Interpreting and Understanding Conversation within Online Forums

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums Oliver Tomlinson MA Information Design

This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Information Design, University of Reading, 2010.

NOTE: Names, quotes and images of online forum participants can be seen in research materials analysed for this dissertation, for this reason, this dissertation may not be reproduced under any circumstances, for any person unaffiliated to University of Reading.

Designed, typeset, and printed by the author Oliver Tomlinson using Adobe Caslon Pro and Gill Sans.

All photographs taken by the author.

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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Contents Abstract 1 Introduction 1 2 Conversation 5 2.1 Defining conversation

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2.2 Elements of spoken conversation

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2.3 Challenge of writing conversation

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2.3.1 Linearity and overlap 17 2.3.2 Are you talking to me, and what are you talking about?

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2.3.3 Emotion and expression 27 3 Online forums

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3.1 Defining forums

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3.1.1 Why and how do people use online forums? 31 3.2 Understanding forums

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3.2.1 Forum type and participant characteristics 3.2.2 Layout and design 3.2.3 Forum conversation

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41 47

4 Visualising written conversation 59 5 Conclusions 77 6 Bibliography

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Appendices 87 Appendix 1: Forum screenshots Appendix 2: Forum text Appendix 3: Forum analysis notes

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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Title:

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

Author: Oliver Tomlinson (studying MA Information Design) Date:

September, 2010

Abstract Aim Millions of people use online forums based on the Internet to communicate to one another and voice their opinions within social groups. This dissertation investigates the constraints of written conversation within English-speaking online forums, and attempts to understand how people may interpret conversation by determining how participants are using forums, and how the forum’s interfaces support and promote conversation.

Method The research is split into two distinct sections. Firstly, by investigating the constraints and characteristics of spoken and written conversation, it is possible to understand the challenges online forums face when offering a platform for people to communicate from different locations, at different times, on a diverse set of topics. A number of examples of conversation in print are shown in this section. Secondly, a sample of seven forums are analysed by the author. Notes are made on layout and design, and the participant conversations are assessed to highlight cohesion and turn taking. To aid analysis, the seven topics are visualised to highlight patterns and participant interaction.

Conclusions The online forums share similar design and interface characteristics, but participants will use them in different ways depending on their personal motives. The interchange between participants illustrate informative and social written conversation, which the design of the forums promotes. However, the linear structure of the forums does not match the non-linear, multi-participant conversations found within them, which in turn, makes it difficult for a reader to interpret the conversation.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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1: Introduction

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Introduction

Millions of people from all over the world use the Internet to participate in ‘computer-mediated communications’ (CMC), where technology enables a geographically dispersed group of people to use the written word as a conversational medium (Rheingold, 2000). It is possible to find online conversations written in a variety of styles, from intellectual discourse to idle chat, and revolving around a vast array of different topics.

Experiments have been performed where participants were requested to gather information on a product from online discussions using Internet forums1, and when comparing this with information retrieval from corporate web pages, the participants showed more interest in the product topic within the forum discussions (Bickart & Schindler, 2001). Maybe unsurprisingly, Bickart and Schindler propose that forum-generated information may be more relevant, generate more empathy, and have greater credibility than marketer-generated information (2001, p. 32–33). But Stephen Miller sees the computer having an adverse effect on his definition of conversation (see section 2.1, of this dissertation), saying, “neither digital music players nor computers were invented to help people avoid real conversation, but they have that effect” (Miller, 2006, p.

282).

With millions of people using CMC to share ideas, ask questions and give opinions, the forums provide an opportunity to read huge amounts of information wrapped up in the form of written conversations. But how easy is it for a reader to interpret and understand the information2 found within online forums?

This dissertation investigates the constraints of written conversation within English-speaking online forums, and attempts to understand how people may

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Being ‘online’, in this case, refers to a person using a computer to access the global computer network known as the Internet.

2

For this dissertation, ‘information’ refers to things that are, or can be known about a topic; a person can interpret information in order to make a decision or opinion.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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1: Introduction

interpret conversation by determining how participants are using forums, and how the forum’s interfaces support and promote conversation. Online forums enable the user to participate in written conversation, so this dissertation shall gain a thorough understanding of conversation; defining it, and explaining the differences and implications of spoken and written conversation. Online forums will be explored, with a number of real examples analysed for their design characteristics and user-generated content. To gain further understanding of the forum samples, and identify any potential patterns, they will be visualised in a graphical format following the methods and recommendations stated by people such as Judith Donath (2002), Fernanda B. ViÊgas (1999), and Warren Sack (2000); these people have all attempted to visualise text conversation found on the Internet.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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2: Conversation

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Conversation

2.1

Defining conversation

The Oxford English Dictionary Online (Conversation, 2010) gives the following definitions of ‘conversation’: 7.a. Interchange of thoughts and words; familiar discourse or talk.

8. A public conference, discussion, or debate.

To understand how information can be conveyed by online conversation, it is important to explore the elements that make conversation, why people converse, and how they do it, in speech and writing. Looking in these areas will give an idea of its suitability as an online written format. Sociologists and anthropologists use the term ‘conversation analysis’ when describing the study the social interaction between participants3 (Tsui, 1994).

Spoken conversation has been used for thousands of years to share ideas, knowledge and information between people; firstly within in a close proximity where each person could see one another and interpret the physical gestures associated with the conversation, then, with the onset of technology, people could converse over much larger distances. Anthropologists argue that humankind acquired language roughly fifty thousand years ago, which is around the same time elaborate graves started to appear (Miller, 2006). Stephen Miller agrees with the theory that people must have initiated conversations about how to commemorate the dead, therefore sharing ideas through an interchange of spoken words.

Conversation is a way in which people can share knowledge by using language to convey thoughts, feelings, opinions or facts, either one to one, or to groups of individuals. This ‘conversational interaction’ can promote a form

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Throughout this dissertation the term ‘participant’ will be used for a person actively involved in a conversation; it may be in spoken or written format.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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2: Conversation

of social organisation, around which most of the decisions we make today is centred, e.g. at work, during study, or as a family unit (Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson, 1996). Documenting these conversations can lead to information being spread to a variety of people, and enables people to turn the information into something remembered over time; knowledge. Anthropologists believe the diverse cultures found in the world today have been enabled partly by the use of language, and by documenting language in a written form we have been able to develop philosophical, scientific and literary achievements (Brown & Yule, 1996).

Just as written language has been used to promote knowledge share and cultural development, it could be said that multi-participant written conversation within online forums may be a valuable source of information, providing they are cohesive and understandable.

However, Miller is not in the belief that conversation should be used to gain information. The title of his book, ‘Conversation: A History of a Declining Art’ (Miller, 2006), gives an indication that his notion of conversation is one of an art form, adding, as previously mentioned in the introduction, new technologies are actually reducing our ability to converse. He states there may be a difference between conversation to convey ideas, and a lighter form that is just interesting; to rationalise his thoughts, Miller quotes from the work of Henry Fielding’s ‘Essay on Conversation’ (1743), defining conversation as, ‘that reciprocal interchange of ideas, by which truth is examined, things are, in a manner, turned around, and sifted, and all our knowledge communicated to each other’. One could argue that information is gained through ‘interchange of ideas’ and ‘knowledge communicated’ in conversation. Miller confuses the matter more by stating, ‘talk is generally purposeful whereas conversation is not’ (2006, p. 14), then points out that conversation can, and often will, develop into talk as we want to gain something from it or create an action. This may be the case for someone asking a stranger when the next bus is due, where a single word answer will complete the dialogue and provides the initiator information, but the same could be said of a longer conversation about the Iraq war, where the act of conversation will inform those participating by sharing ideas and formulating opinions.

Gillian Brown and George Yule (1996, p. 3) provide a variation of Miller’s thoughts on the difference between talk and conversation. They explain two functions of language as being either transactional or interactional. The transactional view states that information is passed as facts (Miller’s definition of ‘talk’), whereas interactional serves to ‘establish and maintain social relationships’ 7

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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2: Conversation

by incorporating the phatic4 use of language (Miller’s definition of conversation).

An example of interactional phatic use given by Brown is someone at a bus stop stating to another person, “The weather is nice”, they are not aiming to convey information, but more likely they are making their presence known in a friendly manner.

J. L. Austin’s (1980, p. 6) ‘speech act theory’ gives a different view by writing ‘the issuing of an utterance is the performing of an action’. He calls these utterances Performatives and believes that to say something is to actually do something, contrary to the old assumptions in philosophy that to say something was to state something as either true or false (1980, p. 9).

Whichever view taken, it is important to understand there is always a reason why people say something, and different situations will equate to different reasons; this is confirmed by Austin when he states, ‘In order to explain what can go wrong with statements we cannot just concentrate on the proposition involved…we must consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued – the total speech-act’, (1980, p. 52). Due to the high numbers of potential participants involved in online forums, it is possible to hypothesise there will be different motives to individuals conversing; it may be for transactional reasons in order to gain information, interactional reasons where phatic use of language enables users to say “I am here”, and also statements where the reader5 needs to understand the entire situation in order to fully understand the information they are given.

The high number of potential participants within online forums has already been mentioned (examples of high usage in short time periods can be seen in section 3.2.1, figure 22), but can the conversation between them be affected by the individual demands and characteristics of each person? The architect and psychologist Bryan Lawson states that ‘most conversations are forms of collaboration’ (2004, p. 88) and good collaboration is dependent on clearly defined ‘roles’ to prevent people all talking at the same time (in this case he is talking about spoken conversation). Lawson provides the following descriptions of five key roles (overleaf ):

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The term ‘phatic communion’ was coined by Bronislaw Malinowski in 1923 when he wrote about the problems of meaning in primitive languages (Maybin, 2003, p.1–10). The term describes the ‘purposeless expressions of preference or aversion, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious’; they are statements spoken not to convey a meaning, but to simply fulfil a social function. By fulfilling a function within a specific situation, Malinowski proposes that ‘each utterance is an act serving the direct aim of binding hearer to speaker by a tie of some social sentiment or other.’

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The reader may be an active participant within an existing conversation, or a forum user observing the conversation without contributing.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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• Learner – ‘absorbs what others say and remembers or learns’ • Informer – ‘answers others’ queries’ • Critic – ‘checks the validity of what others have said and makes comment on it, giving warning occasionally’ • Collaborator – ‘tries to elaborate and build on what others have said rather than criticising’ • Initiator – ‘begins a new conversational thread or develops a new perspective on the subject when others have no more to say’ These five ‘key’ roles may be specific to Lawson’s architectural design environment so there may be others within different situations, neither does he mention if people can change their role during the conversation or whether they can be part of more than one role; maybe an ‘informer’ can turn into a ‘learner’? When interpreting online conversation, it may be useful for the reader to understand the roles and the potential influence participants may have within the forum. Exploration of forum user types, and how the forum interface reflects them, is referred to in sections 3.2.1 & 3.2.2.

2.2

Elements of spoken conversation

Researching the elements and patterns that make up spoken conversation, may help to understand how conversation may progress within online forums. We can hypothesise that the elements of spoken conversation may be evident, and have an affect on, speaker-generated6 written conversation.

It had been thought that linguists would be the people understanding conversation, but it took sociologists to realise the links between organisation of language and human interaction (Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson, 1996).

In 1974, Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson state that, ‘the organisation of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation’ (1974, p.696), with a turn being ‘everything one speaker says before another begins to speak’7.

They analysed tape recordings of natural conversation and found that one

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‘Speaker-generated’ means that the written conversation is produced by the person ‘conversing’, as opposed to edited or fictional conversation that may be found in a novel or play.

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Following his work in 1974, Emanuel Schegloff uses the term ‘turns-at-talk’, defining it as, ‘talking in real time, subject to real interactional contingencies’. He adds that it can be produced ‘fluently or haltingly’ in a step-by-step process (1996, p. 55). The mention of ‘real time’ may indicate turns-at-talk are inappropriate to online forums due to the potential time delay between participant turns.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

canonical support Initiating utterance

query

 Figure 1: The systems following an initiating utterance (adapted from Stubbs, 1983). The term ‘canonical’ means the turn is connected to the previous.

reject

support

 Figure 2: Exemplification of Stubbs’ system highlighting a chain of turntaking (adapted from Stubbs, 1983).

‘Do you know where the Shopping Centre is?’ initiation: elicitation

‘Can you tell me where New Street Station is?’ initiation: elicitation reject

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‘It’s just round the corner.’ response: reply

‘I’m a stranger here.’ initiation: informative

2: Conversation

participant would speak at a time, with finely coordinated transitions between each person, and a complex set of rules to prevent overlapping speech and minimal gaps between turns. Their proposed system attempts to be ‘context-free’ so it may be applicable to any scenario, but adaptable enough to work in areas where the conversation is obviously going to be effected by the situation. Even though these statements were made before the widespread use of online forums (see section 3.1), this dissertation shall apply the turn-taking concept to the forums reviewed in later sections to evaluate if it is still relevant.

Two turns made by two different participants are described as an ‘adjacency pair’, where ‘utterances are related to form pair types so that a particular first pair part sets up the expectation of a particular second pair part’ (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973); a request and compliance, or question and reply for example8. A ‘sequence’ would be made up of more than one turn.

The turn-taking described, and the decisions made by the participants, can promote a chain of conversation. Michael Stubbs proposes a systematic approach to how a speaker reacts to an initiation from someone else, either supporting or rejecting the initiation (Stubbs, 1983). A diagrammatic representation of his system can be seen in figures 1 & 2.

Throughout a spoken conversation, listening is an important factor in the turn-taking process. Within the written conversation found in online forums, we can hypothesise that reading is just as important, and therefore follows similar requirements as listening. ‘A participant, willing to speak next if selected to do so, will need to listen to each utterance and analyze it at least to find whether or not it selects him as next speaker’ (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974, p. 728). This ‘listening’ for your turn may prove difficult within online forums due to potentially large numbers of participants; this problem has been discussed within spoken conversation and has been called The Cocktail Party Phenomenon (CPP).

Edward Cherry coined the term ‘Cocktail Party Problem’ in 1953 when he was researching speech recognition with one and two ears. His question was, ‘how do we recognize what one person is saying when others are speaking at the same time?’ (Cherry, 1953). Adelbert Bronkhorst comments that the reason we can, in most cases, understand one talker even if others are talking at the same time, has been subject of a considerable number of studies over the last decades (Bronkhorst, 2000). Through tests in laboratory conditions, Bronkhorst

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There may be examples of participants using multiple units within one turn; making a request and asking a question within the same turn, for example.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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found that listeners are able to follow target speech while, almost completely, ignoring a second speaker (2000, p. 126). However, the ability to do this is dependent upon environmental acoustics and the number of other people, i.e. the more interference and noise there is, the louder the speech needs to be in order to stand out, and the more mistakes made. Relating this real-life speech to virtual speech using written conversation, it is possible to presume the large number of participants, and the resulting written ‘noise’, may make it difficult for participants to converse within a busy online forum.

The participants observed for conversation analysis, mentioned in this section of the dissertation, have been able to see physical and tonal gestures when speaking to another person. Even within turn-taking research of phone conversations (Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson, 1996), the participants could hear each other’s prosody9. This leads to the unspoken elements of conversation, elements that some might say, are just as important as the spoken; Austin calls them ‘accompaniments of the utterance’ (1980, p. 76). These accompaniments are additional physical signs (such as hand or facial gestures) the speaker will provide in parallel to the utterance of the words, potentially giving the utterance a different meaning or, as Austin mentions, an ‘un-uttered promise’.

A listener may interpret words differently by the way they are spoken, by listening to the intonation and temporal features of speech (Brown & Yule, 1996). Brown and Yule call these ‘voice quality’ effects (1996, p. 4); they are the paralinguistic features of the utterance, potentially changing the meaning of spoken words in a similar manner to physical gestures as already mentioned.

We could say these ‘accompaniments of the utterance’ and ‘voice quality effects’ add additional information to a conversation, thus, due to its ‘faceless’ nature, an online forum will be devoid of these messages and could allow for misinterpretation of the information found within them.

Even though it is important to understand how the conversation is broken down into its various elements, we should not forget the context surrounding the conversation, as both elements and context help us perceive the meaning; a point quoted from Robert De Beaugrande: ‘a fairly certain whole (e.g. a diamond) may have fairly uncertain parts (e.g. electrons); and understanding the parts, however clearly, is no guarantee of understanding the whole and visaversa.’ (1997, p. 86).

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Within linguistics, the term ‘prosody’ defines the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

Element [

Overlapping utterances

=

A single speaker’s utterance which is a continuous flow of speech but has been separated graphically in order to accommodate intervening interruption; OR A second utterance being latched immediately to the first utterance with no overlap.

–

Short untimed pause within an utterance.

((pause))

Long untimed pause within an utterance.

((2 sec))

Timed pause. Pauses are timed only when they illustrate a certain point made.

((

))

Description of non-verbal elements in the conversation, e.g. ((laugh)), ((knock)).

(NV)

Non-verbal action.

(

Doubtful transcription or indecipherable part of the conversation.

)

capitals …

Prominence, e.g. I have THIRty at one point.

Intervening utterances which have been taken out.

//

// p

Tone unit boundary.

Proclaiming tone.

r+/r

Referring tone.

Ø

Oblique orientation (i.e. a level or neutral tone)

YES

Capitals underlined: tonic syllable

YES //

//

//YES// //

// YES bc

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Description

High key.

Mid key.

Low key.

Back-channel cues.

<

>

Interpolated utterance.

{

}

Attempted utterance: an utterance which was started but abandoned because of interruption or overlap.

 Figure 3: Transcription notations used in the study of real-life spoken conversational interaction (reproduced from: Tsui, 1994.

English Conversation)

2: Conversation

2.3

Challenge of writing conversation

It could be said, the sole purpose for online forums is to enable participants to write messages to one another, to have a conversation using the written word, therefore a forum must do this well. By understanding the limits of written conversation, it may be possible to outline potential challenges participants may have when communicating in online forums, and interpreting the conversation to extract information. ‘Text production is a complex activity sensitive to, and interacting with, a great variety of circumstances’ (De Beaugrande, 1984, p. 91); so it may not be surprising to find the writing of conversation has a number of challenging issues. Figure 3 is an example of notations required to record and analyse transcripts of real spoken conversations; its complexity gives an indication of the elements found in spoken conversation that may be difficult to reproduce in written form.

This section is split into elements of spoken conversation that, it can be hypothesised, will be challenging to portray in a written format (such as that found in an online forum). To illustrate points made, examples of conversation in printed literature have been found10.

2.3.1

Linearity and overlap

Linearity Words are written linearly, one after another, with spatial characteristics (how they are laid out on a page, for example) existing mainly due to alphabetic and grammatical conventions (De Beaugrande, 1997, p. 152). A person may use particular reading methods in order to comprehend and understand the information portrayed in these words. Similarly, the spoken word follows the same characteristics of linearity, but in a temporal way, as each word is spoken one after another, sequentially over a time period. However, written words are not limited to spatial characteristics, and spoken words are not just temporal.

De Beaugrande argues (1984, p. 149), the spoken word can also contain spatial elements (understanding where a voice comes from), and written text can be temporal (if the reader pauses on a word for a long time).

De Beaugrande provides ‘Seven Principles of Linearity’ that enable readers and listeners to comprehend written and spoken words (1984, p. 153). He states

10 The examples of printed conversations are only to be used for guidelines and may not represent similar properties to conversations found in online forums. Within an online forum the words and layout are most likely to be decided by the participant; the person conversing.

Whereas printed conversation found in novels, interviews and play texts may be written, edited or designed by people who are not the actual participants.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums  Figure 4: Illustrating the Seven Principles of Linearity (Adapted from De Beaugrande, 1984)

KEY

Adjunct

Element, e.g. written word Flow of control, e.g. direction of reading Core

PP

Core-and-adjunct

Back

Ahead

P

Pause

Heavy

Neutral

Light

Look-back & Look-ahead

Loaded (previously Heaviness)

Merging (previously Disambiguation)

Listing

 Figure 5: ‘And now a word from the calf of gold’. Examples of the Pause Principle (Sourced from: Punch (1968). Vol 254, No 6665, June 5th. p.820. University of Reading Main Library. Not actual size)

 Figure 6: ‘Mr. Rouse Builds his House’. Examples of the Lookback Principle (Sourced from: Themerson, S. & Wright, B. (1950).

Mr. Rouse Builds his House. London, Gaberbocchus Press. Used with permission from University of Reading, Special Collections. Not actual size)

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these principles are necessary when writing or speaking, reading and listening, and help a person to understand the elements of text and speech from planning to implementation. If these seven principles are used by people (knowingly or subliminally) to interpret conversation, exploring them may help to understand how participants gain information from online forum conversation. Two of his principles were renamed in his later book (1997, p. 152). To aid understanding, De Beaugrande provided a diagrammatic representation of his seven principles, attempting to show how a participant interprets text or the spoken word. A reworked version of his diagram is shown in figure 4.

The (renamed) seven principles are listed below, with descriptions of how participants use them in text production, reading, speech and listening.

1. The Core-and-adjunct Principle: Participants will focus on the core elements before branching off into other areas. In regard to online forums, the core element may be regarded as the ‘topic’ of conversation.

2. The Pause Principle: There is no single reason why participants pause in text production or the spoken word; they may indicate a new topic or sectionbreak, or even a moment while the speaker thinks of an applicable word.

Figure 5 from Punch11 illustrates the use of the ellipsis to define pauses within a conversation. It can be presumed, that ‘…er…’ would symbolise the speaker is finding an appropriate word. Adding utterances in this case is surely to give added meaning and character to the story, whereas within online conversation, because of the time it would take to add an ‘er’, or ‘ummm’ in the text, we may expect to see more use of punctuation and linebreaks to illustrate pauses.

3. The Look-back Principle: A discourse will often be affected by what was said or written previously, meaning the reference will often be to an aforementioned topic. Applying this principle is made easier if the reference was a core element of the conversation or writing. The dialogue seen in figure 6, “Oh, they’re choking, they’re choking!” from Mr. Thomas Rouse, looks-back to the aformentioned flats. This look-back is not seen by the other participant in the dialogue who says, “What’s the matter? Who’s choking?”. From a reader’s

11 The Punch magazine has been used in a number of printed conversation examples within this dissertation. With a long production run (1841–1992 and 1996–2002) it has many examples of fictional conversation, using an array of typographic methods and styles.

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Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums  Figure 7: ‘The Automatic Physiognomist’. Examples of the Loaded Principle and emotions written in parentheses (Sourced from: Punch, or the London Charivari (1891). Vol 100, October 17th. p.181.

University of Reading Main Library, Closed Access. Not actual size)

 Figure 8: ‘Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve designed by Robert Massin (1964)’. Typographic portrayal of spoken characteristics using the Loaded Principle (Sourced from: Typographica (1965). Issue 11, June.

London, Lund Humphries. p.30-31.

University of Reading, Typography Department. Not actual size)

 Figure 9: ‘Leaves from a candidate’s diary’. Illustration numbering represents the Merging Principle, guiding the reader around the page in a particular order; shown in red (Sourced from: Punch, or the London Charivari (1900). Vol 118, November 28th. p.394. University of Reading Main Library, Closed Access. Not actual size)

2 1

4 3

5

7

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2: Conversation

perspective the flats are made obvious from the illustration, but on another note the reader would not know who the second participant is unless they had read previous pages.

4. The Look-ahead Principle: The opposite of look-back, but not as powerful as it is easier to look-back to previous words than it is to refer forward.

5. The Loaded (previously Heaviness) Principle: Giving certain words more ‘heaviness’, and making them more conspicuous. In the written form this may be achieved using typographical emphasis such as bold or italics, but in the spoken word it would more likely be from intonation, pitch, stress or volume. Figure 7 uses italics in written conversation to make words more conspicuous, but due to mixed meanings their ‘heaviness’ is soon diluted.

Italics, in the case of figure 7, are used for participant names, adding pitch or stress, and when in parentheses, actions or feelings. With large type and three contrasting fonts, the designer Robert Massin uses typographic styling in figure 8 to make the word ‘fantastique!’ stand out from the page. These features allow the reader to interpret the word being shouted, and indicate how the word may be spoken (i.e. three syllables with differing intonation).

6. The Merging (previously Disambiguation) Principle: Choosing the most applicable option from a selection, or combining a number of options together to promote understanding and reduce ambiguities. By numbering the text and illustration elements in figure 9, the reader is guided through the discourse on the page. When faced with a large amount of information, it could be imagined the reader would appreciate some method of design cue to help them navigate through a written conversation.

7. The Listing Principle: Understanding a number of items in a sequence using Look-back if all previous information is required to make a decision, and Look-ahead if all the information is not available at once.

Overlap De Beaugrande’s principles of linearity may be relevant to text production or one person speaking, but when two or more people have a conversation there may be ‘overlap’, where both participants talk at the same time (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). This occurrence may only be for a short period, but seeing a 21

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

 Figure 10: ‘Polite Conversations’.

Overlapping conversation (Sourced from: Punch, or the London Charivari (1843). Vol 5, p.223. University of Reading Main Library, Closed Access. Not actual size)

 Figure 11: ‘Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve designed by Robert Massin (1964)’. Typographic portrayal of overlapping speech (Sourced from: Massin, R. (1988). L’ABC du Métier. Paris, Imprimerie Nationale.

University of Reading Main Library.

Not actual size)

 Figure 12: ‘Slyboots by John Strange Winter’. Conversation without participant names; lookahead and look-back shown in red (Sourced from: Punch, or the London Charivari (1900). Vol 118, November 28th. p.394. University of Reading Main Library, Closed Access. Not actual size)

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provision for it in transcribing spoken conversation (section 2.3, figure 3) does prove that it happens. Participants may not be able to write one conversation over another within the linear constraints of an online forum, but there may be potential for conversation overlap during the asynchronous exchange of messages between multiple users. A participant may write a message, another writes an un-connected message after it, before somebody else replies to the first message. The messages either side of the middle one would create an overlap of conversation.

It is possible to use typographic layout and design to portray participants speaking over each other. Figure 10 portrays a turn-by-turn conversation between two participants, where ‘Mrs. Smith’ continues to interrupt comments made by ‘Mr Brown’. It could be possible to define the ‘—‘ as a pause, but is more likely to be where Mrs. Smith is talking over Mr. Brown. Robert Massin produces a more dramatic effect of overlap in figure 11, actually placing printed text on top of another. The effect is clear, but the understanding of conversation flow is reduced by poor readability and lack of clues to the order of discourse.

These typographic and visual methods of portraying conversation overlap have been edited-in during the text production process, after the conversation, and are not created by the participants themselves. We can presume that if overlap were to occur within online forums, there will be no typographic measures in place to allow the reader to know this has happened.

2.3.2 Are you talking to me, and what are you talking about?

Within face-to-face spoken conversation each participant, or listener, can see or hear who is talking at a specific time, by detecting visual, acoustic or physical clues (assuming they do not have a disability that prevents this); but two of these clues are missing in written conversation. In written conversation, a reader can only understand who is speaking by references in the text. Conversation found in continuous prose, such as novels, will often involve the reader utilising De Beaugrande’s principles of Look-back and Look-ahead. Figure 12 from Punch gives the example; “Isn’t Wilson King horrid?” which is followed by ‘she said’. To understand who is talking, the reader must first look-ahead to ‘she said’, then look-back to find out that ‘she’ is ‘Trixie Armitage’. The use of speech marks indicate when a participant is talking and when they are not.

If a speaker wants to select the next person to speak, they may use an ‘address term’ (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974, p. 717). This technique may 23

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums  Figure 13: ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1’. Naming the participants to indicate turntaking in plays (Sourced from: Shakespeare, W. (1857–1860).

The Works of Shakespeare. Edited

by Howard Staunton. London, George Routledge and Sons. Used with permission from University of Reading, Special Collections. Not actual size)

 Figure 14: ‘The Committee or Popery in Masquerade’, printed

by Mary Clark, for Henry Brome, at the Gun in, St. Paul’s ChurchYard (15th April, 1680). Engraved illustration using balloons to signify speech, and lettered references to further explanation (Sourced from: Aldridge, A. & Perry, G. (1971). The Penguin Book of Comics. London, The Penguin Press. University of Reading, Typography Department.

Not actual size)

 Figure 15: ‘Freaky Fables: SchneeWeiss, by Handelsman’.

Balloons to indicate speech within multi-participant conversation (Sourced from: Punch (1978).

November 8th. p.780. University of Reading Main Library. Not actual size)

 Figure 16: ‘Dialogue Between a Bilious Patient and a Physician’.

Horizontal turn-taking with text references to physical objects (Sourced from: Punch, or the London Charivari (1843). Vol 5, p.270.

University of Reading Main Library, Closed Access. Not actual size) 24

2: Conversation

have been linked to spoken conversation, but its principles can be applied to reading written conversation, and is evident in play texts. Figure 13 shows a page from a late 19th century play by William Shakespeare, edited by Howard Staunton. Speech marks are not present; instead, each participant’s speech is signalled by their name (shortened versions) written in Capitals, and followed by the words they are to speak. This method of signalling the speaker using a contrasting typographic treatment can be seen in many play texts, and appears to be the default for this genre, with the method also being adopted by magazines such as Punch (Figures: 5, 7, and 10).

For text conversation in pictures, ‘balloons’ can be used to provide the reader with information on which participant is speaking. Figure 14 is an early example of balloon usage in 1680, and figure 15 is a later Punch illustration from 1978. Figure 14 only displays small amounts of information in its balloons, but each one is clearly emitting from the participant’s mouth. ‘The Explanation’ is using letters to link further information to the illustrated scene (an example of the Listing Principle, i.e. linking a list of comments back to the illustration).

Figure 15 uses the balloons to portray conversation throughout a cartoon strip, and has a number of cases with multiple participants. Both examples successfully indicate to the reader which participant is talking, but within each it can sometimes be difficult to see the order of who is speaking, i.e. the order of turns during the conversation. ‘Freaky Fables’ attempts to tackle this problem by using a frame-like grid, presuming the reader will read left to right and follow the flow downwards; but within each frame the order of speech is still ambiguous.

Understanding the situation12 of the conversation, and the participants involved, may also provide more information to the reader, allowing a more thorough interpretation of the text. As already quoted in section 2.1, statements made in conversation can be misinterpreted if we do not understand the situation in which they are made; ‘the total speech act’ (Austin, 1980). Figure 16 may have a rather awkward horizontal turn-taking layout, potentially making it difficult for the reader to follow the flow of conversation, but it does provide a good example of linking to the ‘physical’ situation. The patient says, ‘There it is, Doctor’ at the end of the conversation; the reader will have to understand the situation to understand the patient is giving the doctor one guinea for his services. This is a portrayal of a ‘real’ conversation with two participants in a close proximity, referring to an exchange of physical objects, so is unlikely to occur

12 ‘Situation’ may mean the physical surrounding of where the conversation is taking place, or it could mean the topic of conversation and how this has already developed, i.e. its history.

25

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums  Figure 17: ‘Characters’. Listing the participants involved in a play (Sourced from: ChristianDietrich, G. (1955). Comedy, Satire, Irony & Deeper Meaning. London, Gaberbocchus Press. Used with permission from University of Reading, Special Collections. Not actual size)

 Figure 18: ‘Persons Represented’.

Listing the participants, and their relationships involved in a play.

The scene situation is described.

(Sourced from: Shakespeare, W. (1857–1860). The Works of Shakespeare. Edited by Howard Staunton. London, George Routledge and Sons. Used with permission from University of Reading, Special Collections. Not actual size)

 Figure 19: ‘Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve designed by Robert Massin (1964)’. Graphical application of emotion; a heart-shaped speech balloon (Sourced from: Massin, R. (1988). L’ABC du Métier. Paris, Imprimerie Nationale. University of Reading Main Library. Not actual size) 26

2: Conversation

within an online forum as participants will more likely be separated.

To add clarity to the reader of a play text, figures 17 & 18 provide a list of participants (in the case of figure 18, the participant relationships are also shown), and describe the physical scene in which the conversation is taking place. By understanding the participant roles, the reader my perceive their speech acts in a particular way, based on their own interpretation of the situation.

2.3.3 Emotion and expression A person wishing to express their emotion and temporal characteristics of spoken conversation in a written format, may be aided by understanding the paralinguistic features mentioned in section 2.2, and principles of linearity in 2.3.1. But misinterpretation can still be an issue, especially if the text producer is not the speech producer. De Beaugrande mentions his own frustrations when using his Loading Principle by saying, ‘my own uses do not always get past the editors and publishers who prescribe their own finicky conventions, e.g. italics or underlining for foreign words, linguistic examples, and titles of only some text types (e.g. novels but not short stories)’ (1997, p. 282). His comments may indicate a lack of sympathy for publishing procedures, but do highlight the fact that text may be changed and could be interpreted differently by a reader.

Brown and Yule follow the same lines when they discuss conversation displayed in written texts, stating ‘a text must assign speeches to the correct characters, sentences to the correct paragraphs, and paragraphs to the correct chapters.

The author’s organisation and staging of his work must be preserved’ (1996, p.

7). They go on to say that speakers will constantly simplify words phonetically and that if an analyst were to reproduce the conversation using conventions, the original meanings may be misinterpreted (1996, p. 10). The problem is the lack of standard conventions for representing the paralinguistic elements of conversation. Examples can be seen of editors and designers using descriptive text in parentheses (figure 7), ‘Loading Principles’ (figure 8), and graphical methods (figure 19), all to provide the reader with more information to interpret written emotion and expression.

The speaker may be the only person who knows the exact meaning of what they are aiming to converse, and the same applies to when they write their own conversation. They may be limited to the standard linear conventions of writing and, with the inability of portraying the physical elements of expression, the reader may misunderstand and misinterpret their intended meanings.

27

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

28

3: Online forums

3

Online forums

A brief note on the widespread use of online forums was given in the introduction (section 1), but this section will define the forum in more detail, and investigate how, and why, participants are using them. A diverse sample of seven forums are analysed in order to assess how information can be retrieved and understood by a reader (myself ) or by the active participants (assessed by reading their comments).

3.1

Defining forums

The Internet, or online forum can be thought of as a modern day ‘coffeehouse’.

18th century ‘coffeehouses’ in Britain were places where ‘a mingling of different classes’ promoted free conversation, with some specialising in certain topics such as poetry or foreign affairs (Miller, 2006). Online forums can be said to function the same way, by bringing participants together to discuss topics, but instead of face-to-face communication, people will write their conversation electronically and share their thoughts with possibly millions of others over the Internet.

When describing the first online communities, Tom Meltzer and Sarah Phillips state the first Internet forum as being The Well (Meltzer & Phillips, 2009). Howard Rheingold started using The Well in 1985 for worldwide public conferencing, and documents his experiences extensively within his book The Virtual Community (Rheingold, 2000); but he refers to The Well as a newsgroup. Looking at the difference between the two terms, online forums and newsgroups, shows they share a similar functionality but are potentially different technically (Wikipedia,2010); therefore we can presume that user characteristics and requirements will be similar for both. This presumption is backed up by Michel Marcoccia’s definition of a newsgroup operating as, ‘a hierarchicallyorganised forum open to users interested in a specific topic’ (Marcoccia, 2004, p. 117). Marcoccia goes on to mention the features of computer-mediated communication (CMC) using newsgroups, such as asynchronicity and public 29

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

30

3: Online forums

messaging, have many repercussions on participant conversation structure and interaction.

CMC is a term used throughout Rheingold’s book. CMC networks evolved from American military research, initially designed to share computer data as an exchange of knowledge, but now they are commonly used as a way to meet likeminded people, by giving the user the ability to go straight to an area or topic of interest (Rheingold, 2000). Another form of CMC mentioned by Rheingold is Internet Relay Chat (IRC), but this does not lend itself to information retrieval as online forums do. Where online forum participants have time to write concise messages (asynchronously) within a topic, making it easier for a reader to understand information, IRC relies on participants being logged onto the same system at the same time, with messages appearing and disappearing synchronously on your screen (Rheingold, 2000, p. 181).

It is possible to hypothesise that online forums may be the most appropriate method of topic-based CMC, where participants gain access to many opinions, and readers interpreting the written information can understand the discussions

3.1.1

Why and how do people use online forums?

Previous sections of this dissertation have mentioned people using online forums to gain information (see footnote in the Introduction), but this may be broken down into people asking for information by writing a message and inviting others to answer it, or people reading for information, by searching what has already been written about. To both types of people, navigation to the correct forum would be important (asking the right people or reading in the right place), but each would use the interface in a different way. The ‘asker’ may want to follow the conversation, dropping in and out and participating with others to find the best solution, but the ‘reader’ may want to search for information and find it quickly. There may be a number of different ‘asker’ and ‘reader’ types, with each interacting with the forums in different ways.

Another point to consider would be that some people are not using the forums to gain information, instead they are using them as a social tool, to find, converse with, or read about people within their own social circles. They might engage in a kind of conversation that does not aim to gain information or share knowledge (see ‘phatic’ and ‘interactional’ conversation section 2.1).

This area of study could be the topic of a new dissertation, but covering it briefly here allows a better analysis of the forums by understanding how people may use them, and highlights the potential for varied user requirements.

31

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums  Figure 20: Analysing layout and design of printed online forums (taken by author)

Term

Meaning

Forum

A branded web page within which a person can navigate to a collection of topics in order to participate or read posts.

Participant

A person actively involved in posting to a thread (they are visible to others).

Reader

A person who is reading the forum posts.

Topic

The theme of the conversation thread.

Thread

The posts based upon, and connected to, a topic.

Post

The text submitted by a participant in relation to a topic. A sequence of posts (from one or more participants) constitute a thread. Posting is the act of adding text to the forum.

Post Area

The space where participant’s text is displayed. It is placed inside the Turn Space.

Post Header

Contains information such as posting time.

Turn space

The space containing Participant details and their Post Area.

Pages

Forum threads may spread over more than one web page. Each page has a unique web address and requires on-screen navigation to view.

Signature

A participant-generated element attached to all of their Posts.

Quotes

Quotes are references to previous postings or external links, they may be retyped within a participant’s post text, or referenced using the forum’s default quoting mechanism.

32

 Figure 21: Glossary of terms used within this dissertation when analysing the forums

3: Online forums

3.2

Understanding forums

Seven forums were used for this dissertation; three of these from the most active Internet forums13 (the highest number of participant posts), two technical help forums (topics starting with a specific question with a participant desiring an answer), one local residents forum (a forum used by people in the same geographic area), and the oldest running forum (the first public CMC forum).

Within each forum, a topic receiving the most numerous recent posts was analysed, with points made in the following sections. For analysing the layout and design (section 3.2.2), screenshots were taken14, pasted together using a graphics programme, then notations added on printed copies (see figure 20, and appendix 1). To access the forum conversation, all participant posts texts15 were placed into spreadsheets in order to analyse the conversation structure without any design influences (see appendix 2). To understand forum type and participant characteristics (section 3.2.1), both the screenshots and spreadsheet texts were analysed. Three web pages of each topic produced enough participation for analysis, however, two forum topics fit on one page, but still give enough participant engagement. The complete notes and accompanying images made during analysis are found in appendix 3.

While assessing the characteristics of each forum, a terminology for design elements and participant usage was devised for this dissertation; the glossary is shown in figure 21.

3.2.1

Forum type and participant characteristics

Adobe (Adobe, 2010) The description for this forum can be found on their website: ‘Adobe Forums provide an interactive online environment for vibrant discussion of Adobe products and related topics, where Adobe users exchange questions, offer ideas and suggestions, and share tips and tricks’ (Adobe, 2010). They go on to add that, ‘forums are a great source for education and troubleshooting, and are an alternative to Adobe’s official customer support channels’. This particular topic is

13 To find the forums with the most posts, the Big-Boards website was used (Big-Boards, 2010).

Big-Boards tracks the most active message boards and forums on the web (within the BigBoards database), with the site updated on a daily basis using a script to retrieve the forum statistics.

14 Screenshots taken on an Apple MacBook, 1280 x 800 resolution, 13 inch screen. Web browser: Mozilla Firefox, version 3.6.6.

15 All post examples are reproduced verbatim, without corrections of spelling or grammar mistakes.

33

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

34

3: Online forums

based on a participant’s problems with an Adobe graphics software program.

Apple (Apple, 2010) Similarly to the Adobe forum, Apple describe their forums on the site: ‘Our discussion forums are filled with thousands of Macintosh, iPod and iPhone users from around the world. Search for an answer, post your question, or answer other users’ questions in the Apple Discussions community’ (Apple, 2010). The sample topic is based around a participant asking for feedback on a situation, within a specific location in the world; for this reason there is no correct answer to their question, especially as participants are posting from many locations.

Barbican Talk (BarbicanTalk.com, 2010) Residents of the Barbican area in London can use this forum to discuss topics related to their location. The forum is made from a template by phpBB, the most widely used open-source bulletin board system in the world (phpBB, 2010). The initiating participant wishes to gain opinions from others regarding the ‘police cycling on highwalks’. The conversation becomes heated as different opinions are aired.

D2jsp (D2jsp, 2010) This forum is based on the mechanics and game play of a computer game called Diablo II, which also has an online multi-player function. Online trading can occur as ‘forum gold’ is earned through participation in the forum, and can be used to buy virtual elements within the online community. The topic starts around a participant having problems logging into the online game. D2jsp comes 3rd in the Big-Board rankings with 305,323,658 posts (Big-Boards, 2010).

Gaia (Gaia, 2010) Gaia, like D2jsp, was based around virtual gaming but is now a forum-based website, claiming to be the world’s most active online community with over seven million visitors each month (Gaia Interactive, 2010). Designed for a young audience (most likely teenage), participants can create their own virtual space and represent themselves with a customisable comic-like avatar16. A ‘site moderator’ initiates a topic requesting participant opinions on film characters from the Twilight Saga. Gaia comes 1st in the Big-Board rankings with 1,792,405,370 posts (Big-Boards, 2010).

16 Avatar: ‘A graphical representation of a person or character in a computer-generated environment’ (Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2008).

35

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

Forum

Topic type1

Sample duration

Total posts in sample

Av time per post

Sample pages

Sample participants

Participants per hour (in sample)

Adobe

Defined question

11d 14h 26m

36

7h 44m

1 of 1

7

0.03

Apple

Open Question

6d 2h 58m

45

3h 16m

3 of 4

28

0.19

Barbican

Open Opinion

13d 2h 49m

45

7h 0m

3 of 4

20

0.05

D2jsp

Defined Question

15d 21h 9m

30

12h 42m

3 of 4

10

0.03

Gaia

Defined Opinion

0d 4h 56m2

37

0h 8m

3 of 111

32

6.53

IGN

Open Opinion

0d 10h 33m

46

0h 14m

3 of 6

45

4.25

The Well

Interview

2d 1h 21m

26

1h 54m

1 of 4

12

0.24

ď&#x20AC;ľ Figure 22: Summary of sample forums, showing busyness and activity levels. Notes:

36

1

For classification within this dissertation, topics can be; defined questions (there is a correct answer) or open questions (variable answers can be given), defined opinions (giving options) or open opinions (being general), or an interview (a person is questioned by forum participants).

2

Gaia Sample duration: The sample actually covered 33 days, 21 hours, 29mins (48809mins), but it took 48513mins for the second comment to be made â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this has been marked as an abnormality, therefore total sample time is taken from the second post i.e. total time 4hrs 56mins.

3: Online forums

IGN (IGN, 2010) The IGN Boards are a forum provided by IGN Entertainment: ‘A leading online media & services company obsessed with gaming, entertainment and everything guys enjoy’ (IGN Entertainment, 2010). The topic chosen is initiated

by IGN staff; the post is an external link to an IGN review of a computer game and contains no direct question but initiates posts from others about the review.

IGN comes 4th in the Big-Board rankings with 200,298,710 posts (Big-Boards, 2010).

The Well (The Well (1), 2010) The Well website claims it was the birthplace of the online community movement, quoting Wired magazine describing it as ‘the world’s most influential online community’ (The Well (2), 2010). There are topics that un-paid readers can view, but the majority of the site is only available to paid members. Within the sample of forums used in this dissertation, The Well is the oldest and also the only one requiring participants to give their real name. The topic analysed is an interview type discussion as an author is introduced to the forum to provide answers to other participants.

A summary of the sampled forum topics can be seen in figure 22.

Understanding how active (number of posts) and busy (participant numbers) each forum is may influence how a reader can interpret the information. It is important to remember that a forum may have many people ‘watching’ but not actively participating; these numbers remain unknown. Gaia was the most active, with an average post time of one every 8 minutes, and D2jsp was the least active, one post every 12 hours 42 minutes. With numerous posts over a short time period, Gaia will presumably contain more opinions or conversation, thus giving a reader a lot of information. D2jsp is a different topic type being a defined question, but the slow average post rate may cause conversation to be incoherent due to the time between posts.

Gaia was also the busiest forum in the sample, with 6.53 participants per hour, over 200 times more participants compared to Adobe and D2jsp’s 0.03 participants per hour. A reason for this may be the difficulty in the defined question topics of Adobe and D2jsp, or it could be the large participant size of Gaia in answering an opinion poll topic. With more participants involved in a topic, conversation may be difficult to interpret, whereas fewer participants may allow the conversation to be more coherent.

37

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

 Figure 23: ‘Chris Cox’ the employee was the informer within the Adobe forum, but following a post from ‘cespejo1158’ he is now the learner (Adobe – see appendices for details)

38

3: Online forums

Participant profiles There is a degree of anonymity within the forums as The Well is the only one to request that participant use their real name. Participants may provide personal information within their profile, posts or signatures, but the reader cannot ensure the details are true. How can the reader make a judgement on how true the posts are (a participant could be making false claims), and the credibility of any information provided?

Participant credibility Miller states that all 18th century writers on conversation ‘agreed that conversation can take place only among equals’ (Miller, 2006, p. 18). The conversation defined in Miller’s book required the absence of one overpowering individual. The Well has a section called Experts on the WELL, where a participant can post any question to get an answer or direction to a relevant area (Rheingold, 2000, p. 50), but how can a participant be assured the advice is credible?

Within the online forums, participants may have an equal ability to contribute, but in order to understand how credible their postings are, the reader may need reassurance of their credibility. The ability for a participant to falsify their profile has been mentioned, but it can be assumed that any participant cannot impersonate site moderators and employees. A reader of the Adobe forum can be assured that posts from an employee are genuine and credible in regard of Adobe products, but maybe this causes an inequality as the posts made by an employee may be considered more knowledgeable than other participants.

Participant characteristics Rheingold describes certain participants of The Well as ‘acting hosts’, it is their job to, ‘welcome newcomers, introduce people to one another, clean up after guests, provoke discussion, and break up fights’ (Rheingold, 2000, p. 26). But where the participant is not assigned a role within a topic, the reader must interpret the conversation (by reading the topic posts) to understand the other participant’s characters. There are examples within the forums of Lawson’s characters mentioned in section 2.1: Learner, Informer, Critic, Collaborator and Initiator, but they are not clearly defined and sometimes blend into each other as a thread develops (see figure 23).

A reader or active participant may be able to see who has contributed to the conversation by scanning the posts, but would not have an indication of the participant characteristics. Apple is the only forum to illustrate ‘top users 39

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

 Figure 24: Printed participant identification and top down structure, a comparison of ‘Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve designed by Robert Massin (1964)’.

(Sourced from: Typographica (1965). Issue 11, June. London, Lund Humphries. p.30–31. University of Reading, Typography Department.

Not actual size), and below, a screenshot from IGN forum (see appendices for details on this forum)

40

3: Online forums

in forum’ but this is misleading, as they are not participants within the topic analysed.

3.2.2

Layout and design

The relatively new emergence of online forums and CMC could mean people are less knowledgeable about how to extract the right information from them. Rheingold states, ‘the way words and ideas are structured by computer conferencing systems is different from more familiar structures, such as books or face to face discussions, so we don’t have a default mental model that helps us think about the structure’ (Rheingold, 2000). But can the layout and design of a forum affect a reader’s ability to interpret the conversation and, if required by the participant (see section 3.1.1), understand the information? Walter Nash mentions that we should not dismiss the importance of layout, as it can impact the messages of the writer, and can also act as an ‘orientational device, serving the reader and writer alike’ (Nash, 1980, p. 2). Nash goes on to add, ‘the outward shape of the text is appropriate to – is, indeed, part and parcel of (authors emphasis) – its content’. Nash’s comments may indicate the importance of studying the layout and design of online forums, as it may have a bearing on how the information is interpreted by a person with no mental model of how to interpret the conversation.

Page layout A reader’s view of the forum may be dependent on their computer, and in the case of Barbican Talk the potential to modify the topic layout, but the forums all seem to portray a similar set of characteristics in organising the turn-taking of participants, one after another, top down. Marcoccia states a newsgroup’s infrastructure will dictate that posts are sequential (Marcoccia, 2004, p. 116), but analysing the forum sample shows certain design elements may aid the reader in interpreting the conversation, such as ease of following who is saying what (using colour and participant images), and highlighting the post that answers the initial question. There is a similar look and feel to printed play texts, especially when comparing the linear forum layout and use of participant images, to Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve designed by Robert Massin (see figure 24).

The top-down linear structure of online forums may be due to historical standardisation based on how participants use it; starting with a question or opinion at the top of the first page, with multiple participants posting their views to form a thread of conversation beneath it, over a period of time. It is the 41

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

42

3: Online forums

case that online chat interfaces have remained very similar since their invention, either because people are accustomed to the style or there is simply a lack of alternatives (Donath & Viegas, 1999). Other public posting systems on the Internet, such as Twitter17 are designed in a bottom-up format due to the nature of the participant’s posts. The quote below explains why this is the case: The thing to know about Twitter is that it’s about what’s happening right now — not what happened leading up to right now. You can get to that information, but it’s not the most important. The second part to this is that Twitter isn’t meant to be something that’s always on and always being read/ consumed; this is also why we don’t encourage unread counts for tweets, replies, etc.

The idea is you dip in for what’s happened recently and then you’re gone.

You come back when you want to say something or consume someone else’s tweets. The ordering we have makes this much more useful and practical while reinforcing the best thing about Twitter: what’s happening, right now, from sources I care about.

An email reply from a user experience employee at Twitter (sent to the author via Isaac Hepworth [isaac@twitter.com] on 19/07/2010)

The comment above illustrates the user experience team at Twitter have a clear understanding of the people who interact with Twitter, and the reasons why they are using it. In doing so, the interface and functionality of Twitter has been designed specifically for the people using it.

Conversation navigation By structuring conversation in a hierarchical manner, with descriptive names at every level, people should be able to use the record of conversation as a database to search for specific information (Rheingold, 2000, p. 51), in theory this may be the case, but in practice, navigating to the correct information may be difficult.

Each forum has a system in place for navigating through the conversation, but evidence of participants using their own systems (such as using the caret figure for pointing) may indicate some missing elements. Nash believes that text should be accompanied by indications of its structure to ‘enable the reader to keep in view the connection and relationship of passages that may be spatially remote’ (1980, p. 18). Adobe and Apple are the only forums from the sample

17 www.twitter.com 43

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

44

3: Online forums

allowing actual navigation by mouse click to the post they are responding to, but then it is difficult for the reader to find where they were again before clicking.

Some of the forums number the posts sequentially, presumably in an effort to aid navigation through the thread. Nash would define this as ‘programming’, where numbered sections are used to promote a ‘rigorous method of controlling the flow of information from writer to reader’ (Nash, 1980, pp. 5-6). He continues by saying a characteristic of sectioning means the writer can begin afresh without the need of discursive links between different segments.

However, within an online forum a different participant could write each post, and without any form of linking between sections (or turn spaces in this case) a reader may find it difficult to navigate through the conversation. Nash does address this by saying that strict programming dictates the material and ‘excludes the devices of continuity and cohesion that create a well-articulated prose structure’ (1980, p. 6).

Another example of the forums sectioning information is when a thread spreads over numerous pages; seeing so many pages may deter the reader from reading every post in turn (Gaia has 111 pages), especially when there is no method of seeing an abstract summary of all the posts.

Within the turn space All the forums split the turn space into three elements, the post header, post text, and participant details; the only exception is The Well where post header and participant details are merged. Some elements within the turn space may appear full with data, such as the participant details found in the D2jsp forum; Nash would attribute this to the sectioning of the elements by saying ‘it is certainly a good way of packing information; but most of us would feel that it is hardly suitable format in which to conduct discourse’ (1980, p. 6).

Nash also mentions writers emphasising their text with different layouts to represent gestures and vocal inflections (1980, p. 4). The default settings of the sampled forums may limit participants modifying the post text, however, participants may define new styles to their post elements that may alter the visual hierarchy observed by a reader. These modified elements may emphasise their post, but could potentially make it difficult for a reader to follow the flow of any conversation.

Section 2.2 of this dissertation gave Schegloff ’s definition of ‘turns-attalk’ as ‘talking in real time, subject to real interactional contingencies’, but even though participants are taking turns within online forums (see appendices), the text within the turn space is never displayed in real-time; it is a historical post 45

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

46

3: Online forums

from a participant and is not seen in development as a participant is writing it. Burkhalter et al have stated this situation is a problem within ‘standard chat programs’, where there is a lack of visibility of turns-in-progress (Burkhalter, Cadiz, & Smith, 2000). Without ‘hearing’ the conversation by seeing the typed words in real-time, we can hypothesise there will be incoherence in the conversation as posts may overlap. The next section assesses forum conversation and whether there is evidence of conversation overlap.

3.2.3

Forum conversation

Online forums allow participants to write in their own style and make their own conventions within the confines of the forum default layouts. It is a place where the written words are an exact representation of the original message, but this may not ensure clarity for the reader. This section analyses posts made in the sample forums in order to identify any issues for a reader or participant in understanding the thread, and the information within it.

Writing style and post characteristics Due to the variety of participants, the writing style is also varied, from very short posts using abbreviated words and heavy use of emoticons18 (examples in Gaia), to longer, structured prose (examples in The Well). A participant would need to read others posts in order to understand their character; there are no visual cues as in real-life conversation.

There can be strong opinions within the forums. Miller believes more information available in the media (when talking about politics in 21st century America), allows people to have strong opinions, ‘since there is information to confirm almost any thesis’ (Miller, 2006, p. 267). Due to the ‘faceless’ virtual nature of online forums, and the vast amounts of information available to people on the internet, participants may feel they are able to voice their opinions, and write posts they may not say in face-to-face conversation. If asked to back up their opinion they can simply ignore the request.

Unlike face-to-face conversation participants cannot rely on unspoken elements of conversation or ‘accompaniments of the utterance’ (Austin, 1980, p. 76), instead they must state in their text if they wish to provide a tone of voice. For a reader to interpret a conversation within an online forum, it would

18 Emoticon: A representation of a facial expression formed by a short sequence of keyboard characters, to convey the sender’s feelings or intended tone (Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2001). Some forums are able to turn these characters into a small graphic depicting an expression.

47

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

48

3: Online forums

be necessary for them to understand the emotion of the posts, but these will be lost unless stated by the writer as there are no visual indications other than emoticons.

Timing and monitoring As already mentioned in section 2.2 (Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson, 1996), (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), timing is an important feature of turn taking in spoken conversation to avoid overlap and encourage coherence. Online forums can attract participants from all over the world, and the different time zones can produce confusing time stamps on posts, and the potential for long delays between posting. Time delays between responding posts can result in other participant’s posts sitting amongst unrelated conversations. Marcoccia experienced time delays and overlapping posts in his work on internet newsgroups (also see sections 3.1 and 3.2.2), and found it can disrupt the ‘temporal dynamics of newsgroup interaction and makes the discussion structure more complex’ (Marcoccia, 2004, p. 116). This interrupted turn taking may result in unintelligible conversation if a thread is read in a linear fashion, and requires the reader to navigate through the conversation to find who is talking to whom.

To enable a reader to keep track of posts to the topic, a number of forums enable remote notification when the participant is not logged on, but this does not ensure they will not miss an applicable post, as there are examples of participants repeating previous posts made by other people.

Directed posts The importance of using an ‘address term’ in spoken conversation was mentioned in sections 2.2 and 2.3.3 (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). The address term is used by a speaker to direct their words to another participant, who will be listening for a point in which they will take their turn; the same applies to online forums.

Each forum analysed had its own conventions for one participant addressing another, either by stating the recipients name within the post text, or quoting a previous post made by the recipient. However, there are a number of examples where participants use their own address term conventions. Even when forums use ‘in response to’ within the post header (Adobe ad Apple), this does not ensure this is the case, as participants may direct to the wrong person or add another recipient in the post text.

Section 2.2 mentioned the term Cocktail Party Phenomenon, which aims to understand how we recognise what people are saying when others are speaking 49

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

50

3: Online forums

(Cherry, 1953). When there is potential for many participants within a forum topic, ‘noise’ could be thought of as irrelevant post messages, therefore the requirement to know who a post is directed at could be thought as an important feature in understanding conversation. Analysis of the forums has shown inconsistent post direction and a system that may be flawed (‘in response to’ of Adobe and Apple), potentially making it difficult to follow a conversation as a reader, and difficulty in knowing when someone is addressing a participant for a turn.

Undirected posts If a post does not have a quote from a previous participant, and lacks an ‘address term’, how can a reader interpret the conversation?

There are a number of examples in the sample forums of undirected posts that are still relevant to the conversation. In order to interpret the conversation, these posts require the reader to understand information given in previous posts, a similar approach to De Beaugrande’s Look back Principle of linearity, already mentioned in section 2.3.1 (De Beaugrande, 1997). Without looking back the reader may not be able to interpret the conversation fully as the posts are not understandable in isolation. The reader would not be able to use the forum’s navigation systems as there would be no reference to which turn the post belongs.

Undirected posts may also be a comment made to all the participants in the current topic; the post may contain the terms, “could people…”, or, “has anyone…”, and may lead participants towards a new sub-topic. Due to the linearity of posts from this point (i.e. each post following one after another), it may be difficult for a reader to understand which initiating post people are now replying to.

Going off-topic Within the forums analysed, a participant or a site moderator may initiate a topic; they will give the topic a title (a short descriptive sentence) and follow this with the first post, in which they provide more details about the topic. Five of the seven forums repeat the topic title within each participant turn space, but none of the forums repeat the initiating participant’s descriptive post, to view this post a reader or participant is required to navigate to the top of the first page. Walter Nash may link these characteristics to his definition of a ‘stack’ within rhetorical design (Nash, 1980, p. 12). In a stack, the topic is mentioned at the beginning of the text and becomes the ‘nodal point of divergence and 51

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

52

3: Online forums

convergence’, following the topic are a number of ‘amplifying comments’, potentially finishing in a conclusion. Nash’s stack may be applicable in wellstructured text, but the multiple participants within online forums may take the conversation away from the key topic.

As more participants post into the forum, there are a number of examples of the conversation going off-topic, resulting in sub-topics loosely related to the original post. Maybe unsurprisingly, going off-topic occurs more often in forums initiated as an open opinion (IGN), open question (Apple) or an interview (The Well). The forums initiating with a defined question (Adobe and D2jsp) generally stay on-topic, even though participants ask the initiator many questions.

It may be difficult for a reader to gain an understanding of the opinion topics; there is no guide to an overall opinion of the participants, and the conversation may contain a number of sub-topics that are not demonstrated in the topic title. The conversation found within defined question topics may remain on-topic and relevant to the topic title, but for a reader to understand the process involved in finding a potential solution to the question, the information within the posts would need to be coherent.

Cohesion and understanding the conversation Following the points observed in this section on forum conversation, for the reader to understand participant characteristics; who is talking to whom (turn taking), and any deviations from the topic, they may need to read the entire conversation. The number of posts requiring a reader to look back re-enforces this presumption; maybe due to quotes, abbreviations or links back to what has already been said in previous posts. It can be seen that some participants are reading the entire thread as their posts refer to many others before it, however, there are more examples to prove that participants are not reading the entire thread, as repeat topics occur and initiating participants become frustrated as they repeat themselves or the thread goes off-topic.

Rheingold mentions the dynamism of an online conversation is lost when read as a hard copy (on paper), and recommends using the post time stamps to understand the ‘back-and-forth dialogue’ (Rheingold, 2000, p. 52). However, the analysed forums within this dissertation suggest a reader would also have difficulty reading the conversation in soft copy (from the screen), and the time stamps can be ambiguous due to world time zones and editing of post texts after initial posting.

To allow a reader to understand what has already been posted, the 53

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

Reference:

 Figure 25: Reference types used in cohesive text, adapted from Halliday and Hasan’s book, Cohesion in English (Halliday Situational Textual & Hasan, 1997, p. 33). NOTE: ‘exophora’ ‘endophora’ Exophoric references are relevant to the situation and may relate, in real life to a physical object such as those mentioned in SECTION 2.3.2 To preceding text To following text and FIGURE 16. It may be presumed ‘anaphora’ ‘cataphora’ that exophoric references would be a rare occurrence within online forums, as participants are unlikely to experience the same physical situation as they are communicating virtually using the Internet.

54

3: Online forums

conversation and previous posts should be cohesive. M.A.K Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan explain that cohesion in English occurs where the ‘interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another’ (Halliday & Hasan, 1997, p. 4). They explain ‘reference ties’ and ‘repetition ties’, and these ties can be seen throughout the sampled forums. One post may talk about a person e.g. ‘the Police’, and the next post may say ‘they’ in reference to the Police; this is a reference tie. If both posts said ‘the Police’, this would be a repetition tie.

However, due to asynchronous posting, and the potential for other participant’s posts to appear between conversation threads, there may be ambiguities in the ties, especially if they are reference ties.

Halliday and Hasan’s ‘ties’, or ‘anaphoric19’ references, follow a similar concept of that mentioned by De Beaugrande (section 2.3.1) with his lookback principle (De Beaugrande, 1984). Another similarity between their work is De Baugrande’s look-ahead principle, and Halliday and Hassan’s cataphoric references, both are terms defining the point a reader needs to refer forward to understand the text. Figure 25 gives details on the references mentioned by Halliday and Hassan.

When a participant quotes a previous post, or links to one within their post text, it would act as a ‘tie’ and may help a reader navigate to connected posts and allow a cohesive conversation. But the ability to edit posts (sometimes days after the original post, or by adding a quote from a ‘future’ post – see appendix example) can confuse later posts that referred to the older text, and alter the linear flow by combining look-back and look-ahead principles. For the text to be cohesive, the item referred to must be identifiable by the reader (Halliday & Hasan, 1997, p. 33).

One question to ask could be if the posts within the forums actually constitute the definitions of conversation defined in section 2.1, whether, for example, it is talk or conversation (Miller, 2006), or transactional or interactional (Brown & Yule, 1996)?

When observing if the turn taking between participants was cohesive, and could be understood by a reader, it was noted within the IGN sample that no sequence of turn taking (see turn taking in section 2.2 (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973)), and no chain of conversation occurred. Only one participant from the 45 repeat posted, and that was only to add a further point missed from their first post. The interchange between participants consisted only of single comments

19 Halliday and Hasan use the word anaphoric to mean referring back 55

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

56

3: Online forums

to make adjacency pairs. A similar occurrence can been seen in the Gaia forum, where only one participant initiated any form of conversation, and a proportion of that conversation seemed to be with himself20.

It is possible to hypothesise, visualising the conversation data21 within the sample forums will enable an interpretation of any turn taking or interchange of posts between different participants, i.e. conversation. This is covered in the next section; Section 4: Visualising written conversation.

20 Marcoccia also found instances of participants conversing with themselves; he called this ‘monologal’ conversation rather than ‘dilogal’ where a participant is conversing with another (Marcoccia, 2004, p. 122).

21 There are numerous instances where visualising data has enabled a more efficient and enlightening method of analysis. John Snow’s map of cholera deaths, and Charles Joseph Minard’s graphical portrayal of the demise of Napoleon’s army, are just two examples provided by Edward Tufte (2007, pp. 24 & 41).

57

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

 Figure 26: ‘Interface with a discussion theme selected and a subset of the social network visible’ (Sack, 2000). The elements are difficult to relate to conversation, and unintelligible if Sacks paper has not been fully understood. NOTE: snapshot and figure title taken from PDF.

 Figure 27: ‘Screen-shot of the conversational interface in Chat Circles’ (Donath & Viegas, 1999) NOTE: snapshot and figure title taken from PDF.

58

4: Visualising written conversation

4 Visualising written conversation Social scientists such as Donath, Viegas, and Sack have all experimented with creating visualisations and interfaces for computer-mediated communication (see introduction for CMC definition), with a shared aim to represent the conversation to allow interpretation of its dynamics (Donath J. , 2002, p. 45), and in Sack’s case, to allow a reader observing the discussion at a later stage, to understand its contents and decide if it suits their needs (Sack, 2000, p. 2).

The interface proposed by Sack (figure 26) contains computer-generated elements, created by analysing text within newsgroup messages using algorithms. He states the simplest texts for computers to analyse are ones allowing clear ‘threading’ of the messages, but understands there are difficulties involved when there is no standardised citing method used by the participants (2000, p. 4). Sack proposes the interface ‘can be used to browse the messages and explore connections between messages’ (2000, p. 1), but observing the screenshots, it is clear that a reader would need to understand the interface in order to interpret the conversation; it is difficult to relate the screen elements to conversation. He also comments the computer analysis of post threads and links may not be as accurate as if they were created ‘by hand’; this is backed up by the examples found in this dissertation, where a number of posts are difficult to link confidently to others (see appendix 3).

Donath and Viegas have designed ‘Chat Circles’ (figure 27), and define it as ‘an abstract graphical interface for synchronous conversation’, i.e. instant relay chat, (Donath & Viegas, Chat Circles, 1999). Chat Circles is designed to mimic real life conversation by fading out over time, and allowing participants to only see conversation within their ‘hearing range’; for these reasons it may not be a suitable method to visualise online forum conversations.

In a later paper, Donath explains the importance of identifying the aspects of the conversation the visualisation will highlight (2002, p. 46). The previous 59

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

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60

 Figure 28: Key to graphic elements within the sample forum visualisations. Designed specifically for this dissertation.

4: Visualising written conversation

section of this dissertation hypothesised visualisations may provide incite into participant turn taking and post linking (3.2.3: Forum Conversation - Cohesion and understanding the conversation); for this reason, the visualisations will aim to illustrate this area in a traditionally neutral way, excluding semantic design characteristics to portray social means such as user characteristics (Donath J. , 2002, p. 49).

Notes on creating the conversation visualisations A key to the visualisations can be seen in figure 28, with the following points being considered when creating the visuals.

• Numbers were attributed to participants, and their posts, to allow efficient analysis.

• Post text has been removed to allow clear analysis of turn taking; full text can be seen in appendix 2 and is linked on the visualisations by the blue post reference numbers.

• Direct links to posts (such as Adobe and Apple ‘in response to’) were used for the visualisation unless obviously incorrect. If a post had no clear links to any others, it was linked back to the initial topic post.

• Time was not portrayed in the visualisation, other than post order. This was due to the inconsistencies in time stamps, presumably due to different time zones.

• Dotted links were shown where posts were linked to a previous post, but did not use a direct reference.

61

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

%

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1 14 2 15

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Name

No of posts

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1

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15

2 30

2

Chris Cox

10

1 31

3

Mike Ornellas

1

6 32

4

cespejo1158

6

6 33

5

Deano J.

1

1 34

6

Tai Lao

2

7 35

7

mrstoel

1

4 36

4: Visualising written conversation

Adobe A. A long string of conversation between two participants. Participant 1 repeat posts towards the end of the string due to a lack of response from participant 2.

B. Participant 1 replying participants 3 and 2 within the same post.

C. Participant 4 posts a comment unrelated to the previous posts. Their second post (turn 17) is highlighted as the answer to the initial question (turn 1), with post number 21 ending this thread. All further conversation links from a comment by participant 5 who quoted participant 2 in turn 12.

General comments The conversation focussed on solving the initial question, but continued after the solution was found. Most conversation included two key participants, 1 was the initiator, and 2 was the Adobe employee.

63

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 9 11 6 12 11 13 12 14

User ID

64

Name

No of posts

13 15 14 16

1

victoriaaa

3

2

aklepach

1

3

oOBlinkyOo

1

4

sugarbump

1

5

TV-35

1

6

Jon_L

4

7

blueginger

2

8

w7ox

1

9

Mpower1001

2

19 25

10

sevomd

1

17 26

11

Deja 726

1

12

Joe Z in VA

1

21 28

13

able studio

1

1 29

14

science geek

1

22 30

15

NotMattWong

2

23 31

16

suttus

2

17

Kristie.marie

2

18

GENE GOLDENSTEIN

1

19

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1

20

Diamond1di

1

21

Spencer Joy

2

22

Spellbinder

2

23

tcab

1

24

iPhone3Gisgod

1

25

awemc87

1

26

excelsis12

4

27

///Ben

3

28

baldbob

1

1 17

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15 18 16 19 17 20 6 21 6 22 7 23 18 24

20 27

15 32 24 33 21 34 16 35 25 36 26 37

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26 45

4: Visualising written conversation

Apple A. An update from the initiator regarding the topic, from this point it may be difficult to know which post people are replying to, either this one or the initial post.

B. A number of other people’s posts sit between participants 20 and 27.

Participant 27 is directing their post to 20 as they are situated in the same location.

C. A sequence of turn taking between two participants.

General comments Participant 1, the initiator, is asking for people’s experience in a particular topic, which is dependent upon their actual location; it is an open question with no ‘correct’ answer. There are few examples of turn taking, but when it does occur, the participants involved are normally from the same geographic area.

65

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

1 1 2 2 3 3 1 4 4 5

%

5 6 1 7 1 8 6 9 7 10 1 11 1 12 8 13 1 14 9 15 4 16 10 17 11 18 12 19 13 20 14 21 15 22

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Name

No of posts

1 23 16 24

1

Caffeine

9

2

Calypso

1

3

FvK

1

4

BARBICAN POLICE TEAM

3

5

eddy

1

6

truk10

3

7

hunt4alex

1

8

Demeter

1

9

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2

10

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2

19 34

11

bill

1

14 35

12

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1

20 36

13

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3

14

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3

17 38

15

barbigirl

1

19 39

16

Alegra

2

19 40

17

clearvision

4

18

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1

19

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3

20

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1

4 25

4 25

16 26 1 27 6 28 1 29 13 30 17 31 9 32 18 33

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14 37

13 41 17 42 6 43 17 44 10 45

66

4: Visualising written conversation

Barbican Talk A. The open opinion type topic concerns the Police cycling in the Barbican area of London. Participant 4 is the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Barbican Police Teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. After participant 4 posts in the 5th turn, a number of posts have undirected links due to their mention of the Police within their comments.

B. Participant 15 submits a post giving her personal experience of the topic, this post develops into two threads, with the larger one containing six posts from five different participants.

General comments The initiator of this topic contributes throughout the posting, writing the most posts. The topic is an open opinion, but the forum layout and the visualisation do not give an indication of the overall opinions of the participants.

67

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

1 1

%

2 2 1 3 2 4 1 5 3 6 1 7 3 8 1 9 1 10 4 11 1 12 1 13 1 14 5 15 1 16 5 17 1 18 6 19

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68

Name

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1

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17

4 22

2

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2

1 23

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4

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1 27

7

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9 28

8

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1

1 29

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1

10

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1

10 30

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4: Visualising written conversation

D2jsp A. The initiator post gives details to a defined question, however, a number of participant posts provide answers that are not applicable, resulting in the initiator referring participants back to the initial topic post.

B. Participant 10 posts late in the sample, but appears to have read the posts from the start as they reply to a much earlier comment made by participant 2.

General comments Participant 1 can be seen in every separate thread. Each time a post offers a solution, the initiator replies but a solution is not found.

69

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums Gaia

d2jsp

1 1

1 1

A

2 2 3 3

2 2 1 3 2 4

4 4

1 5

5 5

3 6

6 6

1 7

7 7

3 8

8 8

1 9

9 9

User ID

14 15

Name

No of posts

1

AngeIsThanatos

1

2

Gai Ketoji

1

3

LilStarcey

1

4

Maxim the Jager

1

5

hayley willams

1

6

pearl8233

1

72

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1

2 23

12

Tinkerbell223318

1

13

Ciarrahface

1

1 25

14

MizzMuzic9

1

2 26

15

Megs784

1

1 27

16

wolflver900

1

2 28

17

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1

18

BigDude23

1

19

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1

20

tinker9963

1

4 24

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22

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1

23

Coutness Dusk Veil

1

24

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1

25

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1

26

Mochi711

1

27

evilynsc

1

28

SkylaRocks12

1

29

skull face 329

1

30

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1

31

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5

32

drummajor2011

1

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70

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10 10 4 11

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1 12

12 12

1 13

13 13

1 14

14 14

5 15

15 15

1 16

16 16

5 17

17 17

1 18

18 18

6 19

19 19

1 20

20 20

7 21

21 21

4 2

22 22

1 2

23 23

1 2

24 24 25 25 10 26

A

26 27 27 28 28 29 10 30

29 30

B

30 31 31 32 31 33 32 34 31 35 31 36

B

31 37

4: Visualising written conversation

Gaia A. Participant 10 repeats their opinion, 16 turns after their initial post.

B. The only example of conversation involves participant 31 who appears to converse with themselves before changing their opinion to direct a post at participant 32.

General comments The visualisation of this topic portrays a number of participants giving their opinion on the initial post, but with very little repeat posting or conversation turn taking.

71

Interpreting The Welland understanding conversation within online IGNforums 1 1

A

User ID2

2

13

3

Bot-IGN

1

22

4

HardcoreCarlos

1

3

MARI0Mound 5 4

1

4

xxXMANOWARXXx 5 6

1

5

doyleman7

1

Koelker12

1

O_T

1

Bolduk

1

6

3 7

3 8

7 8

No of posts

Name

6 9

3 10

9 103 11 126

11

Owlixx

1

Steimer-IGN

1

7 12 valvefti

1

13 EKGProd

1

13

Impossible2beat 3 14

1

14

Devildogs93 5 15

1

15

DrSpoq

16

DeltaNIN 2 17

1

17

Andruson

1

18

manaceand1

1

19

alehip46

20

2 16

3 18 3 19

8 20

TheDigitalFreak

A

1 1

1 1

1 3

3 3

2 4

4 4

1 5

5 5

2 6

6 6

1 7

7 7

1 8

8 8

1 9

9 9

1 10

10 10

1 11

11 11

2 12

12 12

3 13

13 13

B

14 14

A

16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21

22

scrgrubder

9 22

B 1

23

MuLzA

10 23

1

24

Skittrox

25

morecowbell24

26

Marxman3707

27

BadKotch

1

28

RedragonX11

1

29

Shadowaste

1

30

Ruiner720

1

31

Plateforce

1

32

efwiz

1

33

guillermo316

1

34

dragon_teenager

1

35

Johny_Joe

1

36

stallin4you

1

34 35

37

Snatch1466

1

35 36

38

Hatch87

1

39

class07

1

40

mccreadiusprime

1

41

d4ntesIGN

1

42

CHaoS-06

1

43

Rebal_NZ

1

44

bforseth11

1

45

shootsbrahcuzlaters

1

12 25

1 3 26 1

5 22

21 22

2 23

22 23

4 24

23 24 1 25

24 25

2 26

25 26

1 27

26 27

2 28

27 28

4 29

28 29

B

2 30

29 30

1 31

30 31

6 32

31 32 32 33 33 34

36 37 37 38

C

38 39 39 40 40 41 41 42 42 43 43 44

D 72

1 14

15 16

koyettsu

1

14 1

2 15

15 15

21

11 24

1 1 2 2

2 2

2

1

5 21

Adobe

44 45 45 46

4: Visualising written conversation

IGN A. Repeat post by participant 15 to provide an additional thought.

B. A number of ambiguous posts, undirected but linked by the same sub-topic of ‘scoring’.

C. A sequence of posts, linked with direct quotes or similar wording, but all from different participants.

D. Another example of ambiguous links around the ‘scoring’ sub-topic.

General comments A high number of different participants but no examples of repeat posting in conversational turn taking. There are sequences but they consist of different participants on the presumption that each profile belongs to a different person.

73

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

1 1

%

2 2 3 3 2 4 4 5 5 6 3 7 3 8 6 9 3 10 3 11 7 12 6 13 3 14 5 15 2 16 2 17 3 18 3 19 8 20 5 21 9 22

&

10 23 11 24 12 25 3 26

User ID

74

Name

No of posts

1

Lisa Harris (lrph)

1

2

David Albert (aslan)

4

3

John Schwartz (jswatz)

9

4

Mrs. Bigby Hind (jessica)

1

5

person of crevice (obizuth)

3

6

Ed Ward (captward)

2

7

uber-muso hipster hyperbole (pjm)

1

8

Science is the zucchini in the muffin (reva)

1

9

Lena M. Diethelm (lendie)

1

10

bill braasch (bbraasch)

1

11

Julie Sherman (julieswn)

1

12

Fan Fitter (fsquared)

1

4: Visualising written conversation

The Well A. Participants 1 and 2 post introductions to participant 3. Participant 3 is the reference of the topic so posts throughout the sample.

B. A question posed by participant 9, directed at participant 3, initiates three directed references.

General comments This is the only interview-type topic analysed. Participant 3, the interviewee, is involved in a number of turns as participants ask him questions on various subtopics. There are less undirected posts but a number of turn sequences based on participant initiated sub-topics.

75

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

76

5: Conclusions

5

Conclusions

There is a vast amount of text to be found within online forums, and from this text a participant or reader has the opportunity to gain much information on a diverse range of topics and social groups. The text within the forums builds a conversation between participants; it may consist of one reply to the initiating post, or many more replies consisting of sequences of turn taking with large numbers of participants.

The interchange between participants can be defined as conversation as it consists of turn taking and an exchange of words and thoughts, either as transactional (information passed as facts) or interactional (social) conversation, but it often consists of only short sequences, with a participant only engaging in one turn. These short conversations may be due to the forum interface or the way in which participants use it, by dropping in and out of the conversation over a period of time, and not staying logged-in to the forum, thus potentially missing their â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;turn at talkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

The conversation found within the forums is participant-edited under the constraints of the forumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interface and default settings, making it quite different from other forms of printed conversation such as transcripts of speech, or conversation found within novels and play texts. Participants may create their own conventions to mimic elements found within spoken conversation, such as using emotional graphics and address terms.

Where spoken and written words are constrained by the linearity of time, speaking or writing one word at a time, online forums can allow the participant to edit the conversation after the event. The written words within the forum may be placed linearly, but the conversational turn taking may not be linear due to the potential editing and overlap of different posts. This non-linear conversation requires the reader to read past, and potentially future posts, to interpret the text.

For a participant or reader to interpret the conversation they may need to understand the character of the other participants, but online forums provide 77

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

78

5: Conclusions

little information on this, and what information the participants give may be false. Their roles (such as an initiator or ‘expert’) within the conversation may change over time, and so can their engagement with the forum.

By visualising the sample forums, it was possible to see differences in the way participants were conversing, and allowed a better understanding of the turn taking. Comparing the visualisations to the post text highlighted a diverse set of use characteristics such as levels of participant engagement and off-topic threads. The differences could be attributed to the types of forums, such as defined or open topics, questions or opinions, or an interview; but even though each type produced a different ‘shape’ of conversation, the forum design and layout remained very similar.

To summarise, online forums are a rich source of information in the form of computer-mediated communication, but in order to interpret the conversation in a cohesive manner, a person is required to read the participant posts, potentially from start to finish. However, online forums appear to be designed for asynchronous interaction rather than for cohesive reading, incorporating more look-back features where look-forward may be more useful. The forums layout and interaction seems to be set by a conventional template, whereas people using them will have different goals and requirements that the template does not offer. By understanding how conversation is created, and how it can be recorded for historical interpretation, forum interfaces could be re-designed to produce a coherent account of huge amounts of information and opinions from people all over the world.

79

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums

80

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BarbicanTalk.com. (16th July, 2010). Cycling on highwalks. Retrieved 16th July, 2010 from Board index > Main discussion areas > Discussion: http://www. barbicantalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6822 Bickart, B., & Schindler, R. M. (2001). Internet Forums as Influential Sources of Consumer Information. Journal of Interactive Marketing , 15 (3), 31-40.

Big-Boards. (19th July, 2010). Rankings Section. Retrieved 19th July, 2010 from BigBoards: http://rankings.big-boards.com/?sort=posts Bronkhorst, A. W. (2000). The Cocktail Party Phenomenon: A Review of Research on Speech Intelligibility in Multiple-Talker Conditions. Acta Acustica united with Acustica , 86 (1), 117-128.

Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1996). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burkhalter, B., Cadiz, J. J., & Smith, M. (2000). Conversation Trees and Threaded Chats. Proceedings of the 200 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 97-105). Philadelphia: ACM. Cherry, E. C. (1953). Some Experiments on the Recognition of Speech with One and Two Ears. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America , 25 (5), 975-979.

D2jsp. (14th July, 2010). Port 6112 Probs. Retrieved 14th July, 2010 from d2jsp Forums > General Help > Port 6112 Probs: http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic. php?t=45176348&f=34&o=0 De Beaugrande, R. (1997). New Foundations for a Science of Text and Discourse: Cognition, Communication, and the Freedom of Access to Knowledge and Society.

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Donath, J. (2002). A Semantic Approach to Visualizing Online Conversations.

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Gaia Interactive. (13th August, 2010). About us. Retrieved 13th August, 2010 from Gaia online: http://corp.gaiaonline.com/about Gaia. (14th July, 2010). Twilight Saga-Team Jacob or Edward? Have a favourite character? POST HERE. Retrieved 14th July, 2010 from Gaia Forums > Hot Topics > Twilight Saga: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/twilight-saga/ team-jacob-or-edward-have-a-favourite-character-post-here/t.61578837/ Halliday, M. A., & Hasan, R. (1997). Cohesion in English. London: Longman Group Ltd. IGN Entertainment. (13th August, 2010). About us, in 140 characters or less.

Retrieved 13th August, 2010 from IGN Entertainment: http://corp.ign.com/ about/ IGN. (15th July, 2010). Sniper: Ghost Warrior Review. Retrieved 15th July, 2010 from IGN Boards > Gaming > All Games Boards > Sniper > Sniper: Ghost Warrior Review: http://boards.ign.com/sniper/b6305/193648453/p1 Lawson, B. (2004). What Designers Know. Oxford: Architectural Press.

Marcoccia, M. (2004). On-line polylogues: conversation structure and participation framework in internet newsgroups. Journal of Pragmatics (36), 115-145.

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Nash, W. (1980). Designs in Prose: A study of compositional problems and methods.

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Sack, W. (2000). Discourse Diagrams: Interface Design for Very Large-Scale Conversations. 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 3, pp.

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85

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

86

7

Appendices

Due to the personal nature of their content, this work cannot be published or reproduced under any circumstances.

Appendix 1

Forum screenshots

While researching online forums for this dissertation, it has been difficult to find historical screenshots. For this reason I have included the reference materials analysed in this dissertation, with a view that they will provide a printed â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;screenshot of timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that maybe useful for future work in this area.

Appendix 2

Forum text

The following spreadsheets are the complete post texts used for the conversation analysis within this dissertation.

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

The comments made in Section 3: Online Forums, required a thorough analysis of seven forum topics. The notes made, and accompanying images are provided within this appendix.

87

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Forum Screenshots

Forum screenshots

While researching online forums for this dissertation, it has been difficult to find historical screenshots. For this reason I have included the reference materials analysed in this dissertation, with a view that they will provide a printed ‘screenshot of time’ that maybe useful for future work in this area.

Note: only the first page of each forum is shown; for complete text see Appendix 2

Contents: • Adobe • Apple • Barbican Talk • D2jsp • Gaia • IGN • The Well

Appendix 2

Appendix 2

Forum text

Forum text

The following spreadsheets are the complete post texts used for the conversation analysis within this dissertation.

Contents: • Adobe • Apple • Barbican Talk • D2jsp • Gaia • IGN • The Well

Adobe Forums: Adobe Photoshop-Photoshop Macintosh-Discussions-Consistent Lag Opening Files, Ps Unresponsive Date/Time 27/06/2010 12:14

Mins from start 0

Mins from User Post Comment previous ID Ref 0 1 1 I get a lag everytime I open what seems like any file in Ps CS5, I can't move the window, can't zoom, I can't do anything for what seems like 4-6 seconds, is this normal?

Overall Ps is clunky like I make a move and nothing happens or it pauses, example I com+A, and go to paste it in another image window and nothing pastes (I have done this several times in a row and it takes 2-4 times to make it work).

27/06/2010 12:57 27/06/2010 10:08

43 -126

43 -169

2 1

10.6.4 all updates ran 8-core 14gb ram matching OEM 2600 video cards 9three monitors 2 Best guess is that you have a corrupt font causing some stutter/slowdown.

3 Thanks.

Would opening flattened .tif files, virgin .nef files in ACR (that contain no fonts) trip this behavior?

Also, I go back to CS4 and work on the same set of project files and Ps is its normal snappy self.

These are fresh D300 Nikon .nef and .tiffs are around 50MB (16-bit).

To describe it: I double click on the file icon, the Ps window opens with transparent checkerboard (or white background) and redraws in sections -- it likes to leave one checker board tile lower right window for last.

It seems like the pause is while Ps is drawing the image on screen.

One of the first moves I make after opening the image is click+drag on the top of the window to move it aside, and Ps consistently doesn't let me do that for several seconds until it finishes drawing.

And/or I Com+{ -- threes time to zoom small or large -- and the window sits there for several seconds, then it applies the zoom keystrokes (if it applies them at all).

This behavior is 100% consistent.

I mention these files because that is what I'm working on right now.

27/06/2010 13:14

60

186

2

27/06/2010 15:50

216

156

1

PS I have oceans of hard drive space available for OS and scratch...

4 Just launching Photoshop will cause it to start listing the available fonts, and if you have font previews turned on, creating previews of each font.

5 Thanks, I searched Ps Help for for: off font previews and hit [image inserted] I can assume they mean Ps> Preferences> Type: Uncheck Font Preview Size.

I did that and still have the problems (even on a 5mb jpeg) and my fonts look like they are still previewing: [image inserted]

27/06/2010 15:59

225 9.00000001

2

What am I missing, how do I turn off font previews in Ps CS5 (as a first step to troubleshoot the problem)?

6 You did turn off font previews -- your menu shows no previews.

27/06/2010 22:36

622

397

1

At this point, I'm not sure what could be slowing down Photoshop CS5 that much.

7 I disconnected my two extra monitors, that's wasn't it.

28/06/2010 09:32

1278

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1

Do you have any suggestions what I should try?

8 When 10.6.4 released a few weeks ago, I ran the Combo Update, Cocktail, Disk Utility> Repair Disk/Permissions (no problems).

I only have CS4 Master Suite and Ps CS5 installed on this machine (no older Adobe).

I have no extra Adobe plugins (except CS5 Font Agent Pro latest auto activate and for CS4) and no system haxies.

I set up Ps and OS very plain (default plus a few minor changes).

I am extremely busy right now but will try a new user at my first opportunity.

The problem is 100% consistent here in Ps CS5 and it does not exist in Ps CS4.

28/06/2010 15:12

1618

340

1

Any more help would be greatly appreciated if what I described is not normal Ps 12 behavior...

9 Unchecking Enable OpenGL Drawing in Ps Preferences doesn't fix the problem. [image inserted] Specifically, I open a jpeg or tiff over 5mb.

I click on profile mismatch screen.

The window opens, and I click drag on the top of the window to drag it.

28/06/2010 15:23

1629

11

1

Consistently, I can't get access to the window to drag it for 5 seconds.

I know because I have been timing it.

10 I just made a new user account and opened a 560mb flattened .tif file and a 9mb .jpg.

The problem persists, consistantly, the files opened snappy with the full image intact, but I can't click on the top window to drag it aside until five seconds. It seems like its is the layered .psd files that show the white or transparent windows and then the lag when opening.

29/06/2010 09:58 29/06/2010 12:57

2744 2923

1115 179

1 2

Is this five second delay normal, or am I the only one with this issue?

11 okay I thought this was a fair question but apparently I hit a nerve this is how CS5 runs seeing is believing 12 We're running out of ideas.

Nobody else is seeing it run that slowly, unless they have a buggy third party plugin or corrupt fonts.

29/06/2010 13:02

2928 5.00000001

3

That isn't how CS5 runs, except for somethign specific to your system.

13 Turn file sharing off.

29/06/2010 13:53

2979

51

1

14 Thanks, MO, file sharing is On on my 10.4.11 print server and the problem occurs whether it is mounted on my 10.6.4 desktop or not and I never work off network disks.

Chris, I am just trying to find out what the problem is so I can use Ps CS5 because so far it hasn't crashed on me.

I recall you said on other posts MM fonts were a problem in CS5.

I looked at FAP and noted AdobeSansMM was showing Auto Activated by "Adobe InDesign CS4 Plugin".

You may recall earlier I said FAP Auto Activate plugins CS4/CS5 were the only extra plugins.

I never used this font, ever, why is CS4 activating it?

Other than that (and problems with known CS4 Ps crashers), my System feels solid unless all that crashing in CS4 has fried my system.

29/06/2010 14:14

3000

21

2

30/06/2010 14:02

4428

1428

4

30/06/2010 14:08 30/06/2010 14:46

4434 4472

6 38

4 2

30/06/2010 14:58

4484

12

1

[image inserted] 15 I have no idea why FAP would be activating really old fonts.

And have you tried disabling FAP (and any other utilties designed to interfere with font usage in Photoshop)?

16 I'm noticing the same problem with both Illustrator AND Photoshop CS5.

I also have FAP. I think that could be the culprit(I'm going to disable the FAP plugin it if that fixes it).

17 Update: I removed the FAP plugins from PS CS5 and found it resolved the issue. This isn't the first time FAP plugins have caused problems.

18 Ok, we'll make note of that.

But please contact the makers of FAP and let them know that they have bugs to fix.

19 cespejo1158 wrote: Update: I removed the FAP plugins from PS CS5 and found it resolved the issue. This isn't the first time FAP plugins have caused problems.

This is great news, thank you.

I should note that the problem here persisted even though I had ZERO Font Agent Pro fonts activated.

I am one step behind doing the "fix" myself, but here is FAP support (how to purge FAP): Hello Gary!

I assume that you understand that by removing all components of FontAgent Pro that if you should decide to install FontAgent Pro again, you will have to reimport your fonts and re-create your libraries and sets.

To completely uninstall FontAgent Pro it's a good idea to start with running the uninstaller, which can be found on the FontAgent Pro installer disk image.You can download it here: https://www.insidersoftware.com/downloads/FontAgentPro4.dmg and the uninstaller can be found in the Tools and Support folder.

After you've run the uninstaller, you'll need to remove a few more files and folders.

First, remove the "FontAgent Pro Fonts" folder. That is located in your User Home folder. Move it to the trash.

Then, remove the database folder. That folder can be found in your User's Home folder, in the Library folder, and then you'll see a folder called "FontAgent Pro" (~/Library/FontAgent Pro). Move that to the trash.

Then remove the FontAgent Pro preferences files. Those are located in your User Home folder, in the Library folder, in a folder called "Preferences". There should be two files that start with "com.insidersoftware." Move them both to the trash.

And finally, remove any plug-ins that you might have installed. They should be in their application's Plug-ins folder. For example, if you are using Adobe Photoshop, look in the Adobe Photoshop folder and you should see a plug-ins folder. In there, you should see a plug-in that is named with FontAgent Pro or FAP. Move it to the trash.

You should not be completely free and clear of FontAgent Pro.

30/06/2010 15:03

4489

5

1

20 PS: merely removing FontAgent Pro Helper.plugin and FontAgent Pro.plugin from Applications> Adobe Photoshop CS5> Plug-ins cleared the problem

30/06/2010 15:14

4500

11

4

30/06/2010 16:34

4580

80

5

thank you very much 21 I've notfied insider software(the makers of FAP) about the issue.

I guess, for the time being, I'll have to deal with the lag unitl there is a fix.

22 For you to say that is bogus, lame and basically a LIE.You know that there are lots of posts of people (like myself) who are going CRAZY with this slow, lagging CS5.

Don't add insult to injury by trying to place to blame on us. I did all the same font recon and am in freeze hell with this version of PS. We are the ones who've spent our hard earned money on faulty software.You are tasked with trying to fix the problem. We aren't posting in here because it isn't TRUE.

30/06/2010 17:21

30/06/2010 17:51

4627

4657

47

30

2

4

Try not to be so concerned with being RIGHT and when faced with not knowing an answer please leave it at "We don't know". Telling Gator that it must be his system specifically is not the truth.

23 At no point was the user blamed. The problem was specific to their system, and any other system that had the FontAgentPro plugin installed (and maybe just specific versions of the plugin, we don't know yet). That's why other users didn't see the problem - they had a third party plugin that was causing the problem, and a plugin that most users don't have or install.

We couldn't reproduce the problem because we had no idea that it involved a third party plugin, much less which of the thousands of plugins was involved. We knew it was something different about their systems, but we couldn't figure out what was different about the user's system without the user's help. So the users helped figure it out, and another reproduced the diagnosis and workaround (removing the FAP plugin).

24 Deano, Chris never blamed the user.

He was merely trying to figure out,through process of elimination, how to find what was causing the issue.

30/06/2010 22:48

4954

297

1

Now that the problem has been identified, I'm sure either Adobe or the makers of Font Agent Pro address the issue and fix it.

25 Chris Cox wrote: any other system that had the FontAgentPro plugin installed (and maybe just specific versions of the plugin, we don't know yet) Here is the info on the plugins if helpful: [image inserted] [image inserted] I give Chris Cox FIVE STARS for his help on this this thread, thank you all again.

30/06/2010 22:55 30/06/2010 23:11

4961 4977

7 16

2 1

30/06/2010 23:26

4992

15

2

I will next purge/reinstall FAP and see if the mere presence of the plugin causes the problem (before Importing any fonts)...now I'm curious.

26 Ok, I'm dying to know why Font Agent Pro plugins have an Adobe copyright on them....

27 Yikes, I hope I got the correct FAP Plugins downloaded, installed dragged to my desktop and screen grabs posted - maybe I made a mistake - better check your own downloads and disregard mine.

28 You didn't make a mistake. I downloaded them myself and checked.

Yeah, they have Adobe copyrights on them.

That's.... um.... well.... I think I need a word with their programmer.

01/07/2010 10:03

5629

637

4

01/07/2010 14:20 01/07/2010 15:33

5886 5959

257 73

2 1

29 I can tell you that just taking the FAP plugins out of the plugins folder resolves the lag issue.

I did it a few times with both Illustrator CS5 and Photoshop CS5( I had noticed the lag issue in both programs).

30 OK, that's even more important. We'll have to note that for all the CS5 applications that have FAP plugins.

I 31 purged FAP from my 10.6.4 install by the FAP support method posted above (running Ps 12.0.1) and rebooted.

That cleared the five second opening lag where Ps is unresponsive.

I dragged the two CS5 Ps FAP plugins noted above back into Ps>Plugins and the problem returned (no other FAP installed).

01/07/2010 15:37

5963 3.99999999

6

01/07/2010 15:41

5967

4

6

The mere presence of the FAP plugins causes the opening lag I was asking about.

32 If I were to upgrade to Snow Leopard from Tiger, I'd first make an attempt to investigate how this new "fontworker" thing from Apple works. Since I'm staying with Tiger, I'll just stay away from fontworker.

33 [link] http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6126_102-0.html?threadID=358467

03/07/2010 09:13

8459

2492

1

Mac OS X: Snow Leopard - Fontworker System Daemon Slowdown 34 I just noticed insidersoftware just released FAP 4.120 with new version "CS5" Ps plugins within the past few days.

After purging FAP 4.0.3 from my 10.6.4 install (which cleared the problem), I downloaded the latest version and installed FAP and Plugins â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the problem instantly returned.

08/07/2010 13:37

15923

7464

7

I removed the new plugins from Ps and the problem instantly cleared.

35 Some members of this forum have reported a performance lag in Photoshop auto-activation when using FontAgent Proâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Photoshop plugin. With the assistance of these reports, we have developed updated Photoshop plug-ins that resolve the performance lag. We will be releasing an update of FontAgent Pro and the auto-activation plug-ins shortly, but if you are experiencing this problem, please contact Insider Technical Support at the link below and we will send you the necessary files and instructions to resolve the issue right away. [link] http://www.insidersoftware.com/SU_support.php

09/07/2010 02:40

16706

783

4

Thanks, Scott Stoel Director of Technical Services Insider Software 36 Thanks!

Apple.com: Support-Discussions-iPhone Hardware-iPhone 4-apple's in-store priority list Date/Time

Mins from start

Mins from User Post Comment previous ID Ref 0 1 1 hey, so i signed up for the priority list on monday at my local store here in NJ for the iPhone 4 and have yet to hear anything back. has anyone had any luck with said priority list? i can't get a straight answer out of anyone re:if the phones are even coming into stores, haha.

02/07/2010 12:10

0

04/07/2010 15:37

3087

3087

2

04/07/2010 15:41

3091

4

3

04/07/2010 15:58

3108

17

4

04/07/2010 16:20 06/07/2010 02:10

3130 5160

22 2030

5 6

06/07/2010 02:23

5173

13

7

thanks!

2 hi. i dont know which store you have the priority list in, but I know that people who ordered the 32gb iphone 4 from the menlo park apple store recieved their email to pick up their iphones yesterday. (if you are waiting for the 16gb, i dont know about that one). Hopefully, this means you and I will get these email soon. cross your fingers!

3 Same here with me too. I live in the UK and got put on the list on Tuesday and still nothing yet. I'm on a few store's list's and willing to travel.

If anyone has inside info, please feel free to share!

4 I put myself on the priority list at the Marlton, NJ Apple Store (Sagemore) on June 25. I got an email this morning saying it was ready for pick up. Too bad I had to cancel it, because I also ordered one from AT&T (on June 30) and it's scheduled to arrive here on July 6.

5 It took a week at the store in Miami.

6 This is annoying me as well.

I went on the list at the new Apple Store in Newcastle (UK) at 5pm on the 24th of June and have had nothing further to the confirmation email.

I called the store the other day and asked a few questions; Are you getting iPhone deliveries? If so, how many are getting delivered on average? How long is the priority list? How many iPhones did you sell today for example? None of these could be answered.

I dont understand the lack of information. How could an employee not know how much stock they have, or how many of a particular item they have sold in a given day?! I want to throw ÂŁ600 at Apple. I just want to know whether it would be quicker to do it in store, or wait the projected 3 weeks it takes over the internet. It makes no sense whatsoever to keep customers in the dark about this. rant 7 I went on the list at the leicester store on the 25th june for a black 32gb - i am still waiting.

Does anyone have any concrete info about stock deliveries?

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Are apple being secretive - perhaps they are holding back while they check out the antenna issue - or do they have production problems at their factory i.e. workforce protests that we read about in the media?? or am i being a bit paranoid??

8 Jon_L wrote: I dont understand the lack of information. How could an employee not know how much stock they have, or how many of a particular item they have sold in a given day?!

Better no data than poor data. I put my name in for an iPad a month or so ago. Called the store on Sat and they said I was #48 on their list. Two days later I went to the Apple store with a friend (new to Apple) to help him buy a MacBook. When I got home, I had an email saying my iPad had arrived there and I should come pick it up: #48? I ended up making three trips to that store that Monday.

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Phil 9 Went on the list June 30th and picked up my new iphone 32gb black on July 4th at the Peabody Ma store...I only waited 3 business Days 10 Put on the priority list on June 27 for a 32GB and received it on July 2 at the Short Hills Apple Store in NJ.

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E. It seems people are getting them fast at the apple store reservation list.

I'm hoping that's true. Although I'm going on holiday on Thursday and I know that'll be when I get a pickup email I went on the list in Menlo Park on June 27 and received an email on July 2nd that my 32 g was in.

"I'd like to check on my preorder I placed on June 15 please." is another term you could use and provide your ID to look it up.

I went into the Danbury CT store and place an order on the in-store priority list for a 16gb Black model. I received the confirmation email right away. It's been **** since. Checking email constantly waiting for the second Golden Ticket to let me know I can pick it up. The sales Associate said they were filling order between 3 and 7 days but it could be quicker or slower. THANKS. If there were a way to find my place in line even in an approximate, would be better than this silence. The other alternative would be to place an order on line and wait till next month.

Oh well I guess it will be here when it gets here, If there is a glitch in the priority list system, that could be a long ways away.

16 Same deal here. I was added to the priority list on June 27th and got the instant confirmation e-mail (about officially being on the list).

Nine days later? Nothing. Btw, I'm on the list for a 16GB in St. Louis.

This is not exactly what I would call good customer service. Delayed, backlogged? Sure, I understand. But over a week without any info. makes a consumer think she has been dropped from the stupid list. People have been getting them faster through AT&T! 17 i'm still waiting on my phone, i'm getting kind of annoyed about it honestly. it's especially irritating because 4.0 runs like absolute shite on my two year-old 3G. i used to work at apple, they really don't let the employees talk about shipments or what's going on behind the scenes. they're just doing their job in that regard, but i do wish this priority list stuff was better organised. i don't think the employees in the stores have access to the list, i think it's controlled by corporate.

18 this priority list is bugging me. i was put on it last sunday and its now wednesday. 10 days with no response. im starting to wonder if i will even buy the iphone.

19 I was put on the priority list in store at cabot cirucs Bristol (uk)on Saturday the 26th, I got an instant reply from apple to confirm I was placed on the list and that they would let me know as soon as the iphone 4 was in stock. It's been 11 days since then without a word from apple to say whether I have moved up the list, or a predicted date for when I could pick it up. Just not very professional from apple in my opinion.

20 Pardon my ignorance but what is the "priority list" and how does one get on it?

21 "Your iPhone 4 will be here before you know it." - Apple email More like - "Your iPhone 4 will be here, just as soon as you've given up all hope of finding out what's going on" 22 You can get on a 'priority list' by attending or calling an Apple Store.

It means you will apparently be contacted when an iPhone 4 of the type you want is available for you, and will be reserved for a 24hr period.

23 I went on the reserve list in leicester uk on the 25th june - i rang them today to enquire when they are getting any new stock in - all i got was a vague response. I asked when i might hear from them and i was told i'm in the 1st quarter of the list so should hear when stock comes in. When that is i don't know......i continue to wait ...zzzzz 24 Vicky, What does this tell you?

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" i can't get a straight answer out of anyone re:if the phones are even coming into stores, haha."

25 I just signed up on the priority list this morning (7/7) at my nearby store in Lyndhurst, Ohio (Cleveland). It was for a 16gb black. I was told the last shipment they received was 4-5 days ago. Hopefully the trend will continue. I will let everyone know how my experience goes...

26 Ooo, that sounds good for those of us waiting for our phones to ship. If that's the case, they probably will be having a round of shipping here in a few days. [:)] 27 I'm on the list at Apple store Walnut Creek, CA 6/30 the told be about 2 weeks for my Iphone 4 16 G 28 I added my name to the in-store priority list for a 16 GB black iPhone 4 last Wednesday morning, June 30, at the Knoxville, TN Apple Store. I haven't heard a peep since my confirmation email reading that I had been added to the list.

29 still waiting...

30 Ordered on June 30th Farmington, CT and still waiting for 32 gb.

31 Any word on your priority list 32gb from West Farms?

32 WHOA! you the lucky 1 of few to get a confirmation email that you were on the list?

Maybe it's just the fact that everyone in Texas wants an iPhone 4.

33 6GB Black for Palo Alto on 7/2 still no response

i never got a single email saying anything. No confirmation at all.

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******* ME OFF 34 I believe you are definitely supposed to receive two emails, the first confirming that you are on the list and the second indicating that your iPhone has arrived. If you desire to be on the list, I would contact your local Apple Store.

35 Could people please let everyone know when they pick up their iphone by posting a message here indicating when they were orginally put on the list and where.

This will help out the rest of us that are still waiting. Thanks 36 I'm from Texas and I got on the reservation list on June 26th and I'm still waiting. They sent a confirmation that same day and today sent me an email saying "I'm moving up on the priority list." Whatever that means. Hopefully it will be soon though!

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37 ok im on the priority list at the Apple Store in Birmingham Alabama I got the email that states I'm moving up the list BUT is there any way to check your standings on said list??

38 I got on the priority list at the Walnut Creek store too on 7/2, got a confirmation email immediately. Today (7/8) got another email saying I've moved up on the list. Just waiting for that final one saying that it's there...

39 Reserved iPhone 4, at Washington Sq in Portland, OR on 7/2/2010. They said 1week, I just got an email, today that said: "You're moving up the priority list. Thanks for your patience."

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It also said they receive shipments regularly and I will be notified when mine comes in [:)].

40 excelsis12 wrote: ok im on the priority list at the Apple Store in Birmingham Alabama I got the email that states I'm moving up the list BUT is there any way to check your standings on said list??

Nope. Just gotta wait like the rest of us. [:)] 41 Got an email saying I am moving up on the list with a link to cancel order. Not was I was expecting with the subject "A note about your iPhone 4" 42 ugh!! [:-(] 43 like wise and it's sooooooo annoying I was clearly hoping it would be the email telling me to come pick up my phone 44 excelsis12 wrote: ugh!! [:-(] Sorry for not bringing tidings of great joy.

45 lol its ok hopefully i'll have izzy the iphone by the 10th

Barbican Talk: Board index-Main Discussion Areas-Discussion-Cycling on highwalks Date/Time 30/06/2010 14:01

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Mins from User Post Comment previous ID Ref 0 1 1 Just wanted to ask people's opinions really. Having lived in the Barbican for less than a year I started to notice on a few occasions that the police patrol the highwalks on bicycles. Upon talking to one of the officers I discovered that a City bylaw allows emergency services to do this.

Now, maybe it's just me, but I find this rather confusing in a way. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have passed through the estate and seen the police cycling on the highwalks and if I hadn't already known, then I would have assumed that that meant cycling was allowed on the highwalks in general. Obviously officers aren't racing around or anything and I assume the Barbican is a fairly small part of the overall area they are patrolling so using bicycles is quite practical but it just doesn't sit well with me, as I see it as setting a bad example or at least leading to confusion among the wider public, who may well think 'well if the police are doing it then it must be allowed'.

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As a former teacher I'm well aware that in a position of authority it is quite easy to be undermined if you try and enforce a rule whilst breaking it yourself. Furthermore, the slow speed at which the cycle patrols are done on the highwalk would suggest to me that dismounting and walking would be just as quick (I was easily keeping pace with the last officer I saw cycling as I walked home) so I don't quite understand why this bylaw exists, apart from of course if there was some kind of emergency that needed attending to - as when the blue light vehicles speed through the streets, which is a different matter and I wouldn't argue that everyone therefore has the right to drive at high speed and jump red lights. Is it just me?

2 I completely agree, Caffeine. I had a similar experience a couple of days ago. The officer actually looked rather uncomfortable with the fact that he was cycling at all and appeared to expect me to have a go at him (I didn't).

I can't really see the point of this extra police "power". The guy I saw was also going very slowly. Walking would have sufficed - and allowed him more concentration to be vigilant about what was going on around him generally. In the event of an emergency, the idea of officers careening at speed around the podium creates visions of all kinds of accidents waiting to happen..... plus the fact that some parts of the podium have a very slippery surface designed to trap even the most careful pedestrian, let alone a bobby on a bike.

And yes it's the "do as I say, not as I do" approach to discipline - not one that ever held much water with me, either as child or adult.

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So - bobbies on podium not on bikes, please 3 See Paul Gilmour's posting of 16 January 2007 which I have copied below: [quote from another thread] Dear all, I have been asked to bring the following to the attention of residents after complaints were made at the Central Residents Meeting at the Guildhall on Monday the 15th of January.

I've been informed, the City Police have been given a dispensation from the local by-laws with regard to cycling on public walkways on the Podium levels of the Barbican, as long as the officer has been fully trained / accredited to Police Standards and is either on patrol or responding to a call.

Whilst this may seem unfair to some, the patrolling cycle squad officers are assisting the whole cluster with a higher degree of uniform presence and obviously can cover a greater area far more quickly compared to foot patrols.

I appreciate that this may cause some confusion when trying to explain to children that they are not allowed to cycle on the same areas, but I am sure that any parent will be able to overcome this by explaining that they Police do it primarily to assist in the protection of others and not for fun.

To date no complaints have been received about the conduct / manner of an officers cycling.

I do hope that this clarifies the situation 4 Thanks for that, as it confirms what I was told. It doesn't, however, explain why it is necessary to actually cycle on the highwalks rather than push the bike along and mount it again when off the highwalks, especially as the police officers cycle so slowly (i.e. at walking pace),and if they were cycling much faster then public safety might become a problem. I'm sure it makes a lot of sense to say to children, and adults for that matter, that they may not cycle on the highwalks but the police can because they are in authority. [:roll:] The way in which they cycle is not an issue, it is the fact that they are cycling in the first place and sending out a message to anyone who is not familiar with local bylaws, including people who may not live in the City but still cycle here, that it is allowed. As I said in my OP, if they are responding to an emergency then that is one thing, (although even then I can't imagine it is all that necessary) but the simple fact that they are on a bike, riding around, passing signs that clearly forbid cycling sends out all the wrong messages. Maybe in their attempt to make the public safer they should use a skateboard, rollerbaldes or carry a ghetto blaster too.

5 I encourage the debate on this subject and will raise the issue at the next Community Partnership Meeting.

Cycle Squad officers have been asked to assist Ward Officers with patrols on the estate to address priorities decided by residents and a number of complaints about: - Skateboarders and cyclists in front of Bryer Court, Postern and Andrews House - Youths throwing objects from Highwalks onto street level Whilst on regular patrols they cycle slowly and with experience on cycles throughout their duties are vigilant; they have the ability to speed up and to deal with people committing offences on cycles and others who decide to run away when they see a police officer approaching on foot patrol Police Cycles are equipped with sirens which are used in an emergency in a similar fashion to vehicles to alert members of the public that they are travelling at speed. On many occasions when this happens in the Barbican officers are responding to calls for people with chest pains and breathing problems as several cycle squad officers carry defibrillators and have the ability to arrive quickly.

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They are trained to a high level of proficiency as discovered by sceptical journalists from the Guardian and Evening Standard recently and able to deal with obstacles and weather conditions that may confront them.

6 It is not a question of fairness or safety, all things being equal I see no problem in the police cycling on the podium. They often have exceptions from byelaws for various things eg parks. However there is an issue of enforcement as Caffein points out, and as with a lot of these things it can be best to have a "zero" tolerance approach and cycling would undermine that. I do not see cycling on the podium as a problem at the moment so maybe this should be kept under review. If the police feel that it is unnecessary to cycle then on balance it would seem to me to be sensible to walk.

7 [quote] BARBICAN POLICE TEAM wrote:Whilst on regular patrols they cycle slowly and with experience on cycles throughout their duties are vigilant; They are trained to a high level of proficiency ... and able to deal with obstacles and weather conditions that may confront them.

Many other people who cycle are also able to cycle slowly, vigilantly and are able to deal with obstacles and weather conditons that may confront them. As I keep repeating, it isn't the manner in which they cycle that is at issue, it is the fact that they are cycling and if they chase after others who are on cycles, I would see this as undermining their authority if they caught up with them (to repeat the previous post). Perhaps therefore either the police should only 'get on their bikes' to respnd to an emergency and otherwise push them when in an area unsuitable for cycling, such as any footpath; alternatively perhaps cycling in general on the highwalks should be tolerated and policed only for the speed and manner in which the individual is cycling. Either of these would seem to make sense to me, being similar to the way in which driving is policed - either a road is private/pedestrianised and closed to public access or it is open but drivers have to keep to a speed limit.

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8 [quote] Cafine wrote: BARBICAN POLICE TEAM wrote:Whilst on regular patrols they cycle slowly and with experience on cycles throughout their duties are vigilant; They are trained to a high level of proficiency ... and able to deal with obstacles and weather conditions that may confront them.Many other people who cycle are also able to cycle slowly, vigilantly and are able to deal with obstacles and weather conditons that may confront them. As I keep repeating, it isn't the manner in which they cycle that is at issue, it is the fact that they are cycling and if they chase after others who are on cycles, I would see this as undermining their authority if they caught up with them (to repeat the previous post). Perhaps therefore either the police should only 'get on their bikes' to respond to an emergency and otherwise push them when in an area unsuitable for cycling, such as any footpath; alternatively perhaps cycling in general on the highwalks should be tolerated and policed only for the speed and manner in which the individual is cycling. Either of these would seem to make sense to me, being similar to the way in which driving is policed - either a road is private/pedestrianised and closed to drivers or it is open but drivers have to keep to a speed limit.

Last edited by Caffeine on 03 Jul 2010, 22:53, edited 1 time in total.

9 [quote] Caffeine wrote:Just wanted to ask people's opinions really.

Now, maybe it's just me, but I find this rather confusing in a way.

My opinion - yes, it is just you.

They are the police and they are undertaking their job which is to protect us. That they have special powers to do this does not confuse me at all. In fact, I welcome it [:D]

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10 I don't see what the problem is. There is an increased City Police presence on the Podium lately, partly as a result of recent complaints from BarbicanTalk posters and other residents regarding antisocial behaviour (kids throwing stones at flats, ducks, etc. and throwing shopping trolleys and traffic cones off the podium onto the road). It is sensible for the police to use a mode of transport that allows them to cover a wider area and to give chase if need be. They are trained to do this in a way that does not pose a risk to pedestrians. Personally I don't have an issue with people cycling on the podium so long as they are going slowly and carefully. Cyclists and pedestrians can mix if people are sensible. It is also a safe environment for kids to learn to ride a bike. I have even less of an issue with the boys and girls in blue riding around. They're there to keep you safe and you should be glad they are. There are very few areas of London that are as well policed as the Barbican. And in this case they are actively responding to reports from residents which should be appreciated, not discouraged. [quote] truk10 wrote:My opinion - yes, it is just you.

11 [quote] Calypso wrote:I completely agree, Caffeine. ...

So - bobbies on podium not on bikes, please

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Obviously I'm not totally alone in my views but thanks for sharing, it's good that we can at least discuss it and what a boring world it would be if we all shared the same opinions. [:)] 12 [quote] hunt4alex wrote: Personally I don't have an issue with people cycling on the podium so long as they are going slowly and carefully. Cyclists and pedestrians can mix if people are sensible. It is also a safe environment for kids to learn to ride a bike.

I totally agree.

13 I can understand why the police become vexed and frustrated when they hear this kind of debate from the public. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that there is any issue here at all. The prohibition of cycling by ALL of the general public on the Podium is clear and in everybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best interests. The Police are empowered to preserve law and order. It is widely understood that this allows them to step outside of prohibitions such as speed limits and vehicular access where appropriate. If a Police car gives chase to a criminal exceeding the speed limit, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no defence to say that the Police broke the speed limit too. If the Police feel it is necessary to cycle on the Podium then that is good enough for me, and I suspect, the majority of other residents. I would like the BARBICAN POLICE TEAM to know that I along with many others are hugely supportive of their efforts on our behalf and do not subscribe to the rather fatuous and, frankly, infantile comments made by some others on this posting.

14 From the police team's response it doesn't appear that they are frustrated but in fact welcome debate and discussion of this kind of thing.

I'm terribly sorry if I've somehow offended you personally as your angry post suggests, but I was simply trying to discuss the issue, air my own opinion and hear those of others and I am perfectly happy to accept if I am in a minority with my views. I also totally agree and accept about the police being able to be excluded from certain rules in an emergency situation or when otherwise deemed necessary. My question was whether it is actually necessary for the police to be mounted on a bicycle to patrol this area when not responding to an emergency and I thank the police team and others for taking the time to get involved in this thread.

15 I'm curious to know who has given the police a "dispensation" from the bylaws, and under what authority.

16 The Mayor and Common Council of the City Of London. Section 12 City of London (Various Powers Act) Act 1967. This notice is placed on a large number of locations throughout the Barbican.

17 I would prefer that the police walk their bikes around the podium and cycle only when speed is necessary, to preserve the idea of equality before the law, set an example, and avoid undermining the no cycling signs with very visible authority presence ignoring them.

But. If they say that it is actually important to their ability to effectively police the barbican that they be mounted at all times, such that they can accelerate quickly when necessary without the mounting the bike delay, etc... then I am supportive of it. The ideal would be the above, but not at the expense of potentially dangerous behaviour that could seriously injure someone, like shopping trollys off the podium, for the sake of appearances.

The idea that the Barbican could be allowed to slip into the slummy state of many other 60's estates is something we should be delighted hasn't ocurred; and fast, effective response to antisocial behaviour is one of the things that will prevent any chance of that kind of escalation happening.

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So yes. I understand the position entirely that thinks it's odd, mildly unjust, and a bad precent. I agree with that position. But if the police team have genuinely taken the time to reflect, think through whether it would impact them adversly, and have decided that yes, it would, I believe them.

18 a bobby walking about the estate is as easy as crime prevention gets on the other hand a bobby darting about on bike seams more like crime detection 19 [quote] Personally I don't have an issue with people cycling on the podium so long as they are going slowly and carefully. Cyclists and pedestrians can mix if people are sensible. It is also a safe environment for kids to learn to ride a bike. I have even less of an issue with the boys and girls in blue riding around.They're there to keep you safe and you should be glad they are.There are very few areas of London that are as well policed as the Barbican. And in this case they are actively responding to reports from residents which should be appreciated, not discouraged.

I totally agree. I'm also aware that there is a very small but very vocal group of residents in the Barbican who seem abnormally obsessed about cyclists, to the point of ignoring environmental and crime issues. I don't know what the cause is of their obsession, but we should be aware that they certainly have a very fixed agenda, and are not interested in taking a balanced view.

20 I'd like to see more policemen cycling around the high walks. The small risk of a resident being killed or seriously injured is more than outweighed by the benefits of crime prevention and threads like this.

21 I don't see why there can't be specifically marked cycle-lanes on the Podiuim: Most of the podium is adquately wide enough for both to exist in harmony. This antiquated byelaw that cyclists may frighten horses and cause ladies of a delicate disposition to faint needs to be brought up to date.

One only has to visit many European cities (Amsterdam, Munich, etc) to see that cyclists belong on demarcated lanes on the pavement and not the street. Furthermore the City's own statistics on fatalities should bear this out: How many cyclists were killed on the road over the past 5 years versus how many pedestrians were killed by cyclists.

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I should point out that I don't have a vested interest here - I no longer cycle, but as someone who once did, I share the frustration of many cyclists whose lives are needlessly endangered by being forced onto overcrowded highways that were designed for horse-and-carts, not heavy goods vehicles, motorcycles, and buses.

22 Last summer, when I went into labour very suddenly- the cycling paramedic who was the first to attend was delayed by no fewer that four residents telling her off for cycling on the podium. When she explained that she was attending an emergency, she was greeted with the response that she was 'going to cause an accident'. The emergency services deal with emergencies- of course they should be able to take what ever means necessary to get places at speed. Thank goodness I wasn't having a cardiac arrest!

23 [quote] barbigirl wrote:The emergency services deal with emergencies- of course they should be able to take what ever means necessary to get places at speed.

Absolutely - I don't think that's been disputed on this thread. [:)] 24 What about a flashing light to signal they are responding to an emergency?

25 I refrained from personal comments to this point. However having seen the post by barbigirl I remember helping her to send a message of appreciation to the paramedic concerned.

As your ward officer I have been at the receiving end of a telling off from a resident when cycle squad officers assisted me locating a vulnerable missing person that I knew. It is frustrating but something that we with deal with in a pleasant diplomatic manner and may explain why officers on cycles may look somewhat nervous at times whilst providing additional patrols to address antisocial behavour in the Barbican.

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In my previous message I did state that officers have sirens on cycles.

26 [quote] the cycling paramedic who was the first to attend was delayed by no fewer that four residents telling her off for cycling on the podium.When she explained that she was attending an emergency, she was greeted with the response that she was 'going to cause an accident'.

Wow...I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that. Will there be complaints about guide dogs on the podium next?

When I've attended community police meetings I've been stunned by the sheer barminess of the anti-cycling brigade, who seem to have no sense of reality when it comes to what the greatest threats are to our safety and comfort, as residents. I'd encourage those that support these innovative methods of policing to go to one of the community meetings. Sadly the anti-bike brigade, although small in number, take up an awful lot of time in the meetings. It might be good to have some voices of reason there.

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27 [quote] iposner wrote:I don't see why there can't be specifically marked cycle-lanes on the Podiuim: Most of the podium is adquately wide enough for both to exist in harmony.This antiquated byelaw that cyclists may frighten horses and cause ladies of a delicate disposition to faint needs to be brought up to date.

One only has to visit many European cities (Amsterdam, Munich, etc) to see that cyclists belong on demarcated lanes on the pavement and not the street. Furthermore the City's own statistics on fatalities should bear this out: How many cyclists were killed on the road over the past 5 years versus how many pedestrians were killed by cyclists.

I should point out that I don't have a vested interest here - I no longer cycle, but as someone who once did, I share the frustration of many cyclists whose lives are needlessly endangered by being forced onto overcrowded highways that were designed for horse-and-carts, not heavy goods vehicles, motorcycles, and buses.

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I think this seems like a perfectly reasonable proposal - I don't cycle in London simply because of fear of being in among such crazy amounts of traffic. If the lanes were not actually in the roads - and I too have seen cycles lanes work well on pavements in Europe - I would be more inclined to cycle around London. Who's going to break it to Boris though that his new cycle 'super highways' should perhaps be relocated? :wink: 28 Now I understand the argument. The problem's not that the police can ride on the Podium - it's that you can't. [:roll:] 29 [quote] truk10 wrote:Now I understand the argument.The problem's not that the police can ride on the Podium - it's that you can't. [:roll:] Actually my point is that either cycling is allowed or it isn't, rather than have police cycling around telling people not to cycle (i.e. do as I say not as I do) and giving the impression to others who do not know the bylaws or live in the City that cycling is allowed. I agree with iposner's opinion on cycling in London in general, and the idea of demarcated lines on the highwalks or on other walkways/pavements sounds like a sensible idea to improve the safety of cyclists and is relevant to the widening discussion on this thread.

30 Let's turn the highwalks over to cyclists and mobility scooters. Pedestrians can step out of the way as required or get a bike?

31 I'd like to see the police cycling more on the podium if it helps prevent local yobs from smashing up parts of the estate for fun, and from throwing stones and cones.

Though the eco-anarcho-warrior cycling fringe give everyone else a bad name with their childish pavement riding and light hopping, fueled perhaps by a self-righteous delusion that as they do less environmental damage than cars they have the 'right' to break other common sense laws, the idea that the rest of us won't understand the difference between police and public use of cycles on the podium suggests that we must be slightly thick. Is that really true of Barbican residents ? Well meaning and sometimes woolly minded yes (flashing lights, police cycle lanes, bike walking except in emergencies - get real folks) but I haven't seen any evidence of our living in thicktown so far.

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And as for the idea that the offenders are following any kind of confusing example - just take a look at some of the crowd who appear on a Sunday and you'll see that the only examples they follow are those of their peer group.

32 [quote] Attica wrote:When I've attended community police meetings I've been stunned by the sheer barminess of the anti-cycling brigade, who seem to have no sense of reality when it comes to what the greatest threats are to our safety and comfort, as residents. I'd encourage those that support these innovative methods of policing to go to one of the community meetings. Sadly the anti-bike brigade, although small in number, take up an awful lot of time in the meetings. It might be good to have some voices of reason there.

I assume that by "the anti-cycling brigade" you mean those of us who believe (a) that pedestrians would be safer if all cyclists obeyed the law, and (b) that the police should do more to discourage illegal cycling than they do. The truth of (a) is obvious; (b) is a matter of opinion, but people are not "barmy" just because their priorities differ from yours. I too have attended several of these meetings, and I have never heard anyone suggest that illegal cycling is a greater threat to our safety and comfort than (say) burglary, fraud or knife crime. What people do suggest is that the police ought to treat cycling offences more seriously than they do. (Which isn't saying much.)

33 Hmmmmmm.......as far as the Police and other emergency services are concerned, personally I wouldn't object if they used a tank on the highwalks. Attending an emergency, catching a suspect or simply preventing crime by patrolling on foot or bike is fine by me.

34 Hi Jake I'd be interested in your statistics about pedestrian injuries from cyclists in the City. It might give us a better idea of the threat we face, before the next meetings.

35 [quote] BJHappy wrote:Hi Jake I'd be interested in your statistics about pedestrian injuries from cyclists in the City. It might give us a better idea of the threat we face, before the next meetings.

All I've managed to find is this: [link]Casualty statistics in the City. This page says: "The main causation factors of the accident data attributes “turning right”, “changing lanes”, “opening vehicle doors” and “undertaking of large vehicles turning left across cyclists path”."

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So there you have it: 3 out of the 4 causes for injury are only applicable to cyclists, not pedestrians. Evidence enough that cyclists should be separated from other road users. Nowhere does it say that the main hazard to pedestrians is cyclists.

36 [quote] So there you have it: 3 out of the 4 causes for injury are only applicable to cyclists, not pedestrians. Evidence enough that cyclists should be separated from other road users. Nowhere does it say that the main hazard to pedestrians is cyclists.

All those statistics show is that more cyclists get knocked down by cars than pedestrians get knocked down by cyclists. Given that cyclists generally drive on roads not pavements that is hardly surprising. If cyclists switched to using pedestrian routes you might find the numbers change.

37 You're right Herr Doktor - but how many pedestrians have been killed or seriously injured by cyclists? My point is not just about the numbers of collisions, but the severity of injuries/fatalities that occur in any collision. A cyclist colliding with a pedestrian is unlikely to result in a serious injury or death - unlike a cyclist colliding with an HGV. 38 This seems a little like a false 'either / or' argument. Do philosophers have a name for these ?

I think cycling in the City is a great idea, but I don't like cyclist safety arguments being used to justify abuses like pavement riding and light shooting which happen a lot at the Beech Street / Aldersgate junction. Perhaps it's just a bad corner ?

I didn't exactly have a sedate cycling youth (Hammersmith roundabout in the pre-lights 80s was particularly bad and responsible for several deaths I think), but traffic levels were lower, and motor-cyclo-pedo intolerance felt rarer.

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Now we seem to have vociferous pro and anti lobbies laying in to one another that just can't be representative of the bulk of the population - can they ?!

39 [quote] Perhaps it's just a bad corner ?

It is a very bad corner. Cyclists approaching the junction from beech street find the cycle lane abruptly disappears, replaced by two lanes of motor traffic. And I've yet to walk by and not see at least one motor vehicle (2 or 4 wheels) stopped in one of the bike boxes, potentially forcing cyclists to move forward of the lights for their own safety. Pedestrians cross on red pedestrian lights in front of bikes much more than cars (because they know the threat is less). Traffic cameras do not record motor vehicles violating cycle space. The police have to wear high visibility clothing on duty when they monitor the junction, which means they rarely catch motor vehicles who break the law by using the bike box.

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The Corporation and TFL need to do a lot more to make the junction more bike friendly. Until that happens (at that junction and elsewhere in the City) I would suggest more tolerance to cyclists than is already shown. If they could cycle at podium level I'm sure it would be much safer for everyone concerned.

40 p.s. I hope Jake can come back with some stats before the police community meeting this evening. I think it would be useful to understand his perceived threat from cyclists.

41 Excellent - this is coming along nicely. Which side will get to the 'Nazi' reference soonest?

42 perhaps we should have a traditional City of London style penalty for those who rain abuse on each other on BarbicanTalk ?

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how about being tied to one of the piloti, then lightly smeared with whatever Waitrose have in their special offer counter ?

43 [quote] clearvision wrote:perhaps we should have a traditional City of London style penalty for those who rain abuse on each other on BarbicanTalk ? how about being tied to one of the piloti, then lightly smeared with whatever Waitrose have in their special offer counter ?

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I whole-heartedly agree. Let's start by tar and feathering the person who said I'm infantile because I'm over 20 and wear jeans (and probably look rubbish in them).

44 Ouch - the spirit of moderation runs free on BarbieTalk . . . !

I must admit that the infantilism word was harsh (and should be reserved for those over 30 wearing hoodies), so I apologize unreservedly if I've hurt your feelings

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I'm sure you look lovely in your jeans - but do feel free to pop along to the Wood Street Bar and Grill for a pint of Tizer and Lime if you'd like an opinion . . . [:-)] 45 I'm over thirty and have been known to wear jeans AND hoodie on a cold day Im afraid the genteel barbican may be overrun by ruffians like me if you're not careful man the barricades!

D2jsp Forums: General Help-Port 6112 Probs Date/Time 20/06/2010 16:20

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Mins from User Post Comment previous ID Ref 0 1 1 i dont use a router im using a o2 dongle, iv tried running as admin, turned off all my firewalls/defense on my laptop and i still get the error 6112 port settings/fire wall [<_<] idk how to sort it 2 Have you try just to open that port?

3 Quote (Yakir-SC @ 20 Jun 2010 18:29) Have you try just to open that port?

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There you choose if its UDP or TCP 5 Quote (Yakir-SC @ 20 Jun 2010 18:34) Start [-->] Control Panel [-->] Windows Firewall [-->] Exceptions [-->] Add port

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done that ^^ 6 are you at a university or a campus or something? Sometimes places like that block those ports.

7 Quote (stiffleronfire @ 20 Jun 2010 18:38) are you at a university or a campus or something? Sometimes places like that block those ports.

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done ports i could add a screen if it helps? [:D] 8 Quote (Mezzybaby @ Jun 20 2010 09:39am) no im at home.. its my own net but via a wireless dongle on the network o2 ^^

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would help if i knew how [:)] 4 Start [-->] Control Panel [-->] Windows Firewall [-->] Exceptions [-->] Add port

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no im at home.. its my own net but via a wireless dongle on the network o2 ^^ 20/06/2010 16:41

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done ports i could add a screen if it helps? :D you might have to forward the port on your router.

Quote (Mezzybaby @ Jun 20 2010 09:50am) i dont have a router. its a dongle?!?!?!?!?! sec posting screen ah, I misread your first post.

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This post was edited by stiffleronfire on Jun 20 2010 04:51pm 9 Quote (stiffleronfire @ 20 Jun 2010 18:41) you might have to forward the port on your router. i dont have a router. its a dongle?!?!?!?!?! sec posting screen tinypic down ?_?

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This post was edited by Mezzybaby on Jun 20 2010 04:57pm 10 [link]http://i45.tinypic.com/x3sio2.jpg oke screen sorry about warn so i cant post it properly.

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can some1 suggest a solution to that? ^^ 11 you need to open UDP port 6112 aswell, not just TCP! Make another instance in there named D2 and mark "UDP" and type in 6112 for port.. tell us if it works aswell [;)] 12 Quote (Aurastream @ 20 Jun 2010 19:14) you need to open UDP port 6112 aswell, not just TCP! Make another instance in there named D2 and mark "UDP" and type in 6112 for port.. tell us if it works aswell [;)] done + no same 13 [link] http://i46.tinypic.com/2mdpgsx.jpg [link] http://i45.tinypic.com/29cnq5e.jpg

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and i did change the ports -.- which is annoying so now what ?

14 [:(] 15 have u checked to see if u can join other realms?

16 Quote (IVIike @ 20 Jun 2010 22:49) have u checked to see if u can join other realms? no give me a mom i check ^^ /edit its the same

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are u running on a service pack? if ur using vista or W7 18 Quote (IVIike @ 20 Jun 2010 23:15) are u running on a service pack? if ur using vista or W7

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no, && vista i never had the problem before i was using a 3 dongle before so i think its my service provider im not sure [:(] 19 think thats the only way to port forward is via router 20 up 21 Quote (Mezzybaby @ Jun 21 2010 08:45am) up

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The only way to port forward is the router!

22 contact your isp and ask if they can help you with your issue ! are there no manuals with the broadband?

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23 Quote (Aurastream @ 21 Jun 2010 11:21) contact your isp and ask if they can help you with your issue ! are there no manuals with the broadband? nope, its not broadband its just a usb dongle /e doesnt matter

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This post was edited by Mezzybaby on Jun 21 2010 09:55am 24 [:)] up 25 try to follow this guide (from microsoft help) Open Windows Firewall by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Security, and then clicking Windows Firewall.

Click Allow a program through Windows Firewall. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Click Add port.

In the Name box, type a name that will help you remember what the port is used for.

In the Port number box, type the port number.

Click TCP or UDP, depending on the protocol.

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To change scope for the port, click Change scope, and then click the option that you want to use. ("Scope" refers to the set of computers that can use this port opening.)

26 Quote (Pablito89 @ 22 Jun 2010 23:17) try to follow this guide (from microsoft help) Open Windows Firewall by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Security, and then clicking Windows Firewall.

Click Allow a program through Windows Firewall. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Click Add port.

In the Name box, type a name that will help you remember what the port is used for.

In the Port number box, type the port number.

Click TCP or UDP, depending on the protocol.

To change scope for the port, click Change scope, and then click the option that you want to use. ("Scope" refers to the set of computers that can use this port opening.)

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done already [:D] 27 up... still not resolved :< 28 try to forward ports in your router, to login to admin panel type http://localhost in your web browser This post was edited by Promote on Jul 6 2010 01:26pm 29 Quote (Promote @ 6 Jul 2010 15:26) try to forward ports in your router, to login to admin panel type http://localhost in your web browser i dont have a router. its a dongle which has already been stated.

30 Quote (Yakir-SC @ Jun 20 2010 06:34pm) Start [-->] Control Panel [-->] Windows Firewall [-->] Exceptions [-->] Add port There you choose if its UDP or TCP Do both UDP and TCP.

Gaia Forums: Hot Topics-Twilight Saga-Team Jacob or Edward? Have a favourite character? POST HERE Date/Time 29/05/2010 19:46

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Mins from User Post Comment previous ID Ref 0 1 1 Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob? Maybe you want to swear your allegiance to another? Whatever your preference, this sticky is for you to post about your favourite characters in the Twilight series - or even your least favourite!

You can tell everyone: - Which "Team" are you on?

- Who is your favourite Twilight character and why?

- Who is you least favourite character and why?

- Which character is the hottest/sexiest?

- Which character is the least sexy?

- What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing?

- anything else you want to say about your favourite or least favourite characters.

Any topics posted that can be covered by this sticky will be sent to the Recycle Bin.

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Please try to keep discussion on topic in this sticky. Please do not bump or post spam, and most importantly do not flame or insult other users who may not agree with your opinions. Posts of this nature will be removed and you may receive a warning from a moderator.

Finally.

Now hopefully this'll cut down the amount of Team Character threads.

2 PS: Team Rocket 3 - Which "Team" are you on? Hm... toughie either team Jacob or Team Charlie for sure. ;D - Who is your favourite Twilight character and why? Jacob cause he's freakin' hot!!

- Who is you least favourite character and why? Edward,Vamps = Stupid - Which character is the hottest/sexiest? Jacob - Which character is the least sexy? Edward - What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing? Fav = Alice & Jasper Not = Edward & Bella - anything else you want to say about your favourite or least favourite characters. Erm other than Jacob is hot and sexy, nope!

4 Thank god fur dis, no more OMG [insert name hire] IZ SO HAAAAAAAAAAAAAWT! threads und 'TEEM [insert name hire] threads.

PS: Teem Agatha Heterodyne. team edward [biggrin] edward I [heart] Jacob [4laugh] Team Carlisle.

Im team edward [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] Team Seth [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] 11 Team Jacom 12 AngeIsThanatos: Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob? Maybe you want to swear your allegiance to another? Whatever your preference, this sticky is for you to post about your favourite characters in the Twilight series - or even your least favourite!

5 6 7 8 9 10

You can tell everyone: - Which "Team" are you on?

- Who is your favourite Twilight character and why?

- Who is you least favourite character and why?

- Which character is the hottest/sexiest?

- Which character is the least sexy?

- What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing?

- anything else you want to say about your favourite or least favourite characters.

Any topics posted that can be covered by this sticky will be sent to the Recycle Bin. Please try to keep discussion on topic in this sticky. Please do not bump or post spam, and most importantly do not flame or insult other users who may not agree with your opinions. Posts of this nature will be removed and you may receive a warning from a moderator.

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Tinkerbell223318~ JACOB JACOB< AWWW, GREAT GUY VICTORIA, JUST WIERD JACOB EMIT I DK I LOVE ECLIPSE!!!!!!!!! [heart] Jacob [heart] team edward [biggrin] alice, because shes coowl [biggrin] victoria, because she's evil [twisted] edward sam alice [heart] jasper/I [heart] twilight *sigh* I'll go along with this, but I doubt it'll really help. Twi-Hards don't care for stickies. If you don't believe me, you wern't in the Books Forum before this sub-forum was made.

Team Tyler's Van Tyler's Van - though, it didn't get mentioned much...

Everyone - exept Alice. Alice is cool.

None of the above Don't know Every single pairing...

Not really (_____/) (=0 _ 0=) (‘’)____(‘’) I likes da bunny! ☮ -Which "Team" are you on? JACOB! - Who is your favourite Twilight character and why?Seriously? I think question one answers that [3nodding] Jacob duh, because he's better then being crushed in a rockslide.

- Who is you least favourite character and why?Edward Cullen, because he can cause a rockslide when he hugs you - Which character is the hottest/sexiest?JACOB! - Which character is the least sexy?Edward Cullen - What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing?Edward and Bella [crying] It should be Jacob and Bella - anything else you want to say about your favourite or least favourite characters.No, just that Edward Cullen shouldn't be worshiped Team Jaccob or Alice 1 TEAM JACOB 2 Jacob because he's awesome.

3 Edward because he sucks.

4 Bella 5 Edward 6 Jacob and Bella(fave) Bella and Edward (least fave) 7 Jacob is flippin awesome he should've won instead of that stupid bloodsucking leech.

I am [heart] Team Jacob [heart] [4laugh] [heart] [heart] The only reason I have interest in Twilight is because of Jacob and the other werewolves. So yeah.

Team Jacob ftw.

JACOB FTW I'm gay btw

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23 I am SO team Jacob!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is so nicer than Edward and he actually cares about Bella. Unlike Edward who broke her heart. I say Jacob is WAY better!!!

24 team edward! [Biggrin] [heart] AngeIsThanatos: 25 Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob? Maybe you want to swear your allegiance to another? Whatever your preference, this sticky is for you to post about your favourite characters in the Twilight series - or even your least favourite!

You can tell everyone: - Which "Team" are you on?

- Who is your favourite Twilight character and why?

- Who is you least favourite character and why?

- Which character is the hottest/sexiest?

- Which character is the least sexy?

- What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing?

- anything else you want to say about your favourite or least favourite characters.

Any topics posted that can be covered by this sticky will be sent to the Recycle Bin. Please try to keep discussion on topic in this sticky. Please do not bump or post spam, and most importantly do not flame or insult other users who may not agree with your opinions. Posts of this nature will be removed and you may receive a warning from a moderator.

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Im on team Jacob!!! Ma least fav twilight char. iz bella. Ma fav iz jacob, Jacob iz da sexiest, edward iz da least sexi. Bella n Edward, JAcob rox nobody can say sumthin on top of dat hes got abs which i havent seen edwrdz.... [rolleyes] 26 Seth [heart] 27 team jacob rules! my fave character is Alice. least edward. i dont like him, he thinks hes all that. [Ninja] 28 Well, I LOVE Edward and Jacob! To me none is better than another because they are perfect together. I often compare it with the Beautiful, because it is confusing to decide who she loves and other things, (she loves Jacob SO MUCH MORE TO LOVE Edward). The character that I think is the sexiest Jacob, and a little Edward, the least sexy is the father of Bela. My favorite character .. I'm not! I like the 3!

I already saw the third movie, Eclipse! I loved it ..

29 - Which "Team" are you on? Team edward - Who is your favourite Twilight character and why? Alice she brings everyone lots of joy - Who is you least favourite character and why? Caius-super mean/besides alice, bella-original a good person - Which character is the hottest/sexiest? Jacob Black!

- Which character is the least sexy? Angela Weber/Rosalie Cullen - What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing? Bella and Edward/Victoria and Riley - anything else you want to say about your favourite or least favourite characters. ummm... no 30 JACOB IS HOTTER SO HELL YEAH XP [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] 31 team jacob is for sure! hes sexii and he is a wolf, u can pet him, nd he makes a GREAT pillow lol!! LUV U JACOB!!!

32 lets go jacob. but im kinda goin 4 edward 2 . [Stressed] 33 ok i made up my mind lets go edward 34 Which "Team" are you on? Team Edward - Who is your favourite Twilight character and why? Edward Cullen, because he is romantic, sweet and protective. Also, he is a vegatarian vampire.

- Who is you least favourite character and why? Jane, because she is a b*****. She hurt Edward and tried to hurt Bella.

- Which character is the hottest/sexiest? Edward Cullen - Which character is the least sexy? Rosalie Hale - What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing? Bella and Edward are my favorite and my least favorite would be Emmett and Rosalie.

35 lets go jacob 36 drummajor2011: Which "Team" are you on? Team Edward - Who is your favourite Twilight character and why? Edward Cullen, because he is romantic, sweet and protective. Also, he is a vegatarian vampire.

- Who is you least favourite character and why? Jane, because she is a b*****. She hurt Edward and tried to hurt Bella.

- Which character is the hottest/sexiest? Edward Cullen - Which character is the least sexy? Rosalie Hale - What's your favourite/least favourite character pairing? Bella and Edward are my favorite and my least favorite would be Emmett and Rosalie. i ike the way u think how ab we tal sometime 37 who like edward. Me

IGN Boards: Gaming-All Games Boards-Sniper-Sniper: Ghost Warrior Review Date/Time 07/07/2010 16:32

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Mins from User Post previous ID Ref 0 1 1 Article Comments for Sniper: Ghost Warrior Review [LINK]

by Arthur Gies

Comment

Summary: Shooter devotees desperate to find something different this summer might be able to scrape out something of value in Sniper: Ghost Warrior, but even the most hard-up gamer would likely be better served looking elesewhere. Read Full Article Date Edited:7/7/2010 4:35:37 PM (2 edits total) edited by: Bot-IGN

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signature: Please note: this is an official article comment thread.

It appears both on this board and on the corresponding IGN article.

Please stay on topic with your discussion. Thank you!

First!!! how does a 5.5, a 6.5, a 7.5, a 7 and a 6.0 average out to a 5...your review systems logic is flawed ign this is the same score I give to clowns that do nothing but snipe in all online shooters.

Did anyone else get really confused reading the closing comments section? You'd think someone would read these things through before posting them:

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"And yet... there are moments where Sniper: Ghost Warrior clicks. However, those moments did more to make me wonder what could have been with Sniper than truly appreciate what was there. Shooter There are moments where Sniper: Ghost Warrior clicks. However, those moments did more to make me wonder what else could have been with Sniper than truly appreciate what was there. " 6 I was hoping this would be a sleeper hit...

7 knew it bad developer they do cheap pc games 8 @MARI0Mound

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Dude it's been years since IGN has explained that their overall score is not the average of their sub-categories scores. Welcome to IGN. E17 9 doyleman's right. this, plus the transformer ds review =ign needs to start putting some effort into quality control. seriously guys. this is ridiculous. you'd think one of the biggest gaming sites on the internet would have some sort of quality control. your quality control is about as broken as this game.

10 @doyleman7 -- Thanks for catching that. We're fixing it now.

11 Another winner on Xbox.

12 The trailers for this looked great and I still have every intention of playing it.

Date Edited:7/7/2010 5:19:34 PM (1 edit total) edited by: EKGProd 13 marioumound go read the ratings guide you moron 14 what's with all these shitty 360 exclusive lately... did just sat in office one day and go "everybody write down your idea, and we'll make a game." "how about a sniping game?" "done. let's get it working people!"

15 I'm kinda shocked at how low of a score IGN gave this game. I bought the game and have enjoyed playing it thus far. Sometimes I don't get reviewers these days.

16 Also I should mention that the graphics are pretty damn good and reminds me a lot of the lush jungles in Crysis.

07/07/2010 17:48

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All said and done, it doesn't surprise me at all that the game borders on being trash.

19 I haven't played this game but am usually annoyed by games that are linear and force you to go in a straight line to finish a level.

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@DrSpoq how on point is the review? Is what Gies wrote in the article true and you just tolerated it for the better moments?

20 @Steimer-IGN kristine, maybe while your at it editing the review you guys at IGN could actually do something about the broken english spam bombs that are metastasizing like a cancer on every article this site publishes. I think its safe to say not too many people on here want bargain bin, sweat shop "coach" hand bags or jordans damnit. like some other posters have been saying lately.... quality control. IGN! 21 "when the AI isn't spotting you with machine-like precision in brush from 2000 yards away"

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To me this is a sleeper hit, maybe not an epic game but definitely a lot better than this reviewer is making it out to be.

17 If the author's first paragraph is true, then I'd have to assume this game probably got the rating it deserved. I haven't played the game though, so obviously I could be wrong.

18 I think it's as simple as people just WANTING this game to be the hit nobody saw coming. After all, how many idiots out there seem obsessed with being a "sniper?" On XBL, it seems like every lobby is destined to have some kind of OMGSUPERDUPERELITESNPR in it.

So true.

22 These ads are out of control, you have forum post ads, 50000 ads everywhere on the site, seriously IGN sucks lately I am really REALLY starting to hate coming here.

23 "when the AI isn't spotting you with machine-like precision in brush from 2000 yards away"

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07/07/2010 21:04

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Wanted to quote that again just so people can understand just how frustrating this game can be. And on top of this, you can be spotted from 2000 yards away and the shooting-from-the-hip rebels will hit you with pinpoint accuracy as if they're surgeons with AK-47s. When I bought this game I was hoping for a new and improved Sniper Elite. Unfortunately this game falls short. Does it have its enjoyable moments: yes. But all of the frustrating moments listed in the review (and everything listed in the review actually occurs in the game on a regular basis) make it sub-par at best. lol "text riddled with grammatical errors" that's actually a big turn-off for me, if the devs aren't going to put in the effort then i'm not going to buy it.

So I'll be buying this used at Gamestop for 5 bucks soon? Sounds good.

A 6.0, 7.5, 6.5, 5.5, 7.0 = a overall of 5.0? Just rate the gameplay a 5 (or the game a 5.5) so it looks less ridiculous next time.

Did you fail the 4th grade? A rating of 5.5,6.0,6.5, 7.0,7.5. Not only does this just plain look retarded, but if you used actual math and averaged out those 5 numbers, the overall number would be a full 1.5 more then your score. I'm not going to say your rating system is flawed or anything but...

I see what everyone is saying about his math. I played the pc demo and it just wasnt fun. There is not fun category above. If there were, it would be a 2 or soemthing because the game can be more aggrivating than fun at times and that just ruins the experience. I was really looking forward to this because I love sniping, but it was a complete letdown The overall score is not intended to be an average of the sub-scores. Quote from IGN Ratings Guide, "It's important to note that the overall rating is not an average of the five individual categories. We believe that no game will ever fit into a simplistic numeric formula.

Many titles are more than a sum of their parts, so the overall score is left to the judgment of the reviewer." Now apologize to Mr. Gies... on my PC Sniper Ghost Warrior looks better than ANY console game ever created!!

Runs at 60 fps 95% of the time Some dips into the high 40's

Gameplay is a very solid 7 Graphics...10...hands down better than vanilla crysis graphics 31 I wouldn't be surprised if this game is a bit better than IGN claims. Regardless it still doesn't change the fact that this is another entry on a very long list of games IGN hyped in their previews only to bash the final product. I guess different writers could be the cause, but I just wish the site would show more consistency. It is seriously difficult to trust around 90% of their reviews for that very reason.

32 SLI must really drop the framerate, because I seem to have a worse pc than IGN and it runs extremely well. Also, IGN need to be a bit more accurate with what they state as the approximate single player time from start to finish. They said 12 hours, I did it in just over 5.

This isn't the first game for that to happen either, and it may be quite misleading for those looking to buy.

33 @Marxman3707 IGN's overall review scores are never an average of the individual scores. Before the redesign they used to outright state this in every review. Now it's simply implied. that was a short review and no video its become clear if the compant doesnt sent IGN a FREE REview copy it will just make it an after 34 though and not even give a vedieo review. BUT NAUGHTY BEAR GETS ONE! just beacuse they pump AD MONEY TO IGN! =[ 35 I know the score isn't an average... but this just doesn't make sense.

07/07/2010 21:27

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36 How does this not make sense?

07/07/2010 23:17

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The overall package sucks, but if you look at each part individually it's not so bad. Good and bad pieces poorly constructed to make a bad game. Nothing unusual about that.

37 @Guillermo316

07/07/2010 23:20

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You are an idiot.

38 He's saying the score doesn't make sense because the writer tore the game a new asshole in almost every way possible. The review basically boiled down to "the sniping feels good but only when the game doesn't screw up, and everything else is mediocre to bad". I thought the same thing when I read it. I was under the impression (and I believe IGN beats it to death) that 5.0 is an average score.

Nothing about the review makes the game seem average.

Was hoping for a bargain hit here, but I guess it wasn't to be. I don't go entirely on reviews but if I'm going to be restricted every time I try to sneak somewhere forget it.

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Date Edited:7/7/2010 11:22:06 PM (1 edit total) edited by: Snatch1466 39 Snatch, I wouldn't say 5 is an average score. I would say 7 is more average. 5 is more like, don't pay full price for this, wait for it to drop to a tenner then you won't be disappointed.

12 hour campaign in quite good, even if it is sometimes frustrating.

Have to admit I didn't read this review as I have already read a few user reviews on Amazon so can pretty much guess what has been said lol 40 Too bad,it had some potential,but then again,what else can you expect from city interactive!

41 IGN's overall ranking for SO MANY of these reviews make no sense at all. None of the categories are ranked lower than 5.5 but the game gets a 5? The latest Splinter Cell gets 9.3 but doesn't have any ranks over 9 on it's checklist? HOW? I realize the final score isn't supposed to be an average but it should at least reflect the other scores to some degree. I'm sure the reviewers are taking more into consideration when making the final verdict. Things like dollar value and uniqueness or un-uniqueness. I think Ign should maybe add those categories that's all I'm saying.

42 6.0 7.5 6.5 5.5 7.0 and overall.... 5.0 !?!?!?!

This game is better than 5.0...

43 I'd say even a 5 is generous. This game is a piece of crap made by a second rate developer that either doesn't have, or doesn't want to spend the budget necessary to turn this into a good game. This is a shame really because this could have been a really good game. If you want to play this, then rent it or wait for it to show up for $10 or so.

44 judging by your final comments it shoulve got higher than 5 wtf. graphics look fine to mee atleast an 8 same with lasting appeal 45 No one thought this was gonna get over a 5 anyways did they? I mean a crappy PC sniper game......lets just add it with the others collecting dust in the bargain bin.

46 Played the game and IGN is actually being generous with this review. Framerate dips, screen tearing, invisible walls make this game nearly unplayable. The game is supposed to be about sniping, yet they make it impossible to take vantage points? I give it a 3.0.

The Well Home-Conferences-About this conference-Inkwell: Authors and Artisits - Topic 387 Date/Time 06/07/2010 06:16

Mins from start 0

Mins from User Post Comment previous ID Ref 0 1 1 I'd like to welcome our very own John Schwartz to Inkwell.vue.

John Schwartz is the national legal correspondent for the New York Times, which means he covers legal issues on the national desk. Before taking on that beat in January 2009, he was a science writer for the paper and covered things like shuttle launches, personal jetpacks and what it's like to wear a suit of armor while a Tesla coil sends an enormous electrical charge around your body. (It's frightening and cool, as it turns out.) He came to the Times in 2000, after 7 years at the Washington Post, where he had worked as a science reporter and a technology reporter on the business desk. He also worked at Newsweek from 1985 until 1993.

His previous book, "Living Terrors," was coauthored with Michael Osterholm and deals with bioterrorism.

John was born in Texas, attended the University of Texas at Austin, and is married to Jeanne Mixon. They have three kids, ranging in age from 14 to 22. Their home is in New Jersey.

And leading this discussion is David Albert.

David runs a computer lab half-time at a K-8 public school, where he teaches technology and research skills to children of all sizes. He also consults on statistical analysis, database design, and other technology issues for schools and educational organizations. He has never particularly noticed being on the short side, except at family party photo shoots when someone calls out "all the short people in front" and everyone in the family presses forward. He has one child who likes being short.

06/07/2010 07:14

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2 Welcome, John! And thanks for a book that I expect would be easy to read for many children in the target age range. Parents might also want to read it on behalf of younger children, both to help assuage their own anxieties about their children's height and to help them frame thoughts and ideas that they can communicate to their children as questions arise.

Perhaps it is because I am perfectly average in my own family milieu, but it never really occurred to me to worry about my height, despite being somewhere around the 10th or 15th percentile. I did notice when all my friends in my 10th grade class came back from the summer break 3 to 6 inches taller than I was, and stayed that way, but it wasn't a big deal.

Your book, perhaps, is written primarily for people who have significant concerns about their height or that of their children. In your book, you mention your parents giving you the option of taking growth hormones.

At what age do you first remember being personally concerned about your height, and was that concern true when you were among your family and similarly-sized people, or did it have more to do with your circle of friends?

In your research, did short people whose family was of about the same height as they were, indicate as many concerns about their height as those who were particularly short even within their family circle?

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Hi, David, and thanks for the kind words about the book. I became aware that I was the shortest kid in my class pretty early on -- it was elementary school. Not only was I small, I was slow and pretty feeble, and it all weighed on me. So it was somewhere between the age of six and eight, about the time we were all lining up to go to the cafeteria, and certainly about the time that the other kids in my class were jumping up to hit a pipe that ran across the hallway into the cafeteria. The other kids jumped up and hit it every time they passed the thing. I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried.

I was also the shortest in my own family, but that didn't bother me -even when my younger brother passed me in height, it just seemed natural by then, since I'd been so short for so long. When I realized that I was shorter than my grandfather, who had grown up in Russia, I realized that I was the smallest thing my family had produced in three generations. But nobody in my family made me feel short...

So we're really talking about the other kids at school. Most of them were buddies, but being called "Short Schwartz" was inevitable.

The point of the book, though, is that a little ribbing -- even some bullying -- isn't the end of the world.

07/07/2010 05:26

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4 I guess I had enough OTHER things to be teased about at school that height never came into it :).

I remember in college being amazed that I felt about average-height in my dormitory "house" (two floors out of eight). I have always wondered if they did it on purpose: the other houses all seemed to be populated by giants. Maybe they really did put all the short people together.

John, do you find that boys are in general much more concerned with height issues than girls? It would seem that short stature can have many more advantages for girls, especially in the sports that more of them gravitate to (gymnastics, dance), and even socially perhaps girls can handle being "cute" for longer in their lives than can boys.

Some small girls I know are actually very happy with their size: they enjoy being the ones who at age 10 or 11 can still sit on the shoulders of their friends, or get picked for certain types of roles in dramatic productions. But while I know some small boys who don't seem to care about their height, I don't know too many who actually prefer it that way.

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5 Hey John, I really enjoyed the book and think my 8 year old son, who is short AND interested in science will really get a lot out of it.

I think you can look at this as a book about shortness, which of course it is, and it addresses the subject from a variety of angles, but I also think it's a great introduction to analyzing scientific studies and how they're reported, regardless of subject matter.

Was curious to know more about how the people you interviewed enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) being included in a book directed at kids.

07/07/2010 08:24

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6 i really liked the book too! here's what i said on goodreads: [from another source] This isn't just a reassuring book for short kids, showing that short folks are NOT doomed to be unpopular, dateless, low-earning, Napoleon-complex-having neo maxi zoom dweebies. It's a great book about science and media literacy for ALL kids. If you read Short, you'll know what questions to ask when you see, say, a story about computer gaming causing delinquency or about vaccines causing autism. Who funded the research? How big was the research sample? How valid was the way the research was done? Can you track down the original research and see how it compares to the way the findings were reported on TV, in the paper or on a random web site? A lot of adults don't know the difference between correlation and causation, and a lot of adults swallow the latest alarmist study without looking at the body of research. This book's a great tool.

It's also easy to read, mixing the science with personal anecdotes from Schwartz's childhood as a very small kid in a very large state (Texas).

Big ups. *** my first questions: why did you think this book was necessary? and did you set OUT to do a science-and-media-literacy book for kids, or did it turn into that as you delved into shortness research?

07/07/2010 08:45

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David, I have found that, on the whole, girls mind being short less than boys do. For one thing, girls tend to be shorter anyway -- average height for men is about 5'10", while for women it's closer to 5'3" or 4"... but beyond that, height does seem to weigh more on boys. Part of it could be the importance of height in sports like basketball and football, and part of it could just be the body image notions that we pick up in life.

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Jessica, thanks so much for seeing my sneaky goal: this really is a science book. Science is the zucchini in the muffin. I figured that some kids would read the book because they want to know why they are short, but I'm hoping that they will finish the book with a better toolkit for reading about science.

I also think it's a book for any kid who feels different -- I could imagine a middle school counselor handing it to a kid who is NOT short and saying, "read this -- and come back and tell me why you think I gave it to you." I don't know if such things happen these days, but a boy can dream.

As for whether people minded, or enjoyed, being in a book for kids, nobody made a big point of it either way. Sometimes they talked about stuff I couldn't use, considering the audience -- a short buddy told me about the time a woman he met in a bar, and hit it off with, refused his offer of dinner because he was too short for her. His response: "But I've got an enormous penis!" her response: "I can't believe you said that!" and he said, "I can't believe you won't go out with me because I'm short."

Great story, wrong audience.

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9 As someone who's attracted to very tall women, I can assure you they have complexes as deep as very short men are alleged to have.

10 <obizuth>, I am going to pre-order a tombstone with the words "unpopular, dateless, low-earning, Napoleon-complex-having neo maxi zoom dweebie" on it.You have made my day.

I just hope they don't charge by the letter.

You ask: Why did I think the book was necessary? snide answer: college tuition for my kids. real answer: I was outraged by the FDA decision in 2003 to approve the use of human growth hormone for kids who are merely short, and don't have an underlying medical condition that causes them to not produce enough of the hormone themselves.

It seemed to me that the government, at the urging of the pharmaceutical industry, was turning shortness into a medical condition -- a problem that needed to be addressed. I wanted to tell the kids who are short that it's okay to be little, and that even though society seemed to have ratcheted up the pressure on us, we could stand tall anyway. <captward>, I haven't found anybody yet, male or female, without complexes...

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12 "It seemed to me that the government, at the urging of the pharmaceutical industry, was turning shortness into a medical condition -- a problem that needed to be addressed."

Am I correct in observing that the taller you are, the less your life expectancy? I like being 6' 1" but I also know that it is going to end my life a little sooner.

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13 Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I meant to be. I meant height-related complexes which often have physical effects like backache from stooping.

07/07/2010 12:03

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do short people live longer?

The answer is: maybe. or maybe not. Studies are all over the map. Anahad O'Connor of the NYT did a nice job of summarizing some of the studies in this piece: [link]<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/health/10real.html> New studies come out all the time that only deepen the confusion. But I like the ones that say I will live longer. Clearly, I am so short that I WILL LIVE FOREVER.

07/07/2010 12:52

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15 ahahaha, i am taller than average (for a lady person) but i intend to live forever by fueling myself with my own endless bile. was it hard for you to write the autobiographical stuff? how much other first-person stuff ahve you done in your career? what were your um social and family concerns, maybe? in writing this book -- were there any anecdotes you didn't want to share (either b/c they were unpleasant to think about or b/c you worried about hurting a friend or family member)?

There are lots of advantages to being short. There are also 16 advantages to being tall. And there are advantages and disadvantages to most of the differences that make us all unique. Life is, or should be, a matter of finding how to use what you've got to best advantage.

So your main point for writing the book -- horror at the FDA's approval of a drug to change one's stature purely for the sake of changing it -- is well taken. But do you see this PARTICULAR medical intervention very differently from all the OTHER medical interventions people engage in when they aren't actually sick? Is growth hormone more of a risk than a nose job or breast implants, or do you see the issues as very similar?

One big difference that I see is that growth hormone is often given to kids while they are kids, whereas most people wait until they are adults to get plastic surgery. But are there any other special factors that set your book's issue apart from all the others?

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07/07/2010 14:02

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<obizuth>, we all know that bile is the true serum of eternal youth. As for your questions: > was it hard for you to write the autobiographical stuff? how much other first-person stuff ahve you done in your career? what were your um social and family concerns, maybe? in writing this book -- were there any anecdotes you didn't want to share (either b/c they were unpleasant to think about or b/c you worried about hurting a friend or family member)?

Writing autobiographical stuff comes pretty naturally to me. I write a fair number of first-person pieces for the paper. Most of them are humor essays for the Mutual Funds Quarterly -- my next effort appears in this Sunday's NYT. But I've also written about my kids in more serious pieces for the Week in Review, Education Life and other sections.

Like this one: [link]<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/education/edlife/07notebook.html?> Over the years, I've dealt with the touchy issues of writing about family by making sure that anyone I mention in a piece knows what's coming and gets to discuss it with me. When I mentioned the decline of my family's clothing store in an essay for the Washington Post, some years ago, I had a long conversation with my uncle about it. He made a case for saying that the store was down, but not out -- and I thought he made a good point. He was happy with the story that got published.

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It helps tremendously that I actually like my family, love my folks, and feel that my life has turned out pretty damned well. That's lousy for a memoirist these days, but it means that writing about my past and my family is a relatively happy experience. In the book, I get to write about my older brother defending me on the school bus. That's a great moment.

19 David writes: >> But do you see this PARTICULAR medical intervention very differently from all the OTHER medical interventions people engage in when they aren't actually sick? Is growth hormone more of a risk than a nose job or breast implants, or do you see the issues as very similar?

One big difference that I see is that growth hormone is often given to kids while they are kids, whereas most people wait until they are adults to get plastic surgery. But are there any other special factors that set your book's issue apart from all the others?

I don't think this medical intervention is worse than, say, breast implants, and I make the comparison in the book. But I do believe we overmedicalize things, and figured that height was a very good way to introduce the idea to a young audience. And I do think that the fact that the decision to get hormone injections is made by the parents, at a very young age, makes the medical process more problematic, especially since we don't know the long-term side effects of the use of these hormones, if any.

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Reading with interest. And thanks for the pseud, John. ohh, love taht essay about sam/poncho.

So, how tall are you? now we're getting somewhere. also love the essay about Sam and the poncho I'm 5'2", and I'm the tallest woman in my immediate family, so I am following this topic with enormous interest!

26 I am 5'3", maybe a shade more. I used to be 5'4", but years of carrying two children on my shoulders and in a Snugli while tromping all over Manhattan lost me nearly an inch. This, by the way, was not a happy discovery.

Appendix 3

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Forum analysis notes

The comments made in Section 3: Online Forums, required a thorough analysis of seven forum topics. The notes made, and accompanying images are provided within this appendix.

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES  Figure A1: IGN participant profile images; top is participant defined, bottom is default

 Figure A2: A real (?) name within Adobe forum

 Figure A3: Participant avatar and photo signature within Gaia forum

 Figure A4: Adobe and Gaia employee and site moderator

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Participant profiles Forum analysis

Forum

Figure

Participants can represent themselves by an image or icon. In the case of IGN and Adobe, if they do not have an image the system will provide them with a default icon, whereas Apple will leave it blank.

Ad, Ap, I

fig A1

There are examples of a participant giving their real name as part of the post signature. It cannot however be proven.

Ad, B

fig A2

From the participant comments and profiles, Gaia seems to attract a younger audience.

G

Participants can create a personal and modified avatar. They are the same size, on a white background, but portray different features. The avatars presumably represent the participant character in the virtual world. The avatars can be changed at any time by the participant, so if returning, a reader may see a different representation. The avatars can be quite abstract, so it is difficult to know if they represent the actual participant in any way.

G

fig A3

Signatures can be used to provide additional information about the participant, from the computer they are using, to personal photographs. Signatures found in Gaia are often bigger than the post area.

all

fig A3

Participant names can be creative and may not be the participantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s real name.

Ad, Ap, B, D, G, I

Some participants add location details. This may provide other participants and readers information on post timings within different time zones.

Ap

Participant credibility

Key to table abbreviations

Forum analysis

Forum

The number of posts the participant has added to the entire forum are shown. This may show a reader how active the participant is, but may not be helpful in judging credibility.

Ad, Ap, B, D, I

Participants may have ratings to represent the number of posts they have contributed within the entire forum. The ratings are not just for the topic they are contributing to.

Ad, D, I

Site moderators or forum employees may be highlighted or distinguished from other participants. Interesting to note the Adobe employee does not have a user rating shown as the other participants do.

Ad, G, I

A participant name can be used to show credibility, such as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Barbican Police Teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. It is presumed that this participant is genuine due to the nature of the forum and the potential for participants to know one another in real life.

B

Moderator names are given at the top of each page. In this topic they are not participating but the presence of their name may indicate they are reading.

B

Some participants may add a signature to show credibility, such as a job title or job role.

Ad, B

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Figure

fig A4

fig A2

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

 Figure A5: ‘Attica’ post on Barbican Talk (06/07/2010: 21:25), defining participant characters from real life meetings

 Figure A6: Misleading participant characteristics; these people are not actively contributing to the topic on the Apple forum.

Forum: navigation & general search Topic navigation: pages, breadcrumbs, & next/previous topic Topic name (within post area): Question status, reply No., Last post, start time, & ability to follow

Participant details: Image, name, rating, post numbers, & participant registration date

Post header: post number, date, in response to, topic, post rating Post: text (& signature)

Turn space

 Figure A7: Adobe forum design elements

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Participant characteristics Forum analysis

Forum

There is no standard style of writing as each participant may be a different person.

all

The Well has clear Initiator and Informer characters as the conversation is structured like an interview, however the Informer character needs to reply to multiple questions from different participants.

W

Within some topics, the initiator and informers may have a continued dialogue, with the initiator repeat posting, and some informers contributing as perceived experts (e.g. Adobe employee and Barbican Police Team).

Ad, B, D

Topic initiated by a site moderator

G, I, W

The Barbican topic is a local conversation where people may know each other in real life – there are references made to Community Partnership Meetings. Participant characters may already be known by others.

B

Within the first post, an initiator may be asking for opinions from others. How can the initiator know the opinions are coming from different participants? One person could be using multiple profiles to disrupt the overall opinon/concensus.

B, G

A key participant within the conversation may attract many comments from other participants, e.g. ‘Barbican Police Team’ or the author mentioned in The Well. They act as a initiator throughout the topic.

Ad, B, D, W

Some topics have no perceived expert.

Ap, G

Participants with the most posts are highlighted, but are not necessarily participating in this forum. A misleading element of the forum design as a reader may believe the people mentioned are contributing to the forum they are in.

Ap

Figure

fig A5

fig A6

Page layout Forum analysis

Key to table abbreviations

Forum

A reader will only see a small ‘window’ of the forum thread on their screen, so they may need to understand certain elements of the conversation to understand it. This window may be at different sizes depending on the reader’s computer setup.

all

The posts are positioned top-down, with each new post being added at the bottom of a thread.

all

There is no visual cue, other than the timings, about delays between messages – they read as one continuous thread in a linear format.

Because all the comments are one after another, they do not illustrate a time lag when a post is made a long time after the last.

all

Each forum is split into certain elements: forum branding, topic details, navigation, and a turn space. Within the turn space will be a header, participant details, and a post area (sometimes containing a signature).

all

Where posts are not contained within a ‘box’ they have an appearance of a continuous text, potentially making it difficult for a reader to define turn taking.

W

IGN was the only forum to contain advertising.

I

Turn spaces seem to have standardized rules for spacing between them using a line, spacing or colour differentiation, but in the case of Gaia, the signature can cause variable spacing between the posts.

all

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Figure

figs A7A13

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

Forum: navigation & general search

Topic name: Question status, reply No.

Topic navigation: pages, breadcrumbs, search, last post, & next/previous topic

‘Top users’: participant postings

Participant details: Image, name, location, post numbers, & participant registration date

Post header: topic title, post date, in response to, reply & email actions Post: text (& signature)

Turn space

Quote: within post area

 Figure A8: Apple forum design elements

Forum: phpBB brand, navigation, sign in, general search Topic name Participant ‘moderators’

Post header: topic title, post date & participant

Topic navigation: pages, search, & next/ link to top (within posts)

Participant details: name, posts, participant registration date, location

Post: text (& signature)

Turn space

 Figure A9: Barbican Talk forum design elements

Appendix 3

Forum: links, sign in Topic name: view & reply numbers, ‘track topic’, breadcrumbs

Forum analysis notes

One example of the conversation placed on one page only, all the others are multiple page threads.

Ad

Background colours for the turn space are used to highlight the initiating participant (blue instead of grey)

Ad

Highlighting particular posts. An answer to the initial question is highlighted by a green band and a star with a tick in it. A useful answer is highlighted with a star and a thin amber rule next to the user space.

Ad

There is lots of white space, causing the elements to ‘float’ and making the page look disorganised

G

Posts are numbered sequentially

Ad, D, W

It may be a similar layout to Adobe, but Apple is the only forum to use alternate colour to differentiate turn spaces.

Ad, Ap

The participants are able to represent themselves graphically using an avatar or image.

Ad, Ap, G, I

Barbican Talk allows the reader to manipulate the view of the topic thread e.g. ascending or descending, and also by author (groups them in alphabetic order) instead of by post.

B

fig A14

Topic navigation: pages and link to top (within post area)

Post header: name, post No. & date Participant details: post numbers, registration date, game statistics & participant ratings

Post text Quote area within post text

Turn space

 Figure A10: D2jsp forum design elements Key to table abbreviations

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

Forum: navigation Topic name: Report, share and subscribe options Participant details: Image (avatar), name, online/offline. NOTE: switching sides during the thread

Topic navigation: pages Post header: post date, report and quote buttons Post: text (& signature), reply & quote action buttons

Quote area within post text

Turn space

Signature area, outside post text

ď&#x20AC;ł Figure A11: Gaia forum design elements

Forum: navigation, sign in, general search, advertising

Topic name: posted by & last reply Topic navigation: pages, breadcrumbs, & next/previous topic

Participant details: Image, name, post numbers, & participant registration date

Post header: topic title & post date Post: text (& signature), reply & quote action buttons

Turn space

ď&#x20AC;ł Figure A12: IGN forum design elements

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Forum: navigation & login Topic name: with ability to follow

Topic navigation: pages, breadcrumbs, & last response

Post header: Topic name, post number, participant name, post time

Post text

Turn space

ď&#x20AC;ł Figure A13: The Well forum design elements

ď&#x20AC;ľ Figure A14: Adobe highlighting an answer post using green rules and a ticked star.

Key to table abbreviations

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

 Figure A15: A clickable link to the participant who the post is replying to (Adobe).  Figure A16: A participant using a caret figure to point up within a post (D2jsp)

 Figure A17: Balloon post area originating from a participant icon (IGN)

 Figure A18: Quoted text is defined as a separate element within the post area (Barbican Talk)

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Conversation navigation Forum analysis

Forum

Navigation bar at the top – ‘breadcrumbs’ explain where the reader is located within the forums.

all

Initially the topic will show the first page, with an ability to navigate to the latest response, or to specific pages.

Ap. B, D, G, I, W

A panel in the beginning mentions if the question has been solved – but it is not clickable and relies on the reader understanding the key to find to solution answer

Ad, Ap

The post header contains date/time, and an indication of the participant it’s responding to – clicking the name (in blue) navigates the reader to the relevant post. Once at this post there is no method of clicking back to where the reader was originally.

Ad, Ap

There is an ability to share the topic on other social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook

G

A caret (^) is used as a pointing device, either ‘pointing’ to something within a posting, or pointing to a post further up the thread.

D

Ability to navigate to the top of the page. Note: this may not be the start of the topic if it has run onto multiple pages.

B, D

A search function is provided, but not specific to a particular topic

Ad, Ap, B, I

fig A15

fig A16

Within the turn space Forum analysis

Key to table abbreviations

Forum

The post header sits above the post text and gives information specific to the post.

all

Topic title is repeated within the post header

Ad, Ap, B, I, W

Postings have mixed styles of layout depending on the participant; some use tabs to break up paragraphs, and others use line spacing

W

Method of posting screenshot show the text is formatted to a template – quoting method seems not to be used, instead people use ‘@name’ Talk about default text templates including margins etc

I

Signatures are used by some participants to add additional information about themselves, or in the case of site moderators, their post.

Ad, Ap, B, G, I

Post area is shaped as a balloon originating from the users profile icon.

Ad, G, I

Buttons are paced in the turn space in order to participate in conversation

Ap, I, G

Participant profiles are separate from the header and post area. Gaia is the only one to alternate left and right alignment during the turn taking.

Ad, Ap, B, D, G, I

A larger typeface is used to differentiate the topic title at the top of the first page.

Ad, Ap, Ap, B, G, I

When quoting, using the forum default style, the quoted text sits within the post area and defined using a different design style.

Ad, Ap, B, D, G,

Screen shots are placed within post areas to aid understanding of a point

Ad

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Figure

fig A17

fig A18

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

 Figure A19: Post text being modified from the default (Gaia)

 Figure A20: Turn space dominated by participant details (D2jsp)  Figure A21: Short post text with ‘text speak’ and emoticon use (Gaia)

 Figure A22: Emoticon use within, and after, sentence structure (Gaia: ‘MizzMuzic9’, Fri Jul 02, 2010, 2.55pm)

 Figure A23: Using the ellipsis to promote further conversation?

(IGN)

 Figure A24: Sequential double post from a participant addressing two other people in separate posts (Apple)

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Participants add external links to other internet sites within their post area.

Ad, B, D, I, W

Participant signatures sit outside the post area and contain links to other applications – not all participants have them. They may distract from the posts and break up the flow.

G

A different participant avatar figure is often placed in the signature area. This may confuse a reader in who is speaking during a turn.

G

Post text may be personalised by a participant to add emphasis to the posting. The example also shows non alphabetic characters, such as parentheses, to portray an image.

G

fig A19

With so many participant details given in the profile area, it may reduce the ability to pick out certain information, especially if it dominates the turn space.

D

fig A20

The majority of posts use default text size, colour and alignment

all

Lack of ability to use emoticons means there are type uses, e.g. :) instead of J

W

Writing style and post characteristics Forum analysis

Forum

The length of the post is highly variable and varies between the different participants and different forums.

all

Gaia contains the shortest posts, where the style of the writing is often short and includes ‘text speak’, i.e. shortened or abbreviated words, often using numbers.

G

fig A21

Some participants use emoticons for added meaning after the speech act/sentence, within sentence structure or to add decoration or emphasis.

Ap, B, D, G,

fig A22

Emoticon found in a post with no accompanying text – depicting sadness that no answers are being posted – similar to a small cough in real conversation to get attention. This happens a few times in this thread when few posts are being made.

D

Examples of ‘…’ (ellipsis) being used at the end of a post – could this mean the participant is attempting to initiate further conversation?

Ad, Ap, G, I

fig A23

All the forums contain some cases of repeat posting by the same participant; potential reasons for this are: attempts to gain attention, adding a point to a previous comment, providing more details to a technical issue, or replying to multiple participants in separate posts.

all

fig A24

There is an example of a participant self-defining their posting as a ‘rant’ – they also highlight the word in bold.

Ap

Using **** to presumably sensor swear words – a reader may get an idea of the writers tone of voice if they saw this post.

Ap

 Figure A25: A participant presumably covering a swear word with ‘****’, giving a tone of voice to the post (Apple) Key to table abbreviations

Figure

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

fig A25

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES  Figure A26: A responding post with an earlier post time to the one the participant is responding to (Adobe)

 Figure A27: Quote time does not match the original post (D2jsp)

 Figure A28: Text editing after the original post had been posted, and another example of quote text time differences (D2jsp)

 Figure A29: ‘Calipso’ directing a post to ‘Caffeine’ by including the recipient name in the post area (Barbican Talk)

 Figure A30: ‘alehip46’ directing a post to ‘Steimer-IGN’ using the @ convention, but then using their real (?) name in the post area (IGN)

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Timing and monitoring Forum analysis

Forum

As more participants post to a forum there is more overlap of conversation due to the increased space between the participant posts – like talking over someone in real life. This has an effect on the turn taking characteristics.

all

Occurrence of post times being mixed up, with a later post having an earlier time than the one before it. This may be due to posts from different time zones.

Ad, D

Ability to track posts to the forum when not logged into the page (by subscribing to the topic or by RSS feed). This would indicate participants dipping in and out of the conversation rather than waiting for a reply.

Ad, D, G, I, W

Mention by the question owner that they are ‘extremely busy’ would indicate they wanted a quick solution, with the addition of ‘…’ to leave the speech open. When no replies are given to their multiple postings, they seem to get angry, stating they have ‘hit a nerve’.

Ad

Example of employee only noticing a point when it had already been mentioned before, earlier in the thread by a different user. This may indicate lack of monitoring the conversation.

Ad

There can be many comments in a short space of time.

G

A time lag can appear within a post. An example where the participant says to wait a minute, then edits the posting later to explain results.

D

There is a reference that all times are of the same zone.

B

Figure

fig A26 and fig A27

fig A28

Directed posts Forum analysis

Key to table abbreviations

Forum

Figure

Ability to highlight which post the response is replying to.

Ad, Ap

Some participants use <name of recipient> to direct a post to a particular person. But this is not the case for every directed post.

W

Examples of hailing a participant by stating their name at the beginning, or within a post, e.g. ‘I completely agree, Caffeine’. However, they do not mention which post by that participant they are referring to.

Ad, Ap, B, I, W

Forward referencing occurs at the beginning by mentioning a participant who has not yet entered the forum

W

Examples of not using standard quoting method. Users seem to use @ name or just say the name – this may lead to the participant missing a post in which they are referred (lack of notification, incorrect spelling or even using their real name instead of screen name)

I

A30

An example of a post being aimed at someone, but then somebody else replies – this may be a mistake of the aiming, or just someone interrupting. We find later that the same participant is again aimed at when they didn’t answer themselves.

B

A31

Problem with the ‘response to’ element in Adobe is that it can only be aimed at one person – what if the response is relevant to more? There are examples of reference to more than one participant within one post – this is also noted within Barbican Talk.

Ad, B

A32

When a participant quotes another using the forum default reply method, the quoted text is replicated within the post space area.

Ad, Ap, B, D, G,

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

fig A15

A29

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES  Figure A31: ‘iposner’ replying to a post made by ‘BJHappy’ that was intended for ‘Jake’ (Barbican Talk)

 Figure A32: ‘gator soup’ directing a post to ‘Mike Ornelias’ (then calling them MO) and including a directed comment to ‘Chris’ within the post text (Adobe).

 Figure A33: Ambiguous posting – who are the second and third posts responding to or aimed at? (The Well).

 Figure A34: Connecting undirected posts by similar terms; ‘flashing light’ and ‘sirens on cycles’ (Barbican Talk).

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Instead of direct quoting (i.e. copying quoted text), there are examples of mentioning the recipient name, e.g. “David…,” within the post text.

Another method used to quote text is add a > or >> in front of it.

These are user conventions.

W

Quotes to the external reference are signaled by “ ” marks.

I

Example of a double posting – one general comment, and the other directed to a particular participant. This is apposed to someone quoting or posting both things in one post

Ap

A24

Undirected posts Forum analysis

Forum

There are posts that reply in turn from a previous post but do not directly quote from it, making it difficult to know what the participant is referring to, e.g. ‘so how tall are you?’ – who is this referring to?

B, D, I, W

A33

Some postings can only be connected by the terms they use. They may not address the recipient directly, but instead use a similar term in each post. The term may not be identical, the reader is required to make the connection, e.g. ‘flashing light’ and ‘sirens’ between 16 and 4,

B

A34

There are a number of references to many people e.g. “did anyone else…”, and “I see what everyone is saying about this math”. It is difficult to decide whom they are talking to.

Ap, B, I

There are general messages to everyone reading. Could this be the initiation of a new sub-topic? Are people now replying to this message?

Ap

A35

A number of examples of people linking to the last point rather than a general message to the all participants.

Ap

A35

 Figure A35: ‘suttus’ post addressing ‘everyone’. 34th post after the initial topic post; could this be the start of a new sub-topic? Note: this is not in response to ‘Spencer Joy’ (Apple).

Key to table abbreviations

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES

 Figure A36: Statements by site moderators to keep the posts ‘on topic’ (top – Gaia, bottom – IGN)

 Figure A37: An off topic comment made on the first page – there was no ‘Team Carlisle’ mentioned so is presumably a joke from the participant (Gaia ‘Phoenix Luna Blaze Cloud’, Jul 02, 2010, 1:42pm).

 Figure A38: A post from the topic initiator, ‘Caffeine’, stating a post by ‘barbigirl’ is not being disputed on this thread (Barbican Talk).

 Figure A39: An external link posted by ‘John Schwartz’, and three posts later, a reference to the external link by ‘person of crevice’. There were no references made in the original post of ‘sam/poncho’. Also note the repeated question from ‘obizuth’ in the first post (The Well). Screen shot of the external link taken 17/08/2010.

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

Going off-topic Forum analysis

Forum

Figure

Most of the forums contain the topic title within the participant turn space, but the complete initiating post (the first post) is only found on the first page.

Ad, Ap, B, I, W

The Well topic starts with an introduction to a featured participant, initiating conversation from them. This initial post is detailing the topic but leaving it open ended.

W

There are points where the conversation stops – when an answer has been given and nothing remains. A new question needs to be asked in order to continue

W

As postings and participants increase, more questions may be asked, potentially opening new sub-topic threads. This seems to be the case with forums starting with an open opinion, open question, or an interview.

Ap, B, I, W

Sub-topics appear in posts referring to ‘scoring method’ and ‘quality of test writing’ (in regard to the original topic post), but they are repeated by new participants, making the same points throughout the thread.

I

A forum topic based upon a defined or open opinion, does not give the reader any indication of the overall opinions made in participant posts. A reader would need to read the entire topic.

B, G, I

Where the topic starts with a direct question, participants will ask the initiator more questions in order to find a solution, these questions remain on topic, with a clear goal.

Ad, D

Many posts are not answering all the questions, and are deviating from the initial posting, even though opinion topics initiated by a site moderator contain a message in their signature asking participants to stay on-topic.

G, I

fig A36 and fig A37

An example of the topic originator stating a certain post is not being discussed on this thread, would suggest some posts are off topic or there is a misunderstanding of the original topic.

B

fig A38

Cohesion and understanding the conversation Forum analysis

Key to table abbreviations

Forum

An external web link is added to give an example of a point. Some participants mention this external link in their posts, making the post unintelligible to people who have not reviewed the external material.

E.g. “ohh, love taht essay about sam/poncho” (participant spelling error). If a participant quotes from an external link, it may be a biased view, or taken out of context.

B, I, W

Abbreviation of previously mentioned terms (e.g. FAP and Font Agent Pro, or West Farms and Farmington) mean the reader needs to have read all previous posts to understand the abbreviation. Also references to older messages ‘You may recall earlier I said…’ do not point out where this reference is.

Ad, Ap

Some participant posts refer to a number of previous posts made by other participants, this may indicate they have a thorough understanding of the topic, and may have read the entire thread.

B

The Apple forum has a function to email a post externally. How would the recipient interpret this post without knowing its context?

Ap

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

Figure

fig A39

Interpreting and understanding conversation within online forums APPENDICES  Figure A40: A post stating ‘up’ from the topic initiator, ‘Mezzybaby’, presumably to inform ‘EliteAffect’ to read ‘up’ the thread as their solution has already been discussed (D2jsp).

 Figure A41: Two sequential posts from ‘Caffeine’, with the second being edited. The only difference is found in the last sentence where ‘public access’ has been replaced by ‘drivers’ (Barbican Talk).

Appendix 3

Forum analysis notes

There are examples of participants repeating already mentioned points, suggesting people are not reading the entire thread. The ‘scoring system’ discussion found in the IGN thread is a good example of this, as it is repeated throughout. The initiator of Barbican Talk states they are repeating themselves, suggesting participants are not understanding or not reading the previous posts.

B, I

Misreading the initial post seems to be a repeated theme throughout the D2jsp thread, with the initiator repeat posting as people submit the same solution which he/she has already said is not applicable; this suggests participants are not reading the entire thread. The initiator responds to some posts by writing ‘up’, presumably to prompt other participants to read previous posts, ‘up’ the thread.

D

Following a post from the initiator, stating the problem still remains unsolved, a participant replies to an older comment made near the beginning of the thread. This may illustrate they started reading the thread from the start in order to understand the problem fully.

D

Some participants will repeat the question asked of them in their own comment. This allows a reader to know exactly what the post is responding to.

W

Quotes may be partial elements of a post rather than the whole, making it difficult to find the original context. External quotes (from sources outside the forum) are also portrayed in the same way – the reader needs to understand these are not from within this topic thread.

Ad, B

Examples of posts being edited by the writer after submission to the forum. This may be problematic for a reader, as they will not see the original post comments and how these related to any related posts.

D, I

fig A41 and fig A42

A participant in Barbican Talk edits a post two days after posting, but includes the original text also; maybe due to a mistake, or to illustrate where they have made changes. However, a reader would need to study the post carefully to see only one word was edited.

B

fig A41

One post has been edited to include text from a post made after it.

This changes the flow of the conversation, and if read linearly, topdown, it will show a post from the future. It is accompanied with a participant apology stating they misread the first post.

D

fig A42

No participants repeat posted in the IGN forum to create any sequence or chain of conversation (one participant did repeat post but only to add a further point to their first). There is no conversation, past making single comments to create adjacency pairs.

I

 Figure A42: ‘stiffleronfire’ editing a post to include a quote from ‘Mezzybaby’, who replied after the original, therefore the quote ‘looks forward’ into the future (D2jsp).

Key to table abbreviations

all: All forums / Ad: Adobe / Ap: Apple / B: Barbican Talk / D: D2jsp / G: Gaia / I: IGN / W: The Well

fig A40

fig A39