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I’ve already asked Bev to pass on my thanks to everyone at FDL for the hosting of the recent FDL book salon on Andrew McKillop and my new book The Doomsday Machine – looking critically at the arguments put for nuclear energy. Inevitably, I guess, the comments however tended to be about side issues, such as the links between Climate Change politics and nuclear lobbying.
On the other hand, it was really a nice surprise to have someone as expert on the issues as Gregg Levine running it! I had read several of his pieces, like “New York Times, GE Throw Energy Industry a Party; You Were Not Invited Monday” (April 16, 2012) and these raise lots of issues that cry out for further debate and investigation!
The trouble is, the format of an FDL page does not really allow it. Generally speaking, web pages with comments are barely interactive, even if they do allow for more feedback than conventional media. As for the ‘live book salon’, this is a little better, but try as I might on the day, I could not get more than one exchange on an issue with a reader on any one topic, and the same thing with Gregg as the salon host.
How can we improve on that? I have seen sites using slightly different tools that do allow for more true ‘interaction.’ Discussion boards, where someone, like Gregg, starts a thread, and then posts are successively added underneath, over a period maybe of a week, do seem to be able to dig deeper and to allow for rapid post and response exchanges. Obviously FDL has a range of topics and interests, but perhaps a discussion board could complement all its existing features
Comments please!
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Honestly, the place I get the most conversation online these days is probably on Twitter. Message boards seem to have been ‘left behind’ a bit by modern social media; most of the ones I know have been filled up with spam or irrelevancy. So I’m not sure how to fix this problem as far as blogs go, though I do see real conversations break out here from time to time.
“Honestly, the place I get” says a lot about you Kit. Us older FDl’ers may not be ‘tweeters’ and I know there is a fair amount of us older FDL’er(firepups as some write) that frequent MyFDL. And Dr. Cohen was not talking about a discussion board just somewhere but here at Myfdl. And access to it would obviously be restricted to signing into myfdl.
Yes, some actual conversations do occur bu that’s in spite of the format at myfdl.
Interesting topic/observation to dicuss/for discussion. A Thank You is in order to Dr.Martin Cohen for putting this topic on the FDL table.
Over the years I have pulled back from putting up comments from one site after another. Now only doing so here at FDL and primarily on what gets posted at My FDL component of FDL. I tend to read many of the postings and comment threads at FDL in what some call the Lurk Mode but this fits my personal time budgets available for reading and putting comments together.
I gave up putting up comments at some sites for reasons of lost interest or site politics fatigue. I stopped commenting on Glenn Greenwalds UT current Salon site after having put up well over 600 comments over several years. Still read GG day to day but the Salon FUBAR that now infests Glenn’s comment threads seems to be getting worse as Talbot and Salon “improve” it. Recently I am running into total IE lock-up/dead ends trying to page thru Salon’s UT comment threads. I am thinking more this is the intended feature and not the bug.
Scrolling becomes a very used tactic/response to all the above.
I think the FDL Book Salon would benefit from longer time slots and these FDL Book Salon perhaps could benefit from being open for comments,questions and feedback loopings that were given more time (days?) until the whole thing has slowed down to little/ no additional activity. Just my take given I am not in position to see the whole FDL “backroom” side of what this would take to do. Clearly how FDL is “wired” and what site components can carry vs. cost and site collapse risk exposures come first. Would define early on what can be done in a non-USG/CIA/Pentagon open wallet way but done in reasonable and cost effective ways.
I tend to submit longer comments and seldom engage in doing comments back and forths because of time considerations and a understanding that those who may agree are already there and those who do not I am not going to likely persuade otherwise anyway.
Getting into comment firefights while perhaps emotionally energising also may leave trails of words written in Uzi styled remark(s) firing rates that seldome pass the test of a few hours,days or a month later. My experiences here at FDL have largely been Uzi CommentMaking free. I think this makes FDL a good place to stay current with.
Another site I stopped commenting at and seldom review anymore ( the one with orange all over ) was doing/does Hit Squad comment censoring and was very busy at weeding out anyone who went up or against the site owner and his gang of inquisitors site editorial and endorsement dogma/cant. Phooey on all such democratic fraud and heavy handed consensus making.
The deeper problem of political/ multi-media websites where large numbers of comments can appear per topic/article thread is when comments count range out into the hundreds and low thousands. This becomes resistant to doing a useful survey and read process unless one is content to look at the sites screen for several hours at at time. Not me.
Again a good observation to have made Dr. Martin Cohen. I decided to take some time and put up a comment in response.
But other duties call. The day is moving along and I should as well.:-)
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Actually, that ‘doctor’ bit in my sign-in name here (relates not to ‘philosophy’ but to philosophy of education, and specifically, issues relating to computers and the way people think. I mention that not to sound important, far from it, but to confess that I’ve long been interested in issues related to what in the jargon is sometimes called ‘human-computer interaction’. But this area is a bit of a cinderella area – people are either techno-experts who insist that the latest update is ‘the solution’ (and of course better than everything that there is already) – or subject purists, who won’t deign to talk about computers. I was forced to change the place I studied for my PhD by such purists – arguing that philosophy was not to be found in consideration of issues such as this.
Point is, then, (at last I get there!) there is a problem about the way we conduct debates on the net generally, and on fdl specifically. People, such as Greg, such as shootthearrow (with all those posts) are wasting ideas, because their contributions are swamped by unconnected messages, or lost in the churn.
Surely a board here – this page is actually a bit like one – but just needs to be organised as proper ‘threads’ – would have a place. Restricted to signed in members, who then can start a more focussed and patient exchange of ideas and views.
Appreciate the explanation(extrapolation ?). I started in the computer industry back in 1977 when I personally keypunched the program I had written into hollerith cards. And was on the first team at a now defunct company called named ITT courier when the first of the commercial pc’s were introduced and spreadsheets were the “wow” of the day.
And lived through the times when I was actually sought after by company’s who paid recruiters a fee for finding me and the companies actually paying for furthering my education.
And was working at a university when the universities were moving towards their own net and architecture that incorporated what IBM had already done with their SNA.
So when I come across “techno-experts who insist that the latest update is ‘the solution’ ” I simply can’t be quiet; nor can I be quiet when someone tries to tell me that the ‘latest’ obviates anything from the ‘past’.
And I know full well -and can’t agree more- that important ‘contributions’ get ‘lost in the chum’.
But,hey, it takes all kinds of people. :->)
Yes, the best job “i never had’ was to be Head of a quango in the UK charged with getting computers used in schools. I was interviewed on a shortlist of one and they asked me how I would essentially ‘make’ the recalcitrant computer illiterate teachers use computers.
But I told the panel (me and my big mouth) that my research had led me to think that teachers were actually right to be hesitant and that computers were often hindering not helping lessons. I said that people needed to start rather by working out what their aims were, and then decide how( and whether) the tools available helped.
No appointment was made!
Here on fdl, our ‘thread’ is likely disappearing too. In the churn’ again…!
Many thanks to Dr. Cohen for all the kind words. I will confess i’ve been feeling like the entire issue of nuclear power (the dirty, dangerous, expensive threat of it) has been getting short shrift lately. It’s as if the world said, “well, we got through your one-year anniversary of Fukushima, can we move on now?” But I will also admit that debates about how to debate give me hives. I probably have an unfair bias–too many meetings trying to achieve “consensus” while in college activist groups–but I worry that when we spend time on talks about talks, we take ourselves off the streets (and I mean that literally).
Framing ideas and intellectual discussion are important–or I wouldn’t be here–but most important is spreading the word and effecting action in the physical world. I have found no “perfect” forum–I like blogs, I like twitter, I like talking over a beer–all have their advantages and all have the potential to devolve into slanging matches. In the end, if it gets you to connect with others and demand more of your community, I’m for it; if it provides an “easy button” that allows to feel secure in your beliefs or your isolation or, worse, your complacency, then I’m all for trying something new.
In the end, I guess I would say, try to engage the issue, no matter the format, and try to take your ideas and sensations into the offline world. If someone feels one format does that better than others, I’m all for hearing about it.
I’m no techie. Hell, I’m OLD, over 50. But the formatting and editing functions on FDL leave much to be desired. I understand why threads are locked and allowed to sink into oblivion after a couple of days; I also feel that this policy and technology inhibits true free speech.
Two days from now, this thread will be invisible to everyone who doesn’t REALLY dig for it.
I think that’s messed up. Am I the only one?