POSITION
STATEMENTS
BRADLEY DILGER, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
CURRENT WORK
Right now I'm not teaching so I'm mostly helping folks learn to use our MOO
as a discussion space and for constructing texts in the MOO. My experimental
work in MOO has been on hold while I work on PhD exams, though I can't seem to
keep my fingers completely out of the editors. I'm also using MOO extensively
to prepare for Computers and
Writing Online 2001.
RESEARCH ISSUE
I've always believed the biggest benefit folks can get from MOO is creating,
customizing, and showing off their own stuff. Without digging MOO is nothing
more than a cumbersome chat room. To that end I'd like to see the MOO
documentation base continue to improve, and I'd like to develop (and encourage
others to develop) generics and other tools which make object creation,
description, and customization more possible.
BIO
Bradley Dilger is a graduate student who helps instructors and students in
the Networked Writing Environment use computer labs and networked systems in
composition and media studies courses. He is currently chairing C&W Online
2001 and working toward a Ph.D. with Greg Ulmer and other faculty at Florida.
TARI LIN FANDERCLAI, AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES
CURRENT WORK
I started out using MUDs with my own classes, back when I was a writing
teacher. Since 1994, I've been running Connections, a MOO for educational
and other learning purposes; see http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~tari/connections.
A couple of my favorite recent projects: I worked with Kali Tal of Arizona
International College, University of Arizona on her MOOseum Tools project,
writing a series of MOO tools that Kali designed to allow students to create
museum displays in the MOO. With Sharon Cogdill of St. Cloud State
University, I conduct five-week workshops for teachers who need help getting
ready to incorporate MOO into their classes. We call this project
MOOshop, and shortly we hope to expand this effort, as two more teachers have
agreed to join our team as workshop coordinators
and leaders.
RESEARCH ISSUE
I'm currently very interested in the development of practical, hands-on
resources for teachers who are getting started with MOO. I see countless
questions from teachers about help getting started, and I talk to lots of
teachers who tried MOO once or twice and gave up in frustration--which of
course contributes to the reputation of MOO as too hard or too chaotic or too
gamelike or too <insert your favorite negative perception>. I'd
like to see a lot more projects like MOOshop, where we workshop with a few new
MOO teachers on a MOO for a couple of hours a week over the course of five or
six weeks. Books and articles and web pages are important, of course, but
hands-on sessions that help teachers get comfortable in the MOO and work out
their ideas with other teachers are essential to help new MOO teachers have
successful first experiences. We've hardly ever seen a MOOshop
"graduate" give up after just one class, and even when they decide
they aren't ready yet, they don't blame the technology--they just say they need
more time.
BIO
I currently work at Akamai Technologies, Inc., doing technical
communications. Before that, I was a human factors engineer working on
applications for computer supported cooperative work. And before that, I
was a college writing teacher, which is when I became interested in MOOs.
I run the MOO Connections, and I'm a co-coordinator of the Netoric Project, a
series of virtual conversations for teachers of writing; Netoric had its first
home on MediaMOO and has since moved to Connections. I also continue to
do research in MOO-related areas; recently I discovered that I can get sent to
Hawaii for writing papers, and my future plans include milking that for all
it's worth. I live in the Boston area with my husband, Jay Carlson, and His
Royal Highness Van the Cat.
CLINT GARDNER, SALT LAKE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
CURRENT WORK
Currently we use our MOO to facillitate our online composition courses and to
provide real-time tutoring in writing for our students and the community.
My interests in MOOing are situated around making a user-friendly interface so
that novices can more readily access the
MOO without difficulty.
RESEARCH ISSUE
I believe that the future of MU* relates to access. The more readily
accessible MU* becomes for all the more likely they will continue to develop
and grow beca use of their increibly flexible (programmable) nature.
BIO
I am the Writing Center Director, and I teach composition here at Salt Lake
Community College. Over the years I have learned a great deal about the uses of
comp uters in composition classrooms, and as research tools. We have set up
this WWW site to enhance discussion of composition issues, to allow student
access to the Internet, and to encourage electronic Writing Advising. My
role as Writing Center Instructional Support Coordinator allows me to bring the
two seemingly distinct programs...tutoring and technology together. My
vitae is at http://www.slcc.edu/wc/people/cgardner.htm
CYNTHIA HAYNES, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS
CURRENT WORK
I am Director of Rhetoric and Writing at UT-Dallas and co-founder and
co-administrator of Lingua MOO. Currently I am working on a book called Beta
Rhetoric, only part of which deals with MOO theory, pedagogy, and
administration. I supervise a modest undergraduate writing program and teach
graduate courses in rhetoric, electronic expression, ethics, and digital
culture (all of which use Lingua MOO). I co-edit an e-journal,
Pre/Text:Electra(Lite), which is a WOO'd journal housing part of each issue at
Lingua MOO. I also host the Computers, Writing, and Theory listserv and C-FEST
(MOO meetings held each spring at Lingua MOO on various topics).
RESEARCH ISSUE
Although I am extremely invested in providing an easy and productive MOO
experience for our Lingua users (and for other enCore administrators), my
personal focus in MOOs has been on experimental design, theory, and pedagogy.
With the Xpress interface, I believe we have a solid system at Lingua in which
to explore the implementation of creative projects and creative teaching. I
want to help facilitate such experimentation. Specifically, I think we could
foreground ambient features more and in creative ways. I am tinkering
with ways to implement graphic novels in MOOspace and have a fledgling
collaboration with a group in Belgium who illustrate and write graphic novels.
I see MOO as a powerful research testbed in which to create, design, guide,
teach, and publish cutting edge projects.
BIO
Cynthia Haynes is Associate Professor in the School of Arts & Humanities
and Director of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Dallas where
she teaches graduate and undergraduate rhetoric, composition, and electronic
pedagogy courses. Her publications have appeared in Pre/Text , JAC, Composition
Studies, Keywords in Composition, St.Martins Guide to Tutoring Writing, Works
& Days, The Writing Center Journal, Kairos, CWRL, and numerous anthologies.
She is co-editor of Pre/Text: Electra(Lite), and with Jan Rune Holmevik, she is
co-founder of Lingua MOO. With Jan Rune Holmevik, Dr. Haynes is co-editor of
High Wired: On the Design, Use, and Theory of Educational MOOs published by
University of Michigan Press and co-author of MOOniversity: A Student's Guide to
Online Learning Environments published by Allyn & Bacon.
JAN RUNE HOLMEVIK, UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN, NORWAY
CURRENT WORK
Administrator and co-founder of LinguaMOO. (1995-present) Principal architect,
developer and maintainer of the enCore Open Source MOO Project.
(1997-present) (http://lingua.utdallas.edu/encore)
Author of the enCore Xpress Graphical User Interface to MOO.
RESEARCH ISSUE
Keep the technology as open and adaptable as possible. Keep up with
technological developments especially on the web. Provide easy to use tools
that new MOO administrators can use to make own systems flexible and
productive. Bottom line: Empower both users and administrators to the greatest
degree possible.
BIO
Jan Rune Holmevik is a visiting assistant professor and doctoral candidate in
the Department of Humanistic Informatics at the University of Bergen, Norway.
He holds a Cand. Philol. degree in the history of science and technology from
the University of Trondheim, Norway 1994. He is co-editor of "High Wired:
On the Design Use and Theory of Educational MOOs", University of Michigan
Press, 1998, and co-author of "MOOniversity: A Guide to Virtual Learning
Environments", forthcoming from Allyn and Bacon, 2000, both with Dr.
Cynthia Haynes of the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). His MA thesis,
"Educating the Machine: A Study in the History of Computing and the
Construction of the SIMULA Programming Languages", was published by the
Center for Technology and Society, Trondheim, Norway in 1994. In his
dissertation, "The Digital Factor(y): Collaborative Socio-technical
Development on the Internet", Holmevik studies the processes by which
technology is collaboratively constructed in online environments. His other
publications on history of computing and science policy have appeared in
journals such as "Annals of the History of Computing" and
"Forskningspolitikk", and "Kairos".
STEVEN E. JONES, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
CURRENT WORK
Romantic Circles (http://www.rc.umd.edu)
is a collaborative, peer-reviewed res earch Website published by the University
of Maryland serving an international c ommunity of scholars of romantic-period
literature and culture. With the help of a $130,000 grant from the NEH the site
is building a special section devoted to high-school literary education (http://www.rc.umd.edu/rchs), the center
of which is a collabor ative MOOspace. One of its pedagogical goals is
explicitly constructivist: to g et students to make new knowledge by using both
inherited literary texts and their own writing as building material in the MOO.
RESEARCH ISSUE
ONE issue in the future of educational MU* will be the problem of the (un)cool
: the real and perceived) anachronisms of MU*-ing in the era of 3D graphical
vir tual worlds. Why MU* at all in the future? In what form(s), and what role
if anywill writing and archival texts play in such forms?
BIO
Steven Jones teaches Romantic-period literature and culture as well as textual
studies (including digital textuality). He has published on Byron, the Shelleys
, satiric writing, radical culture, and textual studies, among other things. He
edits the letter press "Keats-Shelley Journal" and co-edits Romantic
Circles, http://www.luc.edu/faculty/sjones1.
LINDA POLIN, PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY
CURRENT WORK
Pepperdine runs an online M.A. in educational technology that makes extensive
use of Tapped In MOO for online discussions. The doctoral program in ed tech
leadership also uses Tapped In for online seminars. I fell into MOOs back in
'92 at an MIT conference, and immediately joined LambdaMOO and PurpleCrayon. I
was also a productive citizen at PointMOOt, OpalMOO, and DU MOO. For a couple
of years I was arch-wizard in our own MOO core, el MOOndo, which is still
limping along, though we've since moved most of our action to TappedIn for the
24/7/365 support.
RESEARCH ISSUE
I'm pursuing three related issues I think are important. One is the value
added, or not, of 'place.' That is, does it matter, and how, if a group chat
takes place in a landscaped, object-filled MOO instead of a empty 'chat' room
like AOL offers. I've been looking at people's impromtu and intentional uses of
props and locale in online class seminars at Tapped In (a dressed up LambdaMOO
core). I'm also very interested in trying to track the actual joint
construction of ideas in MOO seminar sessions. In this issue, I'm looking at the
value-added of text-based talk and of the turn-taking constraints in MOO chat.
While I first thought of this in comparison with face-to-face traditional
classroom talk, I'm starting to think it's something different, more akin to a
group version of the dialogue journal in its function (Staton, Shuy, Peyton,
& Reed, 1988). Millions of years ago I did research on composition theory,
which may turn out to be useful yet again as I look at 'writing as thinking' in
MOO spaces. Thirdly, I'm interested in how a community space, such as a
well-inhabited and formally-commissioned MOO supports a socio-cultural model of
learning. I believe it does and am working to identify features or
'affordances' of MOO space that accomplish that. These issues all strike me as
important as we work to create and support online environments for
collaborative work and learning.
BIO
Dr. Linda Polin is a professor of education at Pepperdine University's Graduate
School of Education and Psychology where she directs the Master of Arts programs
in teaching and in educational technology. She is largely responsible for the
WASC-approved online MA in Educational Technology, which enrolls students from
across the United States. She teaches graduate courses in learning, technology,
and design, as well as in research methods. Dr. Polin consults with
school districts and software developers, an d in a prior life, produced two
commercial multimedia packages high school literature and writing. Dr. Polin is
deeply involved in research and development of networked learning communities
in intranet and Internet settings.
MARK SCHLAGER, TAPPED IN, SRI .
CURRENT WORK
TAPPED IN (http://www.tappedin.org)
is a Web-based multi-user virtual environment that supports synchronous and
asynchronous collaboration on-line. The environment is designed around
the familiar metaphor of a conference center with private rooms for individual
groups and open areas for public gatherings and events. TAPPED IN is a
fully extensible and customizable environment with web page and text document
sharing, whiteboards, and other capabilities that facilitate dialogue and
sharing of information in real time and asynchronously. TAPPED IN's
architectural metaphor provides a straightforward, easy-to-navigate way to
organize and access people and resources. Since the virtual doors of
TAPPED IN opened in 1997, it has become the on-line home to a community of more
than 9,000 K-12 teachers, teacher education faculty, professional development
staff, researchers, and other education professionals.
RESEARCH ISSUE
When we set out 4 years ago, we were convinced that a commercial MUVE
development platform that would meet our design requirements was just around
the corner. Despite a great deal of development in labs and by commercial
developers, no MUVE platform today meets what we (and most TPD practitioner
organizations that we talk to) believe are the requirements for an online
education community of practice (CoP). The MOO server architecture is a
closed, single-threaded, text-based system that was not designed to support
some of the capabilities that our research has found to be central to our
ability to extend our online CoP framework. If we continue our research
on this platform, technology limitations will constrain our efforts to develop
guideposts to the future. To continue to conduct leading-edge research, we must
shed the limitations of the MOO platform, retain the capabilities that we have
found useful, and build on more powerful, flexible, and scalable technologies.
BIO
Dr. Mark Schlager, Director of TAPPED IN, is a Senior Cognitive Scientist &
Associate Director of Learning Communities in SRI International's Center for
Technology in Learning. Dr. Schlager specializes in the application of
cognitive and social learning theory to the development of educational
technology. His current research focuses on the development of
community-based pedagogies and on-line technologies for teacher professional
development. Dr. Schlager earned his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the
University of Colorado, Boulder, and a B.A. in psychology from Temple
University. He is a member of the American Educational Research
Association and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on
Computer-Human Interaction.
Amy says, "well, I'll get us started"
mday cheers.
Amy says, "I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight"
Snickity slurps his fish sauce
Amy says, "this is a GREAT crowd"
stevej listens up
mday agrees'
Tomoe puts the phone down.
Amy says, "and I'd particularly like to thank our distinguished guests"
SCog applauds.
Stuart cheers
stevej blushes
John-W hoots.
Clooluss looks around for distinguished guests
SCog grins.
Tomoe snurfs her coffee
stevej grins
Cynthia-H smiles and nods
Amy says, "who have taken time out of very busy schedules to share their experiences with us"
JaniceW makes an old person noise.
Stuart giggle
mday clapses
Green_Guest waves
JaniceW waves to Green_Guest.
Amy says, "here's the plan: first I'll ask our guests to introduce themselves"
Amy says, "then mday and I will each ask them a question"
Amy says, "then we'll take a couple questions from everyone else"
Cyan_Guest waves
Amy says, "and then we'll invite everyone to respond"
mday hoorays
Bradley wonders if there will be a log or transcript somewhere?
Cyan_Guest says, "Cyan Guest is me--Lennie"
Shaan says, "Yes, I am taking one"
mday nods, there will be
Amy says, "so with that...."
Shaan says, "the transcript will be posted at the MediaMOO web site"
Ken sits cross-legged on the floor.
Ken says, "hi"
Amy says, "will our invited guests please introduce themselves and say a word or two about what they do in the field of educational MU*s?"
Tomoe looks at her shoes
stevej says, "who should start?"
Jan says, "I am Jan Rune Holmevik, Dept. of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen, Norway. I'm the maintainer of the enCore open source MOO project"
Amy [to stevej]: you can all talk at once :-)
Tomoe claps
mday waves to Tiger
Tiger waves to Bill
mday grins, that's right. We share the floor
Tiger waves to everyone
stevej says, "I'm steve jones, director of Romantic Circles high School, an NEH project."
Cynthia-H says, "I'm Cynthia Haynes, UT-Dallas Dir of Rhetoric and co-creator of Lingua MOO and enCore"
Mauve_Guest says, "Hi"
SCog . o O ( hi, jan and cynthia! )
mday gulps his Bass Ale.
Bradley is Bradley Dilger, from the University of Florida, and I hack on MOOville, the NWE, and other fun stuff.
Clooluss says, "Hi, I'm Mark Schlager, Senior Cognitive Scientist in SRI's Center for Technology in Learning and TAPPED IN administrator. In real life I conduct research on collaborative learning and online communities in education"
Snickity says, "I am Clint Gardner from Salt Lake Community College. I coordinate a writing center MOO which we use to talk to writing students and teach online composition courses. I'm also very interested in MOO interface design."
Cynthia-H [to SCog]: hey :)
Ben [to Bill]: nice look notify, bill
swb sits cross-legged on the floor.
Tomoe says, "I am Linda Polin, Prof of Ed. at Pepperdine Univ. Grad School of Ed., California. and I use MOOs for online/dist ed and am interested in communities as learning places."
Tomoe waves to mark
Ben is going to imagine Bill like Phil Hartman in News Radio
mday waves to swb and ben!
Tari says, "I'm Tari Fanderclai; i run the MOO connections and work on some other MOO projects"
Tari says, "and stuff"
Clooluss hugs Tomoe
Amy says, "we have a group here with a wonderful range of experience in this field, and I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say"
JaniceW is Janice Walker, Georgia Southern University--nobody important (uh, but if you need to cite this conversation, use COS style!).
Cynthia-H chuckles politely at JaniceW.
JaniceW grins at Cynthia-H.
Tomoe . o O ( huh )
mday is Michael Day, Northern Illinois University
Shaan is Carlos Jensen of Georgia Tech
Tiger is Susan Antlitz, Illinois State University
Clooluss says, " it never fails to maaze me how lost I get in other peoples MOO"
Green_Guest smiles
mday says, "then stay put."
mday giggles
Shaan smiles at Clooluss
Bradley grins.
Amy says, "I guess for our first question, I'd like to ask the panel: what research issue about educational MU*s do you think it is most important for us as a research community to focus on right now?"
Indigo_Guest says, "hi"
Tomoe nails Clooluss's foot down on the floor
Gold_Guest waves
Tomoe raises her hand and says, "oh oh oh"
stevej says, "The competition from 3D worlds?"
mday actually likes it that everyone is introducing themselves, not just the special guests.
Tomoe lol
mday says, "it helps the log"
swb is Scott Brim, who lives in Ithaca NY
Amy says, "panel, please all answer at once"
John-W is John Walter, Saint Louis University.
SCog bursts into a rousing rendition of "It's a Small World."
Green_Guest is Judi Fusco from TAPPED IN
Amy . o O ( parallelism rocks )
SCog . o O ( doh )
Tomoe says, "stevej i miss all the moo-cows arguments about graphics vs text"
SCog smiles at mday.
Cerulean_Guest is judy kilborn from st. cloud state university.
Jan says, "For me there are two issues, accessibility and empowerment"
Clooluss says, "one issue is how to assess the community building and learning that goes on"
stevej says, "Yeah--With kids today, especially, MOOs are missing a dimension.."
Tomoe says, "i think the 'value-added' of 'place'"
Snickity says, "yes Ma'am"
Clooluss says, "or how to measure it"
stevej nods
Bradley says, "Documentation is critical, as is insuring that development of software (server, cores, etc) continues to happen."
Tomoe says, "there are lots of disembodied communities... e.g., with toys like cybiko"
Ken says, "graphics and 3dness raises the bar to building"
Clooluss says, "another issue is where to go from here technically"
Tomoe cheers for building
stevej says, "true..."
Snickity says, "I think we still need to focus on be certain that MOO remains vital in a world that is increasingly dominated by "easy" chat systems"
stevej says, "But their expectations for teh network are mroe limited."
Ben says, "3dness increases the complexity and hardware requirements for connecting to the m*d"
stevej says, "sure."
Ben says, "You can MOO from a z29"
Ken is Ken Fox, and he used to be more involved with MOOs.
Tomoe agrees with Snickety but hates typing her name.
Cynthia-H says, "I mentioned in my blurb that it's important to encourage experimental projects, both in terms of innovation and integration of MOO and multimedia without losing what is most powerful about MOO"
Clooluss says, "do we KNOW what is most powerful and unique to MOO?"
Amy looks to mday for the next question
Bradley thinks access to building is the most powerful.
Tomoe says, "building"
Tiger says, "building"
Bradley says, "What do others think?"
stevej says, "Texts in Space..."
Snickity nods wish Cynthia
mday says, "My question is fairly self serving. How can we revive MOOs like this one? Very often I'm the only person around, and it's been that way for years. Should we change focus and membership requirements? Allow classes in? Have regular events?"
John-W agrees with Bradley.
swb says, "and programming"
Tomoe says, "well even instant messaging gives you texts in space"
Cynthia-H says, "oh, I think it's more than one thing...and we all probably have our favorite aspects to the power of MOO"
Clooluss says, "building is not even a part of TAPPED IN MOO"
Ben | Clooluss says, "do we KNOW what is most powerful and unique to MOO?"
Ben says, "authentication"
stevej says, "Not buildable sapce."
Tomoe says, "I build in Tapped In Mark"
Tomoe says, "and my students USE the objects"
Jan says, "I also don't think we ought to worry about any "competition" from 3D systems, they are different beasts, text is something that will not go away, graphics tend to fade like an old photo :)"
Clooluss says, " but ONLY you Tomoe"
Tiger says, "and the flexibility of being able to do some basic programming"
Amy nods and smiles to Jan
SCog smiles at Jan.
Snickity [to mday]: I think regular events would be good
Tomoe grins
Bradley [jan]: I couldn't agree more.
stevej hopes jan's right
PhilH says, "I do too to clooluss"
Ben [to mday]: re: reviving MOO, mediamoo is, IMO, elitist
Clooluss agreees with Jan
Snickity [to Jan]: i agree but i am fighting a battle right now to keep our moo and not move to a very bad java chat system
Amy [to Ben]: yes, deliberately and unapologetically so
mday says, "The Palace is faltering. Folks are more interested in textuality than graphics and avatars and thought bubbles and all that."
Ben says, "I don't think the reasons for restricting membership are inherently wrong, but there's certainly a barrier to entry"
Tomoe . o O ( we should charge the palace with torches aflame. )
Tari says, "sorry; mediaone is a loss"
Clooluss says, "let me be more clear. 5 out of 9000 members build in TAPPED IN and all five are here"
Ben wouldn't have a character here but happened to be a panelist once.
Green_Guest . o O ( maybe 10 out of 9000 )
Amy giggles to Clooluss
mday says, "Would changing membership standards here bother folks who have been longtime members?"
Clooluss says, "ok 10"
Green_Guest . o O ( but not a lot :-) )
Tomoe says, "well, what i like about MOO is that is has a wonderful sliding scale of difficulty. my students can create and tweak object clones and experience that as building.. or they can lern the code (which they never do)"
Amy [to Ben]: anyone who applies is usually let in.... it's mostly self-selection.
Jan says, "There is a problem, as Snickity is mentioning and that is this rather strange perception that there is one system has to win and all others have to loose..look at the Win-mac-Linux debate...the thing is, diversity is good...we don't have enough of it"
Tiger would be glad to see more folks on media on a regular basis
LurkingHorror would not be bothered by a change un (in) membership standards
Ben says, "mediamoo is like a planned community"
Ben says, "like Harmony, Indiana"
Tari says, "could someone paste the question that amy was going to ask when my network went down?"
Ben says, "or the farming community that Sam Hill tried to create in the Columbia river valley"
stevej says, "competition is only in high schol students' view--and only some of them."
Eric waves
Snickity [to Jan]: yes I quite agree...but our distance ed people demand absolutely simplicity and want everyone to conform
Tomoe says, "I have to confess when I first joined I felt it was soooooo MIT-ish... I didn't spend much tme here. but, i don't think it's bad for a MOO to have a culture of its own."
Snickity says, "they are the borg"
Amy [to Tari]: You say, "I guess for our first question, I'd like to ask the panel: what research issue about educational MU*s do you think it is most important for us as a research community to focus on right now?"
mday says, "Case in pt, I have two HS students on the problem board now, applied for membership but really gave no good reason to be in MediaMOO. Should I stop asking for any reason?"
Tari says, "thanks"
Cerulean_Guest says, "If we let our distance ed people decide, I'd be stuck with Web-CT."
Cynthia-H [to Ben]: planned communities are run by people with many things making demands on them, and sometimes a membership policy is also about the level at which the MOO admins can handle slow growth or complete open admission, so we can't assume policy is dictated by some kind of elitism at work
Amy smiles to seth
Ben [to Tomoe]: exactly, but you can either try and direct the culture or you can gather a group of people and let it happen
Ben says, "In my experience the latter is more successful"
SCog [to Snickity]: i think that pressure to reduce to one version is very powerful as the mainstream starts using chat
Bradley [to mday]: If they play nice, I don't see a problem.
Snickity nods to the blue one
Jan [to snickety]: I know what you are saying...that's why I believe in the importance of empowering educators with technical skills and knowledge so they can run and operate the systems that they want
swb [to mday]: I think it's good to continue asking for a reason, since that filters for some bit of responsibility, but be more lenient in letting them in.
Amy [to Tari]: here's q2 and we seem to be talking about both at once: mday says, "My question is fairly self serving. How can we revive MOOs like this one? Very often I'm the only person around, and it's been that way for years. Should we change focus and membership requirements? Allow classes in? Have regular events?"
Snickity says, "yet they really have no concept of what a virtual world can do as opposed to a java chat"
Delia [to Snickity]: The evil of the lowest common denominator
Seth thinks educators should have their specialties and have technologies available to them
swb says, "what can you do on a MOO that you can't do anywhere else (that people would actually want to do)?"
mday says, "yaah, so I asked the two HS students for a reason and got none. Would I be justified in saying no?"
Tomoe says, "ben you have to let it happen, imho"
Snickity says, "people are still astounded by what one can do with a moo when they take the time to listen"
PhilH says, "an interface like Encore really helps new people ... that is what I am finding with our MOO."
swb [to mday]: imho sure, this time
Cynthia-H [to mday]: I would say yes, you would be justified
stevej says, "who do you want to come, is the 1st question"
Tari [to swb]: not that many people want to do anything in a moo, really
mday [swb]: I can talk to all my favorite colleagues and collaborate with them around the clok, even though they are far away.
swb [to Tari]: exactly :)
Tari says, "which i think is fine"
Tomoe says, "I don't think we can generalize here folks."
mday cloks hisself
swb [to mday]: why is it more satisfying to talk to them in a moo than in irc?
Clooluss says, "are we talking about reviatlizing MediaMOO or issues in general?"
Amy says, "would anyone else like to address a new question to the panel?"
Clooluss is clueless
stevej says, "Amy's talking abotu the former ;->"
mday says, "sense of place, in a nutshell"
Shaan says, "I'd say both Mark"
mday says, "both"
Tiger says, "for one thing, the moo's sense of place makes it more apealing than chat"
Bradley [to Tari]: Well, in the same way most students don't want to write about summer vacation ... I think to some extent we need to evangelize a bit, to show that moo can be interesting.
stevej says, "mday's right."
Indigo_Guest says, "we're:agrees with Bradley"
Tomoe says, "i think to make an interesting MOO you need a balance of talent."
mday says, "and it's more stable than the IRC channels."
Clooluss says, "if MOO does not keep up technologically nobody will listen"
Tari [to Bradley]: yeah...but i also think we need to do more than cheerleading
Jan says, "this is to Amy and Mday...my best suggestion for revitalizing MediaMOO would be to let teachers and students in to use the space"
Tomoe says, "the best MOO i was ever in had a huge proportion of hardcore builders."
Amy . o O ( wow, 40 people! )
Shaan smiles at Amy
Ben says, "I agree that there are people out there who would be mooers if they knew about it and they might be worth finding"
LurkingHorror agress (agrees) with mday
Tomoe says, "by which i mean, programmers"
mday can keep things in the MOO. I like having things here I have had for many years. Why, they are antiques!
Tari [to Bradley]: what's the best peiece of educational mud research you've seen?
Ben says, "but I don't think you're going to convert people to mooing who don't like online interaction or already favor another kind"
Amy [to Clooluss]: are the features you want technologically grounded in pedagogical needs, or in keeping up with competing environments?
swb [to Tomoe]: interesting -- you were unified in your enjoyment of creating the place, your use of the place was to build together
Tomoe says, "i have students who are wise guys and see the moo and say, eyew it's funky and old fashioned. then they use it and get addicted."
Tari gets out an agenda
SCog smiles.
Bradley [tari]: A student project that was an adaptation of several scenes from a film
Jay [to Tari]: net's back
Bradley stage talks the wrong way...
swb nods to Jay
Clooluss says, "Amy they are both"
mday agrees with Jan. I think eventually if NIU hosts it, the school is going to want to see both educational and research applications.
stevej says, "I think that funkiness--retor--is part of what we can offer kids."
Tari [to Bradley]: no, i mean research about the use of muds in education
Ken says, "aie moos whose host require them to have a purpose and research"
Tiger says, "Perhaps medaimoo can have a new public building space in addition to the historic district"
Jay [to Ken]: welcome to jhm
Ken [to Jay]: indeed :-(
Tomoe says, "oh, i like that tiger"
Clooluss fogets how to use all the old moo commands
Bradley [to Tari]: Oops, sorry. That would be my work on ease, of course.
Bradley grins.
mday does regularly present MOO at workshops in an educational discussion and talk about some of the advantages, and cognitive dissonance...
Grommit says, "hi."
Ben says, "I think MOOs have all the same advantages over Quake that books have over TV"
Tomoe chortles at clooluss
Indigo_Guest says, "More cheese, Grommit?"
stevej says, "That's discrouaging ;->"
Tari hehs
Ben says, "it's a lot easier to make an object which causes someone to burst into flames if you just have to think of a colorful phrase for "bursts into flames" than if you have to do some 3d animation"
Grommit says, "too late in the evening for cheese, I fear - I might not sleep ;)"
Tari [to Bradley]: i guess what i'm getting at is
Tari says, "we have lots of evangelism"
mday's primary purpose was originally preservation of the living record of a once-prosperous virtual community. However, I hope it can live and grow
Tari says, "we have lots of just-so MOO stories"
Tari says, "i wrote some of them"
Tari says, "but i'm not sure how much research we have about muds in education"
Amy says, "so to everyone present who runs education MU*s, do you feel that you get more or less resistance from adminsitrators and the like now than you used to?"
Tomoe agrees with Ben
Tomoe says, "less"
Cynthia-H says, "much less"
Snickity says, "well i personally like the flexible nature of the MOO...it pretty much can be programmed to do your bidding"
Clooluss says, "much less"
Grommit says, "from my (limited) experience, I get less and more."
mday says, "ERic connected but got booted. He's Azure_Guest."
Ben says, "in general I think it is easier now to run a mud if you want to"
stevej says, "I'm too new to it to say"
Tiger says, "That's important-- actually get some pedagogical research done."
Grommit says, "got, rather."
Snickity says, "one would hope it does one uses one's superfriend powers for good"
Ben says, "cheap hardware and net are available"
Azure_Guest [to Amy]: I got away from that permission stuff by buying my own server :-)
Tiger says, "or some more, anyway."
Ben says, "you could run your own mud out of your home on your PC for $40/mo"
Ken says, "moos are a lot smaller relative to computers than they used to"
Grommit says, "less of the unix-security angle, and more of the but-it-doesn't-have-a-gui variety."
Amy [to Tiger]: what are the key pedagogical issues you'd think need to be looked at?
Ben says, "that was not possible by a long shot when I started mudding"
mday [Tari]: there's certainly a lot of ethnographic research. Stories. Do you think we need more qualitative studies?
Jan says, "now...do we really have to be on the cutting edge to provide something useful and worthwhile? Last night I was doing some research when I came across the first MUD1 system by Richard Bartle. It has been running on Compuserve since 85 but now it's available to anyone...lots of activity there and folks were having a good time with it even though it's text only and over 15 years old"
Tari says, "i think many of the people who use connections are getting less resistance when they ask to have mud clients installed and so forth"
Tomoe says, "you know, a really important piece of the MOO culture that I count one is its tendancy to make people loosen up and 'be real' in conversation."
Ben | Ken says, "moos are a lot smaller relative to computers than they used to"
SCog [to Jan]: oh, cool!
Tomoe says, "er, count on"
Bradley says, "Good point, Tari. But I'm not talking about cheerleading rah rah as much as I am something like you mention."
Ben says, "and they're growing more slowly than the computers"
mday says, "that question should be for all of you BTW"
Amy opens the floor to everyone. OK, it was really already open.
Snickity persnickets
Azure_Guest apologizes for lack of participation tonight. has cranky baby to placate & it takes both arms (cuddling seems to help)
stevej grins
Ben [to Tari]: that's an interesting angle as well
Tomoe says, "qualitative studies?"
Bradley says, "and that ties into administration concerns as well, especially at a research I skool like UF"
Tari [to mday]: i don't care really whether they're qualitative or quantitative...i think research is more than telling stories, and i dunno that we've done it yet
Jay [to Ben]: well, we haven't created bloat i mean compelling new applications for them very quickly.
Snickity drops Egg.
mday says, "I like what happens to people when they get used to it and open up too, Tomoe"
Grommit says, "cuddling always seems to help, Azure_Guest. :)"
Ben says, "historically it was taboo to run a server but no one much cared about running clients, and most clients were just telnet"
Tiger [to Amy]: Two pedagogical issues are 1) how moo influences students' writing and thinking processes and 2) what moo does for a sense of class community
Snickity says, "my baby is cranky too"
Tomoe says, "agree"
Ben says, "it might actually be easier now to run a server"
Ben says, "since if you're savvy enough to run a server you are likely completely below the radar of the system administrator who is worried about headcount in public labs and stuff"
Tomoe says, "ah Tiger cuts to the chase"
Amy [to Tiger]: and a third might be, how do you evaluate whether you're making progress on 1 and 2!
Dave agrees with Tari. Most of the 'ethnographic' studies he's seen are anecdotal rather than systematic analyses
Indigo_Guest says, "We're starting a MOO in the next wfew weeks with intent to offer it as a n option for Humanities Lit Assignments..."
Indigo_Guest says, "Eventually to move into Comp and research writing"
Tari [to Dave]: exactly. a story is a piece of data, not a piece of research.
mday [Tari]: yep. We have to keep trying to focus people on the research. Anyone know of any good recent or in-progress theses or dissertations dealing with MOO?
Tomoe says, "i'm working the sociolinguistics end Dave. "
Indigo_Guest says, "I'm working on a diss proposal"
SCog nods at Dave.
Snickity picks up Egg.
stevej says, "Matt Kirschenbaum touches on it."
Cynthia-H [to Tari]: I think telling stories is ok in terms of a research strategy, but perhaps MOO researchers don't bother with taking on a mantle of ethnography or sociology, so it doesn't SEEM as legitimate perhaps. But it's certainly legitimate to those of us running, researching, or teaching in MOO, IMHO.
Tiger says, "I'd like to see a book filled with essays and articles all about the work people have done in moos-- theoretical and analytical discussions of case studeis etc."
LurkingHorror found MediaMOO extremely useful while completing a degree in Film Studies and Masscommunications (finished in 1995) - thinks that the MOO could still be usefull to current day students...
Tari says, "historically, people who used connections had to go through quite a lot to be allowed to bring their students to a MOO--they had to prove to some admin that it wasn't frivolous, and they had to really work to get the techs to let them have clients in their labs."
Bradley says, "MOO will be part of my diss, surely. But it's used only as a piece of data, to use
Tari's framework."
mday wants to help folks interested in doing research. could that be a niche for MediaMOO? Seems consistent with the original plan
Cerulean_Guest [to Tiger]: That would be cool.
Ben says, "how big a sample size do you need to do this research?"
Tari says, "i imagine that happened lots of places; happened to me when i took students to moo the first time"
Snickity nods to mday
Ben says, "can you say anything meaningful from such a small sample of moos and participants?"
mday [Ben]: but what if we only look at the subset of educational MOOs?
stevej says, "sounds good mday."
SCog [to Cynthia-H]: when i read, say, education research, there's something you can sense when people really don't know that they're just telling about what happened in their class versus people who think of that story in some kind of theoretical context or construct
Tomoe says, "sorry had to clean up a dead hummingbird that the cat brought me."
Tari [to Ben]: well, what's research: you design a study, and you make your methods and so forth clear so that other people can repeat them
Dave [ben]: Sample size depends on the kinds of questions you're asking and the kinds of data you want to use to answer them
Tiger says, "ben, it's a place to start, at least"
Tari says, "that first study is in and of itself an anomaly"
Tari says, "until someone else can use it and verify it"
SCog [to Cynthia-H]: i think there's a whole lot of 'research' out there that really doesn't have the level of reflectiveness that makes it ... larger than a 'here's what happened in my class' story
Cynthia-H [to Tiger]: I think there are models for assessing how MOO influences student writing and thought processes, specifically Peg Syverson's Online Learning Record. And many who teach in MOO solicit student evaluations, so in some sense these methods help, though as with any writing course I think it's very difficult to measure how our instruction affects writing (unless you can follow the students around for 5 years or so).
Tomoe says, "okay...i missed a screenful, but what i'm looking at is this: 1) how people build on each other's remarks and 2) the use of locale, props, etc to make meaning."
Dave [tari]: That's how you collect data...but an ethnographic argument entails providing evidence for claims made
Amy [to SCog]: I also get a feeling when someone is just seeing the world through their construct to confirm what they assumed, rather than seeing the world. So just having a construct isn't all you need! :-)
Cynthia-H nods at SCog.
SCog nods at Amy.
Grommit woahs. I forgot how fast people think here :)
Tari [to Dave]: i wasn't arguing against that.
Ken says, "Research question: How does using MOO affect typing speed?"
Tomoe lol at Ken
Jan smiles to Ken
Dave [tari]: I was just extending your line of thought :)
mday [Cynthia]: Glad you brought up Peg's Online Learning Record. that's an important step
SCog says, "yes, i see what you mean. People can just grind the same old ax without ever really contributing any ideas or refinements or extending anything"
Cerulean_Guest grins at ken.
stevej trips over his fingers...
Tari [to Dave]: i was addressing ben's question about how large a sample group etc
Ben says, "so what sort of decisions about educational MOOs (their organization, use, etc) have been made without the guidance of research that are worth re-evaluating if a more systematic study was done?"
Ben [to Ken]: I type real good now
Jay [to SCog]: is that rewarded?
Tiger nod to Cynthia
Jan [to Ben]: a whole lot I bet
Dave says, "What makes a MOO and "educational" MOO?"
SCog says, "but in the humanities there's a lot of publishing that's just 'here's what happened in my class and here's how i fixed it' that doesn't seem to .. know what else has been done or that anybody else has thought that stuff through"
mday says, "Tomoe I agree with you about the building and collaborating of ideas in a gind of pressure-cooker atmosphere."
Tari says, "wait wait"
mday says, "er, kind"
Ben [to Ken]: however I use words like "hem" and I try to null emote in real life and whenever I see a cannon I'm worried I might FALL IN
Tari says, "i don't think we're talking about, say, proving that MOO is or isn't valuable"
Cynthia-H [to mday]: yes, and Peg recently showed us the more beefed up version that takes the OLR to the level of departmental and institutional learning records. It's cool.
Tari says, "it's like trying to prove that the use of a computer in a classroom is or isn't valuable"
Tari says, "that's useless research"
SCog says, "if i had answered that first question, it would have been *research* .. that we haven't really come to solid terms with what kinds of research are valuable for M*s, even educational "
stevej nods
Tomoe says, "bingo Tari!"
Jan nods Tari
SCog says, "M*s"
mday says, "that's not really the question"
Amy agrees with Scog that 'here's what I did' without analysis is one pitfall.
Grommit nods to SCog. It's like the patent office. If you're not a coder, it can be hard to really grasp what the state of the art is. You still see this with research about how the web affects humanities/arts.
SCog . o O ( so now i think i should have said that )
SCog . o O ( which means i should have introduced myself )
SCog . o O ( sharon cogdill, st cloud state university, having gone to the Dark Side and is now an Administrator )
Amy says, "if anyone hasn't introduced themselves yet, please do so now!"
Tomoe says, "does anyone here rely exclusively on MOO for teaching-learning... don't we all use MOO in conjunction with other media? perhaps even face to face teaching as well"
Grommit says, "and without that picture of the state of the art, it's hard to know in which directions to push."
mday cheers Scog. See? Not that hard to introduce yourself.
mday grins
stevej says, "yes, Tomoe."
Indigo_Guest says, "Rob Koch, PhD Candidate, Indiana U of PA"
Ben Jackson is just some guy who has been mudding for a long time
Snickity [to Tomoe]: well often times the "other media" is an extension of the
stevej says, "Always in a mix."
Grommit , small plasticene dog.
SCog [to Grommit]: oh, no, i didn't mean to ding the humanities/arts. i really was thinking educational reserach
Tomoe says, "hey Rob, get Sasha in here."
Stuart is Stuart Jeff a former student of Amy's who is now working for a startup in NYC
Tomoe says, "oh, wrong Indiana ...duh"
Cyan_Guest says, "I think I did earlier. I'm Lennie Irvin from San Antonio College and AlaMOO."
Blue_Guest says, "lINDA kERSH GRADUATE STUDENT AT tWU"
SCog thinks it's hard to recognize what isn't research across disciplinary boundaries
Indigo_Guest says, "S"Sorry... "
Seth would perdson dsa
Jay Carlson is just some person who, although has been mudding for a long time, will always be a newbie to people like Ben....
Cynthia-H [to Dave]: I find myself referring to Lingua MOO as educational and professional, which could also apply to most of the MOOs run by those of us representing MOO administrators. This tends to broaden it in the minds of those who are hearing about them for the first time
Neon_Guest says, "Johan Andersson, Stockholm University"
Tari says, "we're talking about questions like, say, what kinds uses you can put a mud to in an ESL class; what kinds of activities do math classes find useful; what are useful strategies for conducting a MOO discussion; what happens when you moderate mechanically? socially? not at all?"
Grommit says, "and also Michael Houghton, recovering ex-PhD student who is feeling academicravings again."
Jade_Guest says, "I'm Rhonna, from FSU. PhD Cand in lit, teaching in a comp-assisted class, and wizzing on a MOO."
Dave nods to Cynthia-H.
Amy thinks Jay and Ben are being too modest
Tomoe says, "i think it helps my students to SEE their words, to be forced to be articulate given the short turn-taking of MOO conversation"
Cynthia-H [to Cyan_Guest]: hey lennie :)
SCog nods at Amy.
Bradley nods to Tari.
Grommit nods to Amy.
Cyan_Guest says, "I seem to remember similar discussions about how to do research in the CW99 Online."
Tiger says, "But what is useful is research that expressess the possibilities of MOOs and helps to create some sort of vision and opens up new directions for future reseach. "
Snickity says, "i am still Clint Gardner"
LurkingHorror is Noel Germundson, has a Degree in Film Studies and Masss Communications from Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario -Canada) and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Interactive Multimeid (Multimedia). Works in Interactive Multimedia...
Jay [to Amy]: actually our other qualification is getting embarassing...nearly 1 year since last release
Grommit says, "Jay, how do you fit your stuff together? squeak/PDA/MOO ?"
SCog [to Tomoe]: you know, i'm uncomfortable with the notion of making *force* a good thing in a classroom
Jay needs to do autoconf goo
Jan grins jay
Grommit says, "do you have a clone?"
Amy . o O ( but it's your code we're running right now )
LurkingHorror currently resides in Vancouver, BZ - Canada...
Tomoe lol
LurkingHorror says, "(BC)\"
Cyan_Guest says, "We said then that we were in need of crafting our own research methodology. Has that methodology emerged yet?"
Chartreuse_Guest says, "Tobias Jansson, Stockholm university, Sweden"
Grommit says, "is it part of some grand scheme, or are you just hacking on myriad fun things?"
Amy coaxs Jay and Ben to come to the PhD program at Georgia Tech
Jay says, "well, you'll notice that I, uh, posted to squeak mailing list like four months ago, and most of my MOO stuff is idling"
Tomoe says, "SCog I'm okay with forcing people to NOT tell long long tales and hog the floor, as they often do in face to face"
Ben [to Amy]: is that in Georgia?
Grommit says, "and the helio?"
Stuart smiles
Grommit says, "I sense a low-cost OO meme here."
Amy [to Ben]: Atlanta :-)
Ben moved away from Indiana already to avoid the weather
Jay says, "squeak and moo are pretty deeply related, which is why what Amy is saying makes sense"
SCog smiles at Tomoe. "I was reacting to your talking about forcing students to face their language."
Tari says, "did we address either amy's or mday's questions at all?"
Tari eyes us all
Tomoe says, "ah, yeah, i think i'll confess to liking that too"
Amy says, "Earlier, Tomoe raised the issue of sense of place. Do you all think that's important in the educational value of the medium?"
Neon_Guest [to Chartreuse_Guest]: guest hej Tobias
SCog [to Tomoe]: really? you're just kidding me, right?
mday [Tari]: yeah, lots of folks did. The log will be really helpful!
Tomoe says, "no. i'm not."
Tari grins at mday [The Rhetronymical].
Snickity feels guilty
Tomoe says, "i'd love to talk with you about why that's evil"
Dave [tari]: This is one kind of difficulty that students experience when trying to hold an online discussion
Cyan_Guest says, "Place and presence"
PhilH says, "Yes to Amy's question"
Jan [to Amy]: I think place is fundamental
John-W thinks that sense of place is important.
Tari [to mday]: we wandered so far away i just wanted to make sure
Ben [to Amy]: some people like the sense of place provided by MOO and some don't
swb waves
swb stands up from the floor.
Indigo_Guest agrees
Ben says, "I have friends who even actively dislike it"
stevej says, ":nods (again)"
Stuart agrees with Jan
Tari [to Dave]: i don't think it's a difficulty at all
Chartreuse_Guest [to Neon_Guest]: nice to see you here!
mday thinks that place is rather important when you consider how placeless and disembodied much chat is.
Grommit says, "Amy: does your 'reputation' as a teacher or student - the level of expertise you claim and aspire to - does that not tie in with where and who you work with?"
Ben says, "who hang out on an equally ancient chat server which is so backwards that it would shock you"
Tiger says, "Place is a technology not much explored"
Tiger says, "well, maybe"
Tomoe says, "SCog, I really would like to talk about that some time. I must be missing something obvious."
Cynthia-H says, "I believe sense of place is very important, not only to allow users to imbue their own senses of placeness in their MOOspaces, but also to generate dynamic ambience in the entire environment"
Ben says, "but I'm not sure how to measure that against education"
Nolan grins at tiger
mday risks being touchy feely when I say that it might be like "grounding"
Snickity says, "but might not the theory of place be something that deserve more research"
Snickity says, "?"
Dave [amy]: Presence is probably more important than place
Neon_Guest [to Chartreuse_Guest]: guesat same to you Tobias
Grommit says, "in the sense that if you're going to aspire to learn, it needs some place to happen - to keep you honest, to keep you inspired?"
LurkingHorror agrees re: sense of place (and focus).
SCog says, "there's a point when students really begin to see how online life is real, i think. and at that point, the sense of place and some control over it can be very valuable. for the ones who think, i mean."
Jay . o O ( architecture )
Indigo_Guest thinks place is part of the draw to tra
Tari [to Dave]: it just means that one skill you teach is bringing things back up--checking from time to time if someone's question got answered, repeating something you wanted to talk about that didn't get a response, etc.
Amy [to Dave]: how do you cultivate presence?
Tomoe says, "it's the Cheers phenom."
Indigo_Guest says, "traditional video games, etc., and it's part of the draw here."
Grommit can't think and read at this speed tonight :/
Dave [amy]: Stimulate the imagination
stevej says, "places are to get lost in too--can be dsiturbing adn otehr educational things."
Bill starts humming the Cheers theme song
SCog . o O ( everybody knows your name )
Stuart nods in agreement with Grommit
Tiger says, "And for students building, place because an occasin of design and authorship"
Ben [to Bill]: I'm telling you, I'm imagining you as Bill from News Radio, so try to stay in character
mday says, "and about @digging and @describing, I think we have a tremendous potential for both creative imagination and social construction in MU*"
Indigo_Guest says, "the draw is to get studnets to use their creativity to explore theory, wetc..."
Tomoe says, "i do a lot of dist. ed and folks need to feel safe"
Snickity says, "well I think, and don't throw things at me, that to evoke presence you need more than text"
stevej says, "Right, Tiger."
Tiger says, "opps. becomes"
Cyan_Guest says, "Doesn't place become associated with presence. In this "place" I can commune with this presence/ these presences?"
Tomoe says, "place gives them a context to use to build the safety and trust"
Dave [amy]: What captures your attention when you're reading a book?
Snickity says, "or if you do throw things, throw fish"
Tomoe says, "it's hard to feel safe in an AOL closet."
SCog [to mday]: and constructing a virtual body to make oneself more readable is good writing
Bradley [to mday]: Though the command line tools do send most folks screaming into the trees...
Tari says, "i've always wanted to figure out how to formally study the sense of place, because while not only MOO but other collaborative applications and so forth make a deal out of pointing out that they're place-based"
Blue_Guest says, "aT THE isis CONFERENCE IN aUSTRALIA LAST SUMMER, THE PLACE FOR KIDS TIED INTO BOOKS WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR SPOEAKING AND WAS VERY EFFECTIVE FOR THE KIDS WHO HAD READ ALL THE BOOKS BEFORE HE CAME AND RECOGNIZED THE PROPS"
SCog [to mday]: as is constructing virtual spaces that seem real
mday [Dave]: Exactly. That's the feeling I get when I talk about textual descriptions
Tiger [to Cyan_Guest]: exactly
Tomoe says, "egad, don't shout"
Tari says, "and i've encounted a handful of poeple, myself included, who have this whole mental geography thing going on when they're in a mud"
Tari says, "but"
SCog nods at Tari.
Dave [cyan_guest]: For some people, a sense of place--of represented place--may contribute to a sense of presence. For others, textual representations of 'places' does not.
Grommit says, "the other thing that can't be ignored is how groups of people (tied into where they gather) develop jargon - and jargon - the acceptance of the meaning of a new word - must be part of learning."
Blue_Guest says, "sorry didn't realize the caps was on!"
mday [scog]: Zactly! virtual ethos, to some degree
Tomoe says, "ah, in non-ed MOOs a really big community issue is usually about whether or not to allow teleportation (@go, @join, etc)"
Tari says, "i've encountered tons more people who don't think about it, and who do not appear to me to be helped or affected in any way by a place metaphor"
John-W nod tari.
SCog nods too.
Nolan says, "tari how is it really any different than studying other non-school learning environments?"
Ben says, "I think you can exist fine on a mud without knowing the geography"
mday thiks of both credibility and 8in*credibility in that sense.
Snickity says, "geeze where is ronin...he is into the technorhetoric angle"
Ben says, "but that learning it can add a new dimension to the experience"
stevej says, "hemispherical dominance :->"
Ben says, "I don't have a mental picture for mediamoo, it's just a chatroom to me"
Cyan_Guest [to Dave]: Yes, but now with webbased MOOs like enCore place is more than textual.
mday says, "Do you think much jargon has emerged from MU* culture specifically?"
Ben says, "but I pictures JHM or LM or WP as places"
Bradley [to Tomoe]: In ed moos, too. We had huge fights about that at Florida
Grommit says, "dunno. Certainly a greater perception of the notion of 'emoting', and I mean that in a humourous and real fashion."
Amy cranks up the creaky old Buzzword Generator. . .
With barely a vibration, the Generator spits out :
"false resource recovery"
Tomoe says, "Tari, that's why it's crazy to try to generalize about a piece of software when so much depends upon a red wheel barrow."
Tari says, "we spent like a whole afternoon on jhm once asking each other if we pictured rooms we were in, how we pictured them, what we thought was where in relation to what else"
Ben says, "or other places you guys have never heard of :)"
Snickity says, "we pretty much went graphical...and I see the places on our moo quite clearly"
Jay [to mday]: spam is probably originally from muds...
Jan [to Ben]: I was just rediscovering lots of place here today where I haven't been in five years...it was very interesting and very real :)
mday [Tari]: yep. Your mileage may vary. Maybe different cognitive styles?
Ben | Tari says, "we spent like a whole afternoon on jhm once asking each other if we pictured rooms we were in, how we pictured them, what we thought was where in relation to what else"
Amy [to Ben]: I'm not sure I visualize it either, but some of the programs like the buzzword generator make a big difference in interaction patterns
Tari says, "it was really interesting to me that some of the people who'd done some of the most interesting rooms really didn't think as much about space as some of the others"
Stuart says, "I think MOOs need to evolve towards a harmony of both text and graphics"
Tomoe says, "i used to ask students to draw the common rooms in LambdaMOO when we used to meet there. it was fun to share our very diff ideas."
Grommit says, "I'm sure I became more aware of real-world non-verbal communication (and had new ways to describe it) as a result of online communication."
Tiger thinks that text-only and gui moos are very different things that just cooincidently happen to have the same name
JaniceW waves to barrym.
SCog . o O ( barrym! )
mday [Jay]: thanks! I had a glimmer that could be true
Ben says, "when I connected the living room window to somewhere else there was a great uproar among people who had a different mental model"
Cerulean_Guest waves to barrym.
Bradley agrees with Tiger.
Ben says, "such as Jay :)"
Dave [cyan_guest]: Graphical representations do not necessarily increase a sense of presence. There are some studies that indicate that, for the same persons, text-based CMC is more engrossing than other kinds.
mday waves to barry. Howgoesit?
Shaan [to Stuart]: how do you mean?
Jay says, "i got gypped on jhm, i didn't have to develop a new sence of place"
Snickity [to Tiger]: probably so...I've gotten very lazy with room descriptions what with the graphics
Tari [to Ben]: yeah, that was interesting
barrym [mday]: going good...wouldn't miss this...congrats
Jay says, "also the library and the ledge behind the staircase"
Amy [to Dave]: which raises the issue of learning style. Do you all think this medium is better suited to some students than others?
Tomoe says, "absolutely"
Stuart says, "I think projects like Tapped In are starting to show how both text and graphics can coexist to make a more compelling environment"
Dave [amy]: Sure
Cyan_Guest nods to Dave
stevej nods vigorously
Grommit says, "I was reading an article in Prospect about how net.sex might change the world - the only thing that struck me as interesting is the difference in the quality of communication once you can emote (the article based its assumptions on AOL AIM)."
Clooluss nods yes to Amy
Dave [grommit]: It sure won't reproduce the world
Amy says, "so is the issue of different learning styles a problem? how do we support different styles?"
mday says, "maybe mapping physical places onto MU* environment is part of the problem. Maybe we need to let structure emerge, and see what happens. Anyone been paying attention to the new forms that emerge?"
Tari says, "another question: supposing you are one of the people who pictures the geography--in what ways does that help you with educational uses you imagine making of MOO?"
Shaan agrees with Stuart
Tari says, "that's a horribly phrased question i just asked"
Tari says, "can anyone help me say what i mean?"
Tari says, "ahem"
stevej says, "A ood argument for encore and otehr WebMOOs?"
Jan laughs
Tomoe says, "Stuart, students often start out with teh web interface in Tapped In then migrate to the text client for easier net3work experiences. once they 'get' the lay of the land, they seem to need it less."
Grommit says, "junk article otherwise. But I've never used AIM in any real way, and I was struck by how the only way you could communicate an emotion was to say it - like a phone conversation."
Nolan says, "amy the problem is that programmerness does not support multiple learning styles"
SCog [to Tari]: i admit i hardly ever even read room descriptions once i've been there
SCog blushes.
Amy [to Tomoe]: I didn't know that. Interesting.
Grommit says, "this might be obvious to all, but nevertheless, just the added ':' and we're a place."
Stuart says, "but I don't evolving MOOs means attaching graphics"
Nolan says, "and often constructionism is a learning style in itself, it seems..."
Bradley [to Grommit]: A lot of Java clients are like that.
Cynthia-H says, "it's also important to involve more than text and graphic, to implement audio and streaming video, dimensions that also affect the sense of place"
Ken says, "i know people that use the IRC style /me
Bradley says, "talk only"
Snickity [to Tari]: do you mean "how the heck does having mental geography relate to using these things as learning devices?"
Cynthia-H says, "which we've done at Lingua and with enCore"
Ken says, ".. and have never used moo"
stevej Agrees with Stuart
Seth wonders whether a new Core would be useful, something that's not LambdaCore-derivative with its MUD heritage
Tomoe says, "Amy some folks' browsers choke on the java at 56K"
Tari [to Snickity]: yeah
SCog [to Seth]: oh that's interesting. what are you thinking of?
Jay [to SCog]: i started using tkmoo-light's "rose" widget to try to get some sense of place back
SCog [to Jay]: what does it do?
Jay says, "hold on, gettikng screenshot"
SCog sorry not to know already.
Tomoe says, "did anyone here ever live in Point MOOt?"
mday says, "oh, oh, on the subject of new terms, someone suggeested we not call our Sunday session at the conference "cyber" sunday or refer to "cyber" studies sinice the term has started to become synonymous with cybersex. ANyone else heard of that?"
Amy [to Tomoe]: do you think they'd continue with the fancier client if it weren't for performance issues?
Seth [to SCog]: I don't know. I mean, I think the MOO server's solid and interesting, but I'm not sure that the MOO Core's the thing.
Snickity says, "well I have seen students get very comfortable on a MOO whereas their java-chat collegues never do"
Stuart says, "I think work also need to be done to evolve the textual user interface... things like keeping track of conversation threads would be tremendously helpful"
Ben [to Tari]: does your question generalize to "how do RL constructs modelled in moos facilitate the educational uses of the moos?"
Snickity says, "but I haven't tested that "
Clooluss wonders if this group should to monthly House-Tours of Each others' MOOs
Ben says, "equally horribly phrased :-/"
Tari [to Snickity]: and plus i'd be interested in whether the place-based metaphor does something to help people learn a moo or get comfortable in it
Grommit nods. Right. It's like some people just will never be comfortable on the phone.
Tari [to Ben]: that's in there too
Cynthia-H [to Tomoe]: I did briefly
Jay [to SCog]: http://www.awns.com/tkMOO-light/visual/
Tomoe says, "color coding teh speakers wold help immensely"
Jan hopes all of this is being logged so he can actually read everything people are saying :)
Tari says, "i guess i have 12 questions, don't i"
mday [Stuart]: bingo. That's a great source of displeasure: not being able to untangle the threads.
Amy [to Clooluss]: neat idea. though it's a lot of energy to organize stuff like that.
Jay [to SCog]: basically a little perspective view compass rose, with little faces on it to represent number of people
SCog [to Snickity]: i think ppl don't think of themselves as living in chat, though you can think of yourself as living online in a moo
Shaan [to Jan]: it is
Ben [to Tari]: because in general I'm sure you agree that building a vr school in moo with classrooms and everything is the wrong idea
Grommit had a housemate who would never trust a thing said on the phone - almost irrationall - but I sensed a real need he had for face to face communication.
SCog nods at Jay.
Stuart says, "parallelism is powerful but users have to be able to keep track of where the conversation is going... "
Hazel_Guest wanders off to request a character.
Amy [to Jan]: yes, it's being logged
Tari [to Ben]: i do
Snickity [to Tomoe]: we have an pretty tight Pueblo core where we have color
Clooluss says, "amy there is a lot of energy being expended here tonight, so al we need to do is spread it out"
Dave [amy]: Will the log be posted?
Cynthia-H [to mday]: I haven't heard that. I wouldn't worry about the associations of cyber with anything. It's an exhausted term, but one that is appropriate.
mday guesses nobody saw the question or has heard of the problem I mentioned.
Snickity says, "but that could be done in an ANSI environment"
Tomoe says, "ah Pueblo, i know pueblo. didn't know it had that feature."
SCog [to mday]: i hadn't heard of that before
Shaan smiles at Clooluss
Tiger is all for moo tours
Grommit says, "online, he was fine - a real representation of his rl self. On the phone, he was slightly less engaging than an automated answerphone."
Amy says, "by the way, if I apologize for not saying this at the start: if you don't want any or all of your comments in the public log, just email Shaan at carlosj@cc.gatech.edu"
Bradley says, "A lot of clients will do stuff like color coding... that's another issue. With a better client we could do a lot with standard moo tools (mcp, etc)."
Shaan nods vigorously
Tari [to Ben]: but lots of classes build places. on connections they build, like, greek mythology realm and winter realm and caves and forests and museums and stuff
Tomoe nods at Brad
SCog grins at Tari.
mday [Cynthia]: Thanks! Victor will be here speaking, and we want to call it cybersunday
Ken [to Bradley]: conversational thread coloring is a hard problem
Snickity says, "hee do we have 4 days to revise and extend our remarks?"
Amy says, "earlier, Tomoe raises the issue of distance ed. What do you all think are the fundamental differences between distance ed and eductional MU*s as research communities?"
John-W nods to tari.
Ben [to Ken]: mmm, thread coloring
Snickity says, "sorry I have been watching CSPAN again"
Hazel_Guest returns from requesting a character.
Nolan says, "tari there are so many metaphor based moos just hanging out there dead though."
Jay [to Snickity]: only if you say the magic words first
Amy grins to Snick
Stuart . o O ( better client user interfaces are essential to the advancement of MOOs )
mday refuses to edit anything he said
mday says, "not here at least"
Cynthia-H [to mday]: cool :)
Dave [mday]: before or after you say it? :)
SCog [to Ken]: i've been thinking really defining 'thread' is a hard problem
Tari says, "one reason they build them is as a sort of artistic representation of something they're studying; but they also build things they want to hang out in--or that's what they say"
Nolan says, "moos seem to thrive when they're front end loaded with interesting people and events, like jan/cynth amy et al."
Snickity says, "it always amused me how a 1 minute speech in congress turns into 35 pages in the congressional record"
stevej says, "Distance ed. will eat MU* if it seems useful--as part of content delivery."
Tari [to Nolan]: there are tons of dead muds, it's true
mday [Dave]: good point. I do correct typos as I type if I can.
Ben [to SCog]: my experiments with that relied on directed speech, and since half the people here are only simulating directed speech rather than using it...
Cyan_Guest says, "What kills a mud?"
Jay [to Stuart]: yeah, and right now it's really hard for people to build on to their clients---much much harder than writing or extending the moo itself
Nolan [to Tari]: and they're dead because there was no catalytic personalities animating them.
Tari [to Nolan]: but i don't think that's related to geography
Snickity [to Cyan_Guest]: a stake in the heart and lots of garlic
mday [Tari]: yes, those are good reasons to use MOOs
Cynthia-H [to Amy]: MOO is but one among many distance or teletechnologies, though I don't usually think of distance ed in terms of communities. I do think of MOO as community
Ken [to SCog]: yes.
SCog nods at Ben. in one ESL class i've been studying, though, the students are doing *only* directed say. it's interesting. it kind of kills the notion of general public discourse.
Tari says, "that people aren't important doesn't make places unimportant..."
JaniceW [judi]: hi!
Tomoe says, "a MOO loses critical mass it dies"
judi grins at her old buddies and says howdy to new ones too.
Ken says, "I don't think of MOO as a whole as a community. Individual MOOs can be..."
Amy [to judi]: hiya!
Snickity says, "I think a M** dies when its users don't care about it anymore"
SCog . o O ( judi! )
mday likes the work Scog and JudyK and Tari are doing with backchannel in MU*
Jan [to Nolan]: I do think that presence is important, people, community, interesting places and easy access though standard clinet programs or better yet web browsers are key
Nolan [to Tari]: Yes, but they seem to be what keeps people coming to see the interesting geography... people don't hang in an empty moo no matter how good the geography.
Cerulean_Guest grins at mday.
SCog [to Snickity]: but maybe it's natural. communities rise and fall, differently online than irl, or maybe just on a different clock
mday howdies Judi. Long time, scrabble partner of yore!
Tari says, "oh, i see...i'm thinking about the uses of geography and you guys are predicting the heat death of the MOOniverse"
SCog smiles at mday. thanks
Jay laughs
Cyan_Guest says, "Backchannel? explain"
Tari says, "that's why i don't think you're answering my questions"
Snickity nods to SCog
Jay [to Tari]: everything gets chparented to $bonker
Tari says, "i'm the only talking about them!"
Tari giggles.
Stuart says, "that is why I liked tapped in so much... because they leverage the power of graphics to "dump" information about the environment rapidly into your head while keeping the power of text for communication and construction"
SCog [to mday]: we did not win the best-paper award at that conference, which i'm ok with. they talked about us a lot.
Nolan [to Jan]: Ya... but I question whether MOOs are up to it... or if there is a need to rewrite moo from scratch to get it up into the 19th Century tech wise
Cerulean_Guest [to Cyan_Guest]: Whispering or paging rather than using the mainchannel.
Snickity says, "and communities die because the members lose interest in the others"
Amy [to Cyan_Guest]: when we're talking IRL, you might nod to show me that you're listening. people do similar things online
Clooluss hands Stuart his $20
Dave nods to Amy.
Snickity says, "I've seen Lord of the Flies develop on some M**s"
Tiger says, "One thing I think is necessary are moo clients or interfaces that do not need to be downloaded. Saves folks a lot of trouble trying to get thenecessary software into campus labs."
Shaan laughs at Cloosuss
stevej nods at Tiger
Nolan [to Tiger]: but java still isn't up to it ;-(
mday [Snickity]: but an interesting question I have is about how much interest members of this community ever really had in each other. Look at the wars over the council.
Amy takes grins to Clooluss
Cynthia-H [to Nolan]: what do you have in mind?
SCog nods at Tiger. "that is often the first obstacle for people, and it can be difficult for them."
Snickity [to mday]: good point
Clooluss says, "Nolan why is Java not up to it?"
Nolan [to Cynthia-H]: I'm working on a proposal, but it is over my head...
Snickity says, "but Lambda is still going strong...even with all its turmoil"
SCog says, "but haven't some of us developed really strong relationships that started here?"
Ben says, "muds only really die when the archwizard graduates and loses eir unix account"
JaniceW nods to SCog.
Tiger says, "what I really want is a Client site where a person can just type in the host and port # from the web and get instant client acess to any moo. Even java is better than telnet"
Cynthia-H [to SCog]: uh, Jan and I certainly did :)
Snickity nods
barrym [scog]: you mean y'all are real people?
Stuart says, "I think people leave virtual communities because the community diverges from their own developmental track"
Nolan [to Clooluss]: Tonnes of reasons, but mostly because my java programmer says so ;-)
mday says, "And, unless you really know the others in some friendship ofr collegial manner, can you ever feel the strong sense of community needed to be responsible and trustworthy to them?"
Amy [to Ben]: or takes a tenure-track job
Ben says, "nowdays it's easier to set up some kind of perpetual hosting and it will stay up forever"
SCog grins at Cynthia-H.
Tomoe chuckles at Ben's remarks
Jay [to Ben]: fails to explain jhm
Cynthia-H laughs at barrym.
Ben says, "there are tons of muds which are up but mostly dead"
Jan [to Nolan]: well, that's possible, but if so the result would be something altogether different... I don't think the MOO platform is not up to the challenges of today...working on Xpress has showed me that it holds a great potential still
Tomoe says, "how many of us still maintain our Lambda
accounts?"
Tiger says, "I'm talking about the people
who just don't have anything else and have trouble getting clients int heir
labs."
Ben says, "the really persistant ones I know of are all based around the personal relationsihps of the mudders themselves"
Tomoe agrees with Ben
Tari says, "hey i maintain all my lambda accounts"
Amy [to Tomoe]: I do. And I'm grateful for the email reap warnings
Jay says, "wait, what about geography, not heat death?"
Snickity says, "well I know I stopped coming to media because I got more interested in the MOO we were developing...and Tuesday Cafe moved"
mday [The Rhetronymical] . o O ( only barry isn't real )
Ben [to j]: the cargo cult at jhm is fascinating in and of itself
Nolan [to Jan]: I love xpress, but we're still patching away and tripping over legacy code all over the place.
mday snickers
Tari says, "sometimes i even wreak havoc"
Snickity says, "and I am a flakey tuesday cafe-er as it is"
Ben says, "there's something that someone should research"
barrym [to mday]: you found me out
Stuart says, "either the community fails to evolve period or it moves in a direction that the community member doesn't support"
PhilH stands up from the sofa.
Grommit says, "Ben: that's true of the real world though, isn't it. There's a whole lot of place out there, and huge chunks of it are mostly dead..."
barrym says, "I wonder if there's not a difference between interaction and relationships"
mday grins at barry
Tomoe says, "well, i asked about point moot earilier becuase it had a hard core loyal active membership and then the plug was pulled."
Amy [to Ben]: cargo cult?
Jan [to Nolan]: yes, but patching and developing the system collaboratively is really the best part of it :)
Nolan [to Jay]: Sorry, typo. All the new programmers keep freaking on us because there are so many incongruities... give me group ownership, and I'd shut up for a while.
SCog heard an interesting paper on social network theory
Seth says, "group ownership is an installable package"
mday [scog]: tell us about it?
Tari [to SCog]: yes summarize that one
Ben [to Amy]: jhm doesn't allow builders generally but it has a lot of objects which aren't locked
Tomoe says, "group ownership is good"
barrym listens to Scog
SCog says, "relationships that are based on running into each other because of proximity or what would pass for proximity online don't persist"
Grommit says, "I go from significant place to significant place, and I'm always amazed at all the insignificant places in between that just don't close down :)"
Nolan [to Jan]: at your level, perhaps. But I'm working with grad education teachers... and they've cried and cried for 5 years
Cerulean_Guest [to SCog]: 50 words or less.
SCog grins at Tari.
Stuart says, "I think group ownership is essential"
Cerulean_Guest grins at scog.
SCog [to Tari]: how'd i do?
Ben says, "so for a long time after it was abandoned by its creators it was populated by people who were unfamiliar with its history and traded the icons like money"
Jan grins Nolan
Tari [to SCog]: excellent
Tomoe says, "whoa i'm following two seemingly unrelated threads here."
Nolan says, "Stuff like multimedia file uploads, which we just added, and will send off to Jan soon, goes a long way to making the MOO a complete space... "
Stuart says, "without group ownership how can there even be a community"
Ben says, "for example all the recipe cards from the kitchen, joke objects of all kinds, unlocked furniture"
mday wonders if that's because it isn't proximity in the strict sense?
barrym [to SCog]: but you're still talking about relationships...that may happen, but I dunno if that's really the key
Jay [to Nolan]: yeah, but group ownership doesn't really fit the moo programming model very well, which is why nobody's shipping it. either that or anyone who cares enough to implement it is already a wizard and doesn't need it....
Ben says, "and they would be quite hostile if you forcibly took the recipes from them and put them back in the kitchen"
Tomoe says, "Nolan, what are they crying about?"
Nolan says, "but I want to be able to glomm all the other extra moo bits, like white boards into moo without having to have a master programmer there all the time."
Ben says, "explaining that someone had "given it to them""
SCog [to barrym]: i had the idea from this paper that relationships, deep i think versus uh not deep, do make the difference, personal relationships
Stuart says, "perhaps I am misunderstanding what is meant by group ownership"
SCog says, "for persistence"
mday [Tomoe]: yeah, it's making my eyes pop and my mind expand.
Ben says, "since there was a finite amount of stuff, it was a grand gesture to give away a recipe"
Nolan [to Jay]: I agree... I think
SCog [to Amy]: will you please remind me how to get the log for this?'
Tari [to Ben]: that's awesome
barrym [to SCog]: hmmmm...maybe ...I still think there can be a kind of "drive by" factor in MOO
SCog is going to need to read it
Jan [to Jay]: I think that it would certainly be worthwhile to look into groups in MOO, and I guess it needs to be supported by the server before any database changes occur
Nolan [to Tomoe]: I've got a diss hot off the presses that covers some of it.
Amy says, "one trick to group perms is how to do it without making the environment harder to understand. "
Amy [to SCog]: it'll be on the web
SCog nods at barrym
Jay [to Nolan]: yeah, I can tell stories like that all day... 1/2 :-)
SCog says, "thanks"
Shaan [to SCog]: it'll be posted on the mediamoo website
SCog has to go, see you all later!
Amy [to SCog]: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/mediamoo/
Snickity says, "i have a question"
Seth says, "group ownership has been an installable package for years"
Jay [to Ben]: i never heard that last part
Tari says, "night SCog"
SCog waves byebye
SCog stands up from the sofa.
SCog goes home.
Amy [to Snickity]: ask away :-)
Stuart says, "ahh you mean technical group permissions on objects?"
Tomoe says, "hey Mark, would you support group ownership?"
Ben says, "I didn't fully understand how serious they were until I attemptd a general cleanup"
mday loves the interplay between the touchy feely of group dynamics and relationshiop cast against group ownership and programming concerns.
Snickity says, "what is the most unique/useful/interesting educational application of a MOO that you have seen?"
Cerulean_Guest [to barrym]: The paper scog was talking about discussed strong ties and weak ties. Certainly weak ties exist. The sort of drive-by mooing you were talking about.
Seth says, "The only sticky part is property permissions."
Ben says, "since lots of scenery objects had been moved or lost in #-1"
Jan [to Seth]: ah...didn't know about that one
Nolan [to Stuart]: ya, like unix file permissions.
John-W says, "The position statement that most struck me was Bradley's. About the need for documentation and how it's necessary for expanding the number of generics and other tools that can expand the educational nature of MOOs."
Clooluss says, "Tomoe we have talked about it"
Ben | mday loves the interplay between the touchy feely of group dynamics and relationshiop cast against group ownership and programming concerns.
Stuart is finally up to speed
Snickity says, "sorry I know you can't be "most unique""
Tari says, "i solved the group ownership problem by making it possible to give other people permission to write on certain kinds of objects that they wanted to share"
Snickity says, "it just got lost in the list"
Jay says, "ok i totally misread "group ownership", I'm sorry---the original meaning was not technical, right?"
Ben says, "that's because it's easy to solve the programmatic issues (relatively speaking) but hard to solve the social ones"
Tari says, "because that's what most people were afte"
barrym [to Cerulean_Guest]: I've got no doubt both exist, but I thought we were trying to get at what seems to make MOO so compelling at times and then so forgettable later
Tari says, "they all wanted to contribute to a note or something"
Amy giggles at the tech/non-tech confusion
Nolan grins at amy.
Tomoe says, "when MOO gets hard and there's no one to help it's forgettable"
Amy dohs
barrym . o O ( what tech discussion? )
Cerulean_Guest nods to barrym.
Nolan says, "I'm thinking of 5 people working on a project and having to get me to change ownership 20 times so they can all work on it..."
Tomoe says, "Tapped In has done a nice job of WalMart greeters."
mday [The Rhetronymical] . o O ( when all is said and done, in the end, I just want to play scrabble )
mday grins
Tari | John-W says, "The position statement that most struck me was Bradley's. About the need for documentation and how it's necessary for expanding the number of generics and other tools that can expand the educational nature of MOOs."
Tari says, "yes"
Nolan says, "this is, when I'm not running the class, cause I'd hit them for trying it."
Stuart thought we were talking about the abstract feeling of group ownership members of the community feel about the virtual environment and not the MOO equivalent of UNIX file permissions
Tari says, "also"
Bradley smiles.
Tari says, "we need easier documentation"
JaniceW grins at mday [The Rhetronymical].
Tari says, "well"
mday [Stuart]: but that's a great topic too!
Stuart says, "documentation is very important but we also need to design easier to understand user interfaces"
Nolan [to Stuart]: That is very nice too...
Tari says, "i guess really what i mean is that the in-moo documentation is more like some programmer's notes to emself"
John-W says, "I've run into the problem of not being familiar enough with programming to teach myself."
Ben says, "in terms of the value of research: when a complex system is broken there's a temptation to guess about what is wrong and try to fix it. what would be valueable here is research which could measure (somehow :) what really IS wrong so it could be targetted"
mday would love an easier interface.
Clooluss says, "has anyone thought about the problem of MOO being a dead language?"
Nolan says, "Hey, did I miss the discussion on the inherent english bias of MOOs?"
Tomoe says, "you should all take a look at Tapped In if you haven't"
Ben [to Nolan]: ja wohl
Tari says, "why is it dead?"
Jan says, "so what would such an easy interface invlove and look like?"
stevej has to go and waves apologetically on his way out
mday says, "but then Bradley is here. What will he say if I ask for that? WIMP!"
Jay says, "is C a dead language?"
John-W says, "I'd love to help expand the toolset available but I'm not sure where to start."
Cynthia-H [to snickety]: we're compiling a portfolio of encore MOOs, which is hard because they're all over the place, but there are some fascinating MOOs based on enCore out there, most educational, most not. But the most interesting to me is a platform built on top of enCore that Robert Nideffer with UC-Irvine is doing, researching "information peronae"
Tari says, "and what would an easy interloses"
mday grins and hi5s Bradley
barrym . o O ( if MOO is a dead language can you use it for PhD requirements? )
Jay lol
Stuart says, "I think MOOs are nearly dead now but it isn't because of the servers it is because of the clients"
Bradley says, "Well then!"
Amy giggles at Barry
Grommit says, "actually, I think it's far from a dead language - it's out of fashion, perhaps."
Clooluss says, "are there any CS courses in MOO? IS there a career in moo programming?"
Nolan [to Ben]: We're multilingual, but the problem with multiple encodings for a single language kills us
mday can see it both ways, rully
Tomoe says, "hmmm. "
Snickity [to Cynthia-H]: that sound cool
Amy [to Stuart]: interesting idea
Tomoe ponders Stuart's insight
Stuart says, "for example to get help in a MOO you type help into the command line for the most part"
Tari says, "there are CS classes who come to Connections"
Ben says, "I think MOO is nearly dead now but I'm wrong. There are lots of moos I don't kno wabout because I don't look for them or care to participate"
Jan says, "Fortran is also a "dead" language but you can still do productive things with it"
Stuart says, "when people used text based interfaced to use their computers that was intuitive"
Nolan [to Ben]: true.
Tari says, "they have a realm called"
Tari says, "wait for it"
Jan says, "I've used MOO to teach into to object oriented programming with great success many time"
Tomoe says, "it seems like there's way MORE MOOs now then back in '92"
Tari says, "C-QUEST"
Tiger says, "Even before easier to use interfaces is easier to access interfaces. Hopefully both."
Grommit nods to Jan.
Stuart says, "now most people didn't even know their computers had a text based interface much less that they should type the world help to figure out how to use it"
Ben [to Jan]: it's only dead in the sense that no new large systems are being developed in it, but lots of legacy systems are being maintained
Tomoe lol
Grommit says, "they get unhappy when they realise most OO languages aren't 'live' though :)"
Jan nods Ben
Stuart says, "my point is that MOO interfaces are behind the times in general"
Grommit says, "and then you've made a programmer _and_ a language critic."
mday [Stuart]: good point. The new group is GUI native
Shaan [to Tomoe]: the cost of setting up a MOO has dropped dramatically, but are there really more MOO-ers out there?
Jay says, "part of why i was ranting about how cool it would be if squeak had some hypercard-like facilities was that i really wanted an end-user extensible moo client environment"
Nolan [to Ben]: And many of us run relatively private moos that we don't push publically.
Bradley [to Stuart]: I don't know about that -- Linux has introduced a lot of folks to CLI
Ben says, "part of the reason there are so many moos now is that it is easier (for reasons I already mentioned) to run your own moo"
Snickity says, "hee C++ live would be kind of cool"
Cynthia-H [to snickety]: here's a few from one guy in Australia...
Amy says, "would anyone else like to comment on things in the position statements?"
Tomoe says, "look, you don't need any hard core anything imho for a good MOO. Building (not programming) is good enough if you have a few productive programmers hacking out new objects periodically."
Ben says, "but it dilutes the pool of interested mooers"
mday is still happy that you have to type in words, as a writing teacher.
Ben says, "I could start my own moo or 10 today, but why would the 40 people who hang out on my favorite moo migrate to it?"
barrym says, "I suspect there are lots of MOOers out there, but it may just be that there are just more folks online"
Amy [to mday]: form == content
Stuart says, "even linux is working hard to move the environment towards a GUI and I think that is part of the reason for the increasing user base"
Jay [to Ben]: my logs say something like 1-2 downloads a day of the MOO server from place.org
Tari [to Ben]: NO RULZ GR8 MOO?
Nolan worry about the form, and let the content take care of itself?
Cynthia-H says, "one that is set up to teach children about astronomy, one for univ educational designers scattered geographically, and one called K9MOO (not for dog lovers, but it could be :) just for research alone"
Ben [to j]: I get several downloads a week of the waif patch (!)
mday should look back at the position statements
Grommit would very much prefer to see C++ dead. What threatens MOO with 'extinction' if anything does, is that it's a limited realm language - which is why people don't trust PHP as a long term bet.
Tari says, "i'm funnier when i have less lag"
mday agrees
mday howdies traci!
barrym says, "hey, traci!!!"
Amy [to traci]: hiya!
Tomoe thinks Tari is funny in slo mo too
traci gives a hearty howdy to y'all.
Stuart says, "but I can't believe that adding a graphical user interface to a MOO will take away the powers that text provides"
Ben [to Jay]: plus you're not counting the people who install the RPM or the debian pkg of it
Tari says, "but you know what?"
Grommit says, "all MOO would need to make it vital is a straightforward way to touch the outside world - then you'd attract back coders and revitalise the whole deal."
Snickity [to Stuart]: i agree
Indigo_Guest says, "so long all"
Jan says, "well, since we released enCore for edu use in 97 we are estimating that there are now over 250 new MOOs (large and small) based on it world wide. Many of these MOOs are more application type than community places such as this"
Grommit says, "MOO as a programming language, I mean."
Tari says, "we're all using moos"
Nolan [to Stuart]: It has not done that on our moos. the opposite. people t attracted so many of us in the first place aren't fighting the text as much
Shaan [to Stuart]: it makes it that much harder to add to the world though, which is what attracted so many of us in the first place
Grommit says, "I wouldn't claim that better APIs could fix all the rest ;)"
Tomoe sighs
Snickity hmms
Snickity [to Shaan]: I don't know about that
Tomoe says, "could we back out of the tech for a minute?"
Snickity says, "just a few more props to tweak"
Stuart says, "it makes the designers job harder but I don't think it makes things impossible"
Jay . o O ( uh oh )
mday [Grommit]: interesting. How could we touch the outside world?
Clooluss wipes his read eyes
Amy says, "well, in a few minutes we'll move on to the party part of the evening. But before we do, maybe we could return again to mday's question about the future of MediaMOO. Since he'll be taking over as our fearless leader, does anyone have any suggestions for him?"
Tari says, "new people are starting to use moos"
Tari says, "lamenting their deaths is a bit premature"
Tari says, "i have maximum input lag"
mday is all eyes
Nolan [to mday]: double thy self!
Tiger says, "Scrabble tournaments"
Tomoe lol
Stuart says, "I think MOOs are far from dead"
judi having finished her latest evelynwoods course, pipes in: it's good to be back with you all and i'm reminded of the times when we were first MOOing and had those conversations burbling in our heads long after the sessions ended. Most of us went on to use other MOOs w/students [sigh] which always takes a heap of time and energy and sustainability away from our *primary MOO group.*
Shaan [to Slooluss]: whats the percentage of user created rooms on Tapped in that feature non-standard grafic images?
Tiger grins
Grommit says, "mday: in a coding sense? It's off topic, but I could fire my ideas at you in an email if you like."
mday has a new janitor character, Icarus.
Jan [to mday]: make mediaMOOing mandatory for everyone you know :)
Snickity says, "The MOO is dead....long live the MOO"
Cynthia-H [to mday]: lotteries :)
Tomoe says, "I think it's worth pulling MOO leaaders together periodically in a better version of the old MUDSHOPS"
Stuart says, "they just need a facelift before they can continue to change computing"
Amy . o O ( moo in general or this moo? )
Tomoe says, "oh sorry Amy"
Tomoe says, "it needs a raison d'etre. why should i come here? "
mday says, "Well, if I could only get my old C & W cohort to spend any time here, it would be a start."
Shaan appologizes to Clooluss for his atrocious typing skills
Amy was comment on the 'moo is dead' comment :-)
Stuart is thinking about MOOs in general
Jan cheers for Icarus the Great and Terrible!
Amy says, "was commenting"
Bradley says, "I think we need to write more documentation."
Bradley says, "In our spare time..."
Clooluss says, "Shaan thats an empirical question. we have about 1400 offices"
Icarus bows
Ben | Stuart says, "they just need a facelift before they can continue to change computing"
Stuart laughs
Nolan [to Amy]: moo isn't dead, but it will probably live longer as a metaphor than as actual code.
Jan cheers for Icarus the Great and Terrible!
Tari says, "i think what bradley thinks"
barrym [to mday]: you know if you give us a reason we'll be here...look at tonight
Ben says, "maybe that's true for people who are burned out on moo already"
Tari says, "pretty much all the time"
Ben says, "but I think there will always be a fresh supply of people who can learn from what already exists"
Nolan [to Ben]: there's always fresh moo blood.
Tari says, "no really, though, documentation oriented to teachers and students would rule"
Tomoe chuckles
Tomoe says, "yes Tari."
John-W agrees with Bradley and Tari.
traci says, "just get aol to set one up; then moos will take off"
mday thinks that the novelty has worn off for many of the C & W crowd. If they MOO at all, I don't know where.
Shaan [to Clooluss]: I am just trying to get a sense of whether it is more 'expensive' for your users to expand the environment than it is in a pure text MOO
Amy says, "any last burning questions anyone wants to raise before we move to the ballroom for the party?"
Tomoe says, "but.. i know many of my students wish to download and use a core, but don't have the skills to really administrate it."
Tari [to traci]: that's not a bad idea
Bradley says, "Well, I think we also need expert documentation... "
traci says, "i know"
traci says, "look at IM"
judi agrees w/Tari and Bradley. Lots of my friends would like to use our MOO but don't 'cause it's too daunting so they default to really lame chat. Poor things.
John-W says, "And maybe workshops on the more advanced aspects of MOOing, to add to the pool of people who could write documentation."
Tari says, "exactly"
Nolan [to Tomoe]: thank god.
Tomoe says, "yes "
Amy [to traci]: IM is taking off. There were lots of sessions about it at CSCW. I was amazed.
Grommit checks out Tapped In... I've been out of this loop for too long :/
Tomoe says, "oh Nolan, you elitist"
Clooluss says, "shan I think our users are so time-limited that they would not be in TI if they had to build"
Tomoe grins
Ben says, "one last question"
mday wants to thank you all for coming and hope that you will check in from time to time. This conversation has been fantastic!
Ben says, "as someone who knows something about how moo works"
Stuart says, "you know another possibility is for MOOs to become less intrusive...perhaps more like instant messanging but with a greater sense of presence and place"
Ben says, "and from time to time answers questions about same"
mday says, "but don't go yet, we have to celebrate"
Nolan [to Tomoe]: No way. I just don't want 100,000 empty moos with one person in it.
JaniceW [mday]: thanks for inviting us :)
Shaan nods to Clooluss
Amy [to Stuart]: neat idea
Ben says, "where are all of these moo educators with questions about how things work hanging out?"
Clooluss says, "Shaan onlky a few get a kick out of customizing their office"
Snickity [to mday]: thanks for the honor of being included in such a group
traci says, "IM is the only way that i get my 18 yrold niece to talk to me"
Cynthia-H says, "thanks for inviting us :)"
Nolan [to Tomoe]: that was a social point, not a tech point.
mday is the 1 person on all the empty MOOs
Tomoe says, "true true, but that doesn't hurt anyone but the sysadmiln"
Tari [to Ben]: Connections
Stuart cheers for everyone
Snickity laughs with mday
Tari [to Ben]: come over any time if you like answering questions
JaniceW grins at mday [The Rhetronymical].
Tomoe rotflol
Tari [to Ben]: we have lots
Clooluss says, "Shann the ones who know a bit of photoshop"
Ben says, "might I suggest that they keep a window open on a techie moo :)"
Nolan [to Tomoe]: I'd give up sysadmin immediately.
Tari says, "hell, i have some"
traci says, "there's an audience. it just needs to be cool and easy like IM"
____________________________________________| | | THANK TO AMY FOR ALL HER MOO WORK OVER THE | Jan holds up a BIG sign: | YEARS! |
|____________________________________________|
Cynthia-H claps for Amy.
Jay says, "moo may or may not be dead by some standard, but it (and the other programmable muds) have a unique feature: multiple programmers, with varying levels of trust in each other, can build things that do interesting things, without needing a couple 500 level courses in language theory and concurrency"
Eric cheers Amy
LurkingHorror claps
Stuart cheers for Amy
JaniceW cheers Amy.
Tiger cheers
barrym gives Amy a standing O
mday says, "Yes, Three huge cheers for Amy!"
Shaan cheers
Eric cheers mday for adopting mediamoo
Tomoe says, "i did nolan. i have an empty moo i keep alive for high school kids and i use Tapped In for ed."
Amy goshes
Tari [to Ben]: well, the problem there is that they'd earn so much abuse
Nolan cheers amy... and thanks her for MacMOOOOOOSE tooo.
Bradley says, "Woo woo!"
mday says, "Hip hip hooray!"
Grommit grins. I confess I was reminded about the mediamooniversary (which I've attended before) by Red Rock Eater, this time... but it's so cool to come back :)
judi stands up and does the wave for Amy.
Cerulean_Guest huzzahs.
Cynthia-H raises her glass to Amy!
Snickity says, "you can visit VWCMOO anytime. http://bessie.englab.slcc.edu/"
Amy says, "save it for the party, gang!"
Tomoe claps for Amy
mday says, "Hip hip hooray!"
mday says, "hip hip hooray!"
Tomoe breaks open the wine
Nolan [to Tomoe]: wise. I have dead moos about too.
mday could not resiet
Jan Cheers for Amy the greatest MOO wiz of all time :)
Stuart laces up his dancing shoes
Clooluss grabs the bottle
mday says, "resist, even"
Tomoe grins
Grommit nods, and applauds Amy - thanks for firmly placing another bee in my overcrowded bonnet :)
Snickity cheers
John-W says, "MacMOOSE rules!"
Tomoe says, "i couldn't do the 24/7 Nolan"
Tari [to Ben]: and a techie-moo conversation is not that helpful to a beginner
Tomoe says, "i'm a faculty dude"
Grommit has too many bonnet-bees. MOO help me if they breed.
mday uses MacMOOse as his main Mac client
Amy [to Ben]: not a bad idea, but folks are mostly on their own MU*s. Come by MOOSE some time and see the weird stuff we've done with the new scripting language built with in-db parsing!
Clooluss says, "dudette"
Tomoe says, "yeah, dudette"
Amy [to John-W]: thanx
Stuart says, "shall we all head to the ball"
Bradley [tari]: But it's critical for folks like you and me...
Bradley continues to botch stagetalk
mday says, "yeah, maybe it's time!"
Amy says, "ok folks, party time!"
Tomoe searches for her bodybag costume
Snickity says, "sorry to be a party-pooper...but I have a previous commitment"
Tari [to Bradley]: well, but we're sort of in-betweeners
Ben [to Amy]: I'm suggesting that you can't rely on all of the people with moo knowledge to come to you
Amy says, "type: @go ballroom foyer"
Snickity says, "the Jazz are playing the Timerwolves"
Tiger is always in costume!
Snickity laughs
Amy says, "and don't forget to dress!"