepping my first class of next term. You know, with Christmas and all…
You know, if you want to return the favor, some nice articles about how Macs have security vulnerabilities too are always in style…. :)
Yikes! I didn’t know I was “flaming” in my e-mails if I used “excessive exclamation points or question marks.” I do that all the time.
Do we think they mean multiple exclaimation points or question marks on the end of the same sentence? Or just asking a lot of questions, or having a lot of different sentences that have exclaimation points on the ends of them?
I assume they mean people who emphasize their points like this!!!!!! Because it is perceived of as using format instead of content to make your point!!1!! If you have that strong an opinion, why not just present your evidence?!?!?!?!
Of course, I think context is everything for these things – I suspect they are talking about using that type of formatting after a sentence in which you are disagreeing or arguing with someone, so that it comes off as overly forceful or dismissive of them.