"Every Home Is Wired": 3 -- The Progressive Rock Community on the Net

"Every Home Is Wired":
3 -- The Progressive Rock Community on the Net

At the same time, the use of crossposting in this disruptive way should not discredit it in its more constructive form as a means to temporarily join a limited number of related newsgroups in order to address topics of relevance to all these groups. As we have seen, crossposting between r.m.p and a.m.y, for example, is legitimate (and encouraged by the FAQs) for topics somewhere in the centre between the localist alt.music.yes and the cosmopolitan rec.music.progressive end of the topic continuum. Here, too, the fact that a majority of the high-volume threads in both groups were crossposts between them does not necessarily indicate that the distinction between r.m.p and a.m.y is an artificial and superfluous one: the crossposting itself will lead to higher thread volumes, as participants can now be drawn from the constituency of both groups (and of other newsgroups these threads may have appeared in) -- volume statistics are thus automatically biased towards crossposted threads. The fact that the many mid-size non-crossposted threads (typically consisting of twenty to fifty articles) make up the majority in both newsgroups indicates that the newsgroup division into r.m.p and a.m.y does make sense.¹⁹	Bit 40
Apart from off-topic trolling and spamming, there is also the more community-based disruptive behaviour of topical trolling and the posting of obvious 'flame baits' -- the post alleging that Yes guitarist "Steve Howe has AIDS?" is an example. Partly, the postings of yesdick/progdick and another user going by the name of 'THEE ANCIENT' also fall into this category.²⁰ Largely, such flamebaiting is meant to stir fights ('flame wars') within the newsgroup -- even though habits like THEE ANCIENT's use of annoyingly ungrammatical language, for example, may have grown out of a simple lack of knowledge, their continued repetition despite helpful advice from others reveals a certain recalcitrance and animosity. A likely explanation for this phenomenon would be a desire to 'prove' oneself in the ensuing fights. This may have a variety of causes: relatively new participants may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of newsgroup postings, and have a need to make their name known (an aim certainly achieved by yesdick, as the topic list for alt.music.yes shows), while even long-time users may suffer from feelings of anonymity amongst the crowd, and may feel an urge to draw attention by taking extreme stances and engaging in controversial debates.²¹	Bit 41

At the same time, the use of crossposting in this disruptive way should not discredit it in its more constructive form as a means to temporarily join a limited number of related newsgroups in order to address topics of relevance to all these groups. As we have seen, crossposting between r.m.p and a.m.y, for example, is legitimate (and encouraged by the FAQs) for topics somewhere in the centre between the localist alt.music.yes and the cosmopolitan rec.music.progressive end of the topic continuum. Here, too, the fact that a majority of the high-volume threads in both groups were crossposts between them does not necessarily indicate that the distinction between r.m.p and a.m.y is an artificial and superfluous one: the crossposting itself will lead to higher thread volumes, as participants can now be drawn from the constituency of both groups (and of other newsgroups these threads may have appeared in) -- volume statistics are thus automatically biased towards crossposted threads. The fact that the many mid-size non-crossposted threads (typically consisting of twenty to fifty articles) make up the majority in both newsgroups indicates that the newsgroup division into r.m.p and a.m.y does make sense.¹⁹

Bit 40

Apart from off-topic trolling and spamming, there is also the more community-based disruptive behaviour of topical trolling and the posting of obvious 'flame baits' -- the post alleging that Yes guitarist "Steve Howe has AIDS?" is an example. Partly, the postings of yesdick/progdick and another user going by the name of 'THEE ANCIENT' also fall into this category.²⁰ Largely, such flamebaiting is meant to stir fights ('flame wars') within the newsgroup -- even though habits like THEE ANCIENT's use of annoyingly ungrammatical language, for example, may have grown out of a simple lack of knowledge, their continued repetition despite helpful advice from others reveals a certain recalcitrance and animosity. A likely explanation for this phenomenon would be a desire to 'prove' oneself in the ensuing fights. This may have a variety of causes: relatively new participants may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of newsgroup postings, and have a need to make their name known (an aim certainly achieved by yesdick, as the topic list for alt.music.yes shows), while even long-time users may suffer from feelings of anonymity amongst the crowd, and may feel an urge to draw attention by taking extreme stances and engaging in controversial debates.²¹

Bit 41

Section 3 -- Go on to Bite:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40