Because computers are at once intimate and impersonal, tied up with work, education and entertainment, they may be so woven into the fabric of our lives that 'standing back' is completely an illusion.
Susan Leigh Star [131]

The traditional definition of community includes a group of people, common interests and a common locality [142]. By extending the conception of locality to include the place provided by Usenet, alt.good.morning (AGM) reflects all the characteristics of Oldenburg's third place [114]. It is a place of conviviality, a global conversation. It is open at all hours without any membership requirement other than access to a computer, basic computing skills and some knowledge of English. Traweek defines community as a group of people with a shared history, with distinct behaviors and with expectations for a shared future [144]. Falk further refines the definition to include common ideals and commitment of personal resources and energy [41]. AGM is made up of individuals from around the world who develop a shared history, distinct behaviors, expectations for a shared future and common ideals through their interactions on AGM and through the affordances of CMC. After a brief look at what defines community and culture, I describe how AGM fulfills those definitions.

Tonnies expresses the concept of community as "a sense of interrelatedness and shared experiences among people living in the same locality" [142], a traditional definition that includes a group of people, common interests and a common locality. In today's world, spatial proximity is less a requirement than is interrelatedness. In her study of physicists in Japan, Traweek asserts that "a community is a group of people with a shared past, with ways of recognizing and displaying their differences from other groups, and expectations for a shared future" [144]. Traditional communities tend to be stable and robust [41].

In trying to define Internet communities, Falk distinguishes between robust and ephemeral communities. A robust community consists of a stable membership that not only shares common ideals, experiences and a sense of interrelatedness but also believe that by "belonging to their community they can make greater progress towards achieving their objectives than through belonging to other communities" [41]. They gain emotional and intellectual support from the community, associate with it their ideals and aspirations, "will invest personal resources, energy and commitment into it" and will rebuild it when disaster strikes [41]. In contrast to the attention, devotion and allegiance given to a robust community, the membership of an ephemeral community is transitory, changes rapidly and forms partial relationships which satisfy only a few of the members. They "interact chaotically with little confidence" in shared ideals and their "world view and historical perspective conflict markedly in ways important to them" [41]. Strate calls the multiple associations with easy and frequent membership changes found on the Internet "liquid tribalism;" he believes that the distinguishing characteristics of a community evolve over time [134].

The culture of a community is "the totality of all learned social behavior of the community, the set of solutions devised . . . to meet specific problems posed by situations they face in common" [141]. It "establishes the foundation for communicating meanings and the ways by which these meanings are reproduced and transmitted" [141]. Moreover, it is "their ways of making things and making use of them and the way they make over their world" [144]. These definitions of community and culture provide ample criteria for judging whether a group is indeed a community with a distinct culture.

Virtual communities exist in the socially constructed space of cyberspace [29]. Virtual communities "allow people to generate experiences, relationships, identities, and living spaces that arise only through interaction with technology" [145]. Rheingold defines virtual communities as "social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace" [114]. Jones uses the term "cybersociety" for these new forms of community that depend on computer-mediated communication (CMC) [66]. Not going so far as to call them communities, Elizabeth Reid classifies multi-user domains (MUDs) and Internet relay chat (IRC) as distinct cultural groups [111, 112]. In these environments, interaction produces culture [29]. Although there exist multiple examples of virtual communities, many more closely resemble Falk's ephemeral communities. However, Baym argues that rec.arts.tv.soaps is a real community [12]. In the next section, I present evidence that AGM is not only a virtual community but also a robust one.

Because it exists in the social space of Usenet and depends on CMC for its interactions, AGM is a virtual community. Nevertheless, AGM displays all the characteristics of a robust community. It contains a stable group whose presence provides a "comfortable familiarity . . . whenever [people] pop back in for a while" (Widge, very heavy poster). The consistent and frequent messages from these twenty-seven heavy posters provides a basis for the AGM voice. The posts on AGM reflect the common ideals and experiences of the group. They build and share a common history and anticipate a shared future. They have created a distinct culture. In this section I establish how AGM fulfills these characteristics. As in the preceding chapter, I have not corrected the grammar or spelling in the excerpts from the posts and emails. These are the words as AGMers expressed them.

Although the notion of self being constituted by and through language is not a new concept [145], how identity is established and maintained in a text-only medium is problematic. You cannot define yourself by a better address or by being seen in the right places in the right company [94]. Yet AGM is first a group of individuals. MUDs and IRC allow you to represent yourself in any form you wish, making identity fluid [111, 133, 145]. Yet, identity in AGM is built on trust; trust that how you represent yourself on the newsgroup is who you are. As explained in Chapter V, AGMers use every means of communication available. They use Usenet postings and all the backchannels of communication available--email, talker, telephone, FtF meetings and snail mail--often without evidence of this appearing in the newsgroup postings [71]. Your identity presented in multiple communications channels not only reinforces your on-line identity but also reconciles that on-line identity with your IRL identity.

Identity must be continually recreated and reinforced because of the constant arrival of newbies. Without a physical presence, a poster must create an identity and a presence using the tools available. Posters use the Usenet structures of header, message and signature to help facilitate that process. Unique names and distinctive writing styles contribute social presence cues that assist in building an identity. Much of the communication on AGM is self-disclosing; AGMers often share bits of their day, their worries and their joys. Through these stories, they create complex pictures of themselves as real people. In addition, AGMers take on specific roles in the newsgroup. These roles help establish identity as the person becomes associated with the role and interacts with posters in the capacity of that role.

The top lines of a post are called the header (described in detail in Chapter V). Headers automatically accompany every post and include information about the post and the sender of the post. The lines of a header salient to identification are the from and the organization lines. The from line provides the email address of the poster. It may also contain a name or pseudonym of the poster. When a name is included on the from line, either the email address or the name is set off in parentheses or a set of angle brackets (< >). The email address is the combination of the account name or userid and the name of the computer system providing that account separated from the userid by an @ symbol. Userids are combinations of letters and numbers according to a naming scheme or criteria at the computer site where the person has an account. Some AGMers use their initials, others use some portion of their names, nicknames or pseudonyms. Because these are unique identifiers, email addresses become one source of identity for newsgroup participants. The organization line provides another identifier. Some systems automatically provide an organization name while others provide a way to customize this line. Although most posters use the default value, some posters put AGM as the organization and one uses one line horizontal ASCII art, >)o..o(<, for a face (or two fish blowing bubbles at each other or two people on their sides head to head).

Another common identifier is the signature or sig file that writers append to their messages. Some systems automatically append the sig file to every message sent, thus providing a regular and consistent mechanism associating text with the author. Two hyphens often proceed the signature in these automatic systems, providing an additional visual cue to the reader. The sig is highly individualized--some people use ASCII art, a favorite quotation or additional identifying information such as a homepage address, snail mail address and telephone number(s). ASCII art refer to pictures drawn with keyboard strokes; they reflect hobbies or special interests and range from simple to very elaborate. Netiquette suggests that the sig contain the sender's name and email address and be no more than four lines long [48]. Distinctive sig files carry more identifying potential than names and often provide the most salient cues in learning to discriminate individuals [13].

Seventy-eight AGMers (38%) used a sig at least once during the six weeks analysis. In addition, 61% of the posts included a sig and all the very heavy posters routinely use a sig. Whereas Netiquette suggests that a sig be no more than four lines of text [48], the average length of an AGM sig is six lines and they range in length from one to fifteen lines with one sig thirty-seven lines long. Table 11 (Note: bar graph in the official version of the dissertation, charted here for the online text version.) shows the distribution of signature lengths on AGM.

Table 11. Distribution of Signature Files by Length

     Length (lines)   Number of Posters
     ----------------------------------
           1                 6
           2                 9
           3                 8
           4               15
           5                 9
           6                 9
           7                 2
           8                 4
           9                 2
          10                1
          11                3
          12                5
          13                1
          14                0
          15                3
          37                1

Because of the number of posters to AGM, there are posters with the same given names. In order to further differentiate one Dick and Jane from the next, AGMers often adopt nicknames. Some are self-selected and others are assigned to the newbies by an oldbie. These nicknames are formed arbitrarily. Some are formed by adding a number after the person's name. Thus, when several Jane's began posting, they became Jane6, Jane8 and Jane100. Others include a geographic reference, such as Salem Sam from Salem, Texas Tim from Texas, or StaNZ from New Zealand. None of these examples are actual nicknames used in AGM; they are provided here as examples of naming schemes used on AGM. A nickname or pseudonym may have been chosen when the person began using a talker, bulletin board or similar system and the poster continued the use of it on AGM. Pseudonyms and nicknames are unique names among AGMers. Those who use them are known by those labels. The nicknames become their names and because they are unique, they become another source of identity.

Writing style and posting format can also differentiate one poster from another. Although it takes longer to learn the differences in style and formats that posters use, they are as individual as one's handwriting. Everyone on AGM recognizes a post of the form:

Velocity

This form of one word post is characteristic of Wilfred, a university student and heavy poster. The other side of Wilfred is talkative with unusual phrasing, discordant word choices and impenetrable meanings. Although his style is affectionately called intellectual rambling, his posts are not heedlessly thrown together. In an email interview he asked that I format this sample of his posts just as he sent it because he considers the shape of the words and sentences almost as important as the words.

     Pleasant walking with deepened and not profound alternatively

Meal time shared.  

                Fish and friends of the two DF caste, plus Toto the Cat.  

Mad Hatters, and a lost one regained after roughly pi years.  

Felt good not being a window yesterday evening. 

Good morning!

On the other hand, Helen submits long articles, richly detailed, self-revealing and conversational in tone with heavy use of ellipsis. The following is an excerpt from one of her posts.

....  and, we didn't expect the family over until 1 or so ....  so we
got the cooking going.  I did the prime rib ....  about a 13 pound roast
..  and since a roast just cooks, I had plenty of time to concentrate on
the dessert.  I wanted something very special...and I wanted to use my
Death By Chocolate cookbook.  But I was aware that no one wanted a big
heavy dessert after prime rib and Yorkshire pudding.  So I settled on
rum raisin ice cream and almond tile cookies dipped in chocolate.  I had
soaked a double batch of raisins in a double portion of rum.  ...  and I
had decided that since we had so many folks coming I should make a
double batch of ice cream ....  but the ice cream maker will only hold
one batch at a time ....  no big deal ..  I had plenty of time ....  so
I made the custard ...  reversed the use of heavy cream and half and
half .....  sigh ...  but it didn't really matter in the end .....  it
was dumping in all the raisins and rum in the chocolate mixture for the
one batch of ice cream that did.  I got side tracked ....  oh dear ....

Another AGMer, Neth, uses ASCII art in his posts. It is easy to recognize a post that includes an ASCII animal.

A unique format of an AGM post is called the brick. Although Ted does not use bricks as his only posting format, most of his comments are in this form. Bricks are discussed in more detail in Chapter VII.

Using the Usenet quotation system or embedding convention, another AGMer participates in ongoing conversations. Joy is not a native English speaker, a very heavy poster, often refers to herself in third person, keeps an inflatable hammer and doles out virtual 'thwaps' to many of those who converse with her. Thus her posts are full of teasing, thwaps and embedded text. Newsreader software affixes a '>' to previous text included in a followup to denote the embedded post. In some systems, the next level of embedding is marked with a different symbol. In the following excerpt, Joy and Joseph are in the midst of a conversation. Joseph, from Canada, has spoken first, denoted by the deepest nesting of symbols; Joy has responded and Joe has answered her. This particular posting is Joy's rejoinder.

>:> Hugs and Coke floats, 
>: Joy...will have coke-floats as desert tonight 
> WHIMPER!!! I'm all out of coke, and all out of ice cream, too!!!  :'( 
BUMMER!!! have you tryed Canada-Dry-Float?  *LOL* 

>: hey Joe, I still dunno what you did about your PhD?!?  
> I've been upgraded to PhD work? Why is it I'm always the last person to 
> know these things????  
> Joy, I hate to tell you, but I'm still a pitiful undergrad...  :-( 
Joy *T.H.W.A.P.S* Joe very hard !!  Hey remember when once (long
time ago) yu told me "tell me what you did with your thesis I
will tell you what I did with mine" ...?!?  
Joy *THWAPS* again Joe as he still didn't faint from the first thwap

Another mechanism for asserting and maintaining identity is through self disclosure. When asked about the purpose of AGM, 70% of the respondents to the survey stated making friends and being supportive. In this spirit, many of the AGM posts are self-disclosing, sharing as Helen did in the above example. In addition, everyone is encouraged to submit a short biography (bio), stating more about themselves. This helps fix identity, interests and geographical location of new posters. Forrest collects the bios as they are posted and makes them available for the asking.

Forrest has the role of keeper of the bios. Many other roles exist in AGM. Being a heavy poster is one type of role that brings recognition as well as fulfilling the roles of relationship builders [12]. Widge consistently includes the full text of posts at the end of her articles providing a reliable and consistent source of messages that many would not see from their own Usenet providers. Bette maintains the FAQ. Neth regularly posts the birthday and anniversary list. One AGMer maintains the AGM homepage, another maintains the list of snail addresses. One makes the official AGM t-shirts and another has recently begun a bimonthly newsletter which is posted on the Web. Although many AGMers greet newbies, a few take on the role of greeter, extending an "official" welcome to newbies which includes the AGM guidelines. By assuming these duties, AGMers help establish a distinctive voice for themselves.

Although your identity in cyberspace need not match your physical identity, you create a unique representation of yourself through your ongoing participation in the newsgroup. As is evident from the above examples, the content of posts from the header to the sig help in the construction and maintenance of identity. These utilize the affordances of newsreaders. Yet AGMers use many more channels of communication than just Usenet. Becoming more commonplace, AGM Web pages include pictures of the individual and links to other pictures of family, friends and AGM meetings. Your identity is validated in every IRL experience you have with any of the group--from telephone calls to FtF meetings, from snail mail to Web pictures.

Together with establishing individuality, AGM posts provide a group voice and a source of group identity. Your thoughts become communal through this medium [12]. When a message is embedded within another's post using the quotation scheme provided by newsreaders, a single message possesses multiple authors. Your post is transformed from "yours" to "ours." The FAQ, the AGM Web page, the Web newsletter build a group identity. More than the posts and Web pages speaking and giving AGM its group identity, the participants speak as members of the group. There is wide use of the first person plural pronoun when referring to the group. "We accept anyone who wishes to post here who follows our simple guidelines" (Randy MacFlandry, official greeter and heavy poster). When Randy greets a newbie, his first sentence is inclusive and affiliative, "Welcome to alt.good.morning, normally referred to as AGM here, making you one of our newest agmer's! As I said, welcome to the friendliest and most caring newsgroup around." Other AGMers also greet newbies with the same purport, "Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. Sit down and let us pour you a cup of coffee. You have found the warmest place on the net. We can be silly, and funny, but always friendly. I hope AGM brings you as much happiness as it has for me." Participants refer to themselves as members of the group, "I have only been an AGMer for 9 months now" and the posts are often addressed to the group, "Good morning to all," and "Hi AGM!" The tangible objects also create a group identity on AGM; the photos, the postcard exchange and official AGM t-shirts produce a team spirit. Thursday has become AGM day when AGMers from around the world wear their AGM t-shirts. When you wear your AGM t-shirt, you know that other people all over the world are sharing in this small act of camaraderie.

Group identity is also built out of a shared history. Although AGM posts are not archived, various people save posts which interest them and they periodically share their treasures. Again, the FAQ with its bits and pieces of history and trivia is a starting point for the shared history of AGM. The FAQ is in two files specifically because of the history included there. Part I is the general information of the group, joining, following the rules, addresses and notes on talkers and t-shirts. Part II contains how a few posters got their nicknames, explanation of a few AGM terms and a description of AZAGM, the largest AGM IRL meeting of AGM history. Periodically a thread will build when someone, usually a newbie, asks how the group got started. In late January, 1996, the history thread reappeared. The original posters to AGM have disappeared although a few count themselves as among the earlier participants. Joy recalls, "Yes, I remember when I joined in AGM, posts where just to say 'good morning' and 'weather report from all the worlds,' AGMers in that time were very few." When asked what was their favorite story from AGM, the people who responded to the questionnaire included the reports from IRL meetings; these form part of the shared history of the group. Group posts, that is, a post from someone's account but from the group of people at the IRL engage the whole newsgroup and contribute to the feeling of actually being at the meeting. As pictures from these meetings appear on Web pages, the shared history grows.

The relationships that have grown among the AGMers provide a source of group history. The courtship of Joy and Travis and their subsequent wedding is most often mentioned as the favorite AGM story. There are five AGM couples who have met through AGM. There are four (known) romances among other AGM pairs. Eight of the nine are international romances. Their stories are part of the shared history of AGM. The shared history is built from the FtF meetings and from the discourse of AGM. It is similar to an oral history, passed from each generation of newbies to the next. The artifacts of these histories are found in the periodic retelling of some of the favorite stories, the pictures from the events saved on Web pages and the everyday conversation.

As plans are made for the various IRLs, AGMers become engaged in the future activities of the group. But from the very beginning of participation in AGM, you have expectations for a shared future with the group. You are invited to join in and share about yourself and your day. A typical greeting is "Welcome Welcome. Please pull up a key board and join in on the warmest place on the internet. We are a global community of caring people. Tell us about yourself. Nice to have you aboard." Because AGM is not so prolific a group as to have exhausted all possible topics, evident from the article line in the header, you can expect your input as a newbie to be welcomed. Birthdays are celebrated in posts and by email. You can add your name to the birthday list in anticipation of receiving your share of AGM email from around the world. The nature of Usenet communication (asynchronous distributed with inconsistent distribution times to all sites) contributes to the tendency to experience the posts as if they were being communicated in the present [134], therefore your contribution is never outdated. Expectations for future involvement with the group is related to the level of involvement and engagement with the newsgroup. When asked on the questionnaire as to whether they were addicted to AGM, typical responses included "Yes it's the people and the friendship I guess" and "I have made too many good friends to give them all up, now. These people and their lives are important to me . . . I like to feel that they feel the same." Even the lurker who responded expresses "I always want to see how everyone is doing." Finally, expectations for future involvement is evident in the ongoing plans for UKAGM, the second annual international AGM meeting being planned for August, 1996 at the youth hostel in the parish of St. Briavels, the converted remains of a castle that spans the border of England and Wales. The plans for the meeting began immediately after AZAGM and have been a year in the making. Seventy people from around the world will be meeting FtF, many for the first time.

The expectations for a shared future is based on friendships forged from shared ideals. AGM is a place and AGM is people. The ideals of the group are expressed in the FAQ and in the posts themselves. One explicit "unofficial rule of AGM" is no flames. Flames are not answered on AGM; they are ignored. If any flaming occurs among AGMers, it occurs on the backchannels. In answering the question about what topics are discussed on AGM, the FAQ offers, "Everything and anything, but we usually try to stay away from the gloomy stuff which brings the others down. We like to cheer people up! The unofficially adopted AGM motto is: 'Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.' " As one heavy poster expressed it, "AGM moring has always ment love and warmth to me, it is a place where one can go to help others or to receive help from others. It is a global community of loving and warm people, and I for one am going to do my best to help it stay that way . . . I love people and I love peace." Thus AGM expresses the ideals of love and friendship, peace and support.

These ideals are expressed in the actual behavior on the newsgroup. These behaviors are the expression of the norms of the group. On the Internet, Netiquette provides the basic guidelines for civilized conduct in an electronic media. But Netiquette is not enforceable and there are no Net Police. The norms of a newsgroup are negotiated practices, that is, the rules of conduct are found in explicit postings and in modeled social behavior of the newsgroup. AGM has adapted Netiquette to their own particular needs. The following is a greeting sent by Randy MacFlandry to a newbie:

Greetings to you WrenZ!

Welcome to alt.good.morning, normally refered to as AGM here, making you
one of our newest agmer's!  As I said, welcome to the friendliest and most
caring newsgroup around.

We accept anyone who wishes to post here who follows our simple guidelines:

   a.) Post often
   b.) Post morning posts
   c.) No flame posts

We are certain you can meet these guides, but to make sure we remind you
that here often means as often as you can; and morning is defined as
anytime it is morning anywhere on the globe we call earth.  As to the last
one, we mean it, and ignore flame messages, or invite the author to join
our friendly group.

You will be a wonderful addition to our growing community of posters!

Take care and have a good morning, and may your tomorrows be glorious!

P.s.  here we use '{' '}' to denote hugs so ==> {{{WrenZ}}}

--
Hugs and smiles,
Randy MacFlandry

Newbies adapt their behaviors to align with these norms. Thus saying 'No flaming' is one thing and actually seeing no flames on the newsgroup is another. As one newbie said, "I was scrolling through the list of newsgroups out of boredom one day and opened AGM merely out of curiosity. It was like breathing fresh air. No spamming, no flames. . . a close-knit group who eagerly welcomed newcomers as though they belonged the whole time." The lack of flaming and the friendliness are the two most distinguishing characteristics of AGM. Several additional behaviors are evident in the above post. Randy refers to the group as AGM and the members as AGMers. He uses "we" when talking about the group and explains the use of curly brackets to send hugs to a person. He also explains the way AGM enforces the no flame rule--flames are extinguished with silence. Netiquette also suggests that "it's prudent not to respond to flames" [48]. In addition, Netiquette suggest that the subject line of a message be relevant, messages should be brief and the entire original article should not be included [48]. Each of these are routinely ignored on AGM without the loss of civility. But the behavior of a newsgroup is its discourse. The behavior of a newsgroup is what is said as well as how it is said.

The use of language on AGM is another distinguishing trait of this community and provides identifying markers for participants on AGM. These uses include the special vocabulary that has evolved, the electronic paralanguage adapted for indicating tone of voice and the general style of writing on AGM.

Special words, acronyms and abbreviations abound in any newsgroup. Some are commonly used, such as asap, fyi and tgif. Others have grown from military, bulletin board systems (BBS), IRC and talkers (COLD). Some of these are used in AGM, e.g., lol for laughing out loud, btw for by the way, imho for in my humble opinion, IRL for in real life, rotfl for rolling on the floor laughing and ttfn for ta-ta for now. Other acronyms are specific to AGM or have specific meaning on AGM, including w, USP and IRL. Although more appropriate for a synchronous system, one special abbreviation is w which means to have said goodbye to someone who has already left. Many AGM messages are written to the group, but some include specific messages to individuals. Wilfred coined USP, for user specific posting, to meet the need to point out this type of post. Although IRL means in real life, on AGM IRL means both a FtF meeting and interaction in the physical world; what happens on AGM is considered real life. AGM is real people making real connections. As Widge says,

But I find that so much of what happens here in the group and on COLD and email etc. actually IS real life - as real as the telephone which is usually considered a much more normal and acceptable mechanism of everyday contact. With the phone you hear the voice, with the net you see the words. To me there's not much difference! The use of smilies to replace inflection or tone of voice is maybe not as subtle or versatile and subject to more misundertanding perhaps but, even so, it's a very real form of contact to me.

Besides these acronyms, special words are used on AGM. Two evolved from typographical errors. A psot is an AGM-type message not to be confused with the standard post sent to any newsgroup and greebings are good morning greetings. Another invented word is welback, a contraction of "welcome back." You wish welback to AGMers who have returned after a period of lurking, lost net access or other separation from the group. Other terms include thwap and klem. Joy started the use of thwaps by an inflatable hammer as a playful substitute for physical contact. As a token of affection, her (then future) husband presented her with an IRL inflatable hammer. Hugs are also given on AGM, as explained in Randy's greeting. The Norwegian term for hug is klem and its adoption by AGM reflects the one-time heavy participation by several Norwegian AGMers. There is one version of the AGM t-shirt which has "hugs" written in the native languages used by posters on AGM. Hugs and thwaps are textual substitutes for the touching and physical contact that would be sought IRL.

Paralinguistic features common in MUDs, IRC, talkers and BBS are also evident on AGM. These include use of emoticons, intentional misspellings, capitalization, grammatical markers, embedded words and repetition of words. The following post contains several examples of these features. bdl had been visiting MarLena in Berlin. Frank had visited with bdl via the talker COLD and has sent this in reply to MarLena's post. Joy speaks first (hers are the deepest levels of embedding), then MarLena, bdl, Frank and ending with MarLena and Frank alternating. The four people in this conversation are in four different countries, England, Germany, Holland and the USA.

>>>>>So what did the German did to you?  :) 
>>>>Errr, ....how do you mean????  [...Lena aiming a snowball at Joy 
>>>>just in case...]
>>>What did she do?  She wore me out running me all over Berlin :) 
>>>Neat place.
>>Grin, thinks she's good at that eh?  Was great talking to you both 
>>(on COLD) while you where there :)

>How do you know Frankie?  [;grins] We didn't run that much, did we.  
>Nice talking to you too Frank.  Have a great time, five more days, eh?

Naaaah, that's true....  Berlin is big though, and if you showed poor
bdl *all* of Berlin...  Less then four days for me now btw *big 
smile*

>Have you got a bathtub for your apartment, you know ducks like to swim
>;-)

*Thwaps* *thwaps* *thwaps* *thwaps* *thwaps* *thwaps* *thwaps*

>;steps quickly aside...

Too late, hehehe

>Marlena, who like every place where AGMers live

Frank, happy

Smileys, often called emoticons, imitate facial expressions. Even though there are dozens of different smileys, the most popular ones on AGM are ":-)" for a smile, ";-)" for a wink, ":-(" for a frown. ":-P" for sticking out your tongue and ":'-(" for weeping. Joy, bdl and MarLena have used them in the sample above. Another type of emoticon is the symbolic hug, that is curly braces around a person's name. Randy explained the hugs in his greeting. MarLena and Frank have also used lexical surrogates for vocal segregates [64], that is, "Errr," "Naaaah" and "hehehe." Grammatical markers and embedded words are in evidence. MarLena uses multiple question marks to add emphasis to her question; she follows the question with embedded action, marked with square brackets. She has also switched into third person to describe her actions. Use of third person reflects the influence of the talker-style of writing. Although third person distances the author from the event, it creates "interesting options for utterances that cannot be said in the first person" [28]. Embedded text can be marked with asterisks as Frank does around "big smile" and "thwaps" or with angle brackets; sometimes it is not marked at all. The repetition of "thwaps" adds emphasis to the action. Embedded words and phrases express emotion and explicit actions. An additional grammatical marker that expresses action is the use of the semicolon, another influence from talkers. The semicolon is translated to the writer's name; thus [;grins] would be read "MarLena grins." Emphasis can be expressed by placing asterisks around a word; the differences between embedded action and emphasis is only apparent by attention to the content of the message. This post not only illustrates many of the paralinguistic features commonly used on AGM, but also illustrates the conversational style provided by the newsreader quotation system. In order to make sense of this post, you are required to understand the context of situation [107], the paralinguistic system as well as the background of the multiple authors--that bdl has been visiting MarLena, that Frank and his girlfriend who keeps (virtual?) rubber ducks will soon be moving to a new apartment.

In the following, Bette uses selected capitalization to indicate emphasis. She also uses smileys, grammatical markers, lexical surrogates and the talker conventions of the semicolon and referring to herself in third person. Intentional misspelling can provide a subtle difference in tone; her derisive attitude toward Microsoft Window^TM is apparent. In these two samples as well as others throughout this dissertation, the authors manipulate the text to enhance their communication. They develop relational skills and express individuality and originality. Through this expressive use of text, they are able to provide subtle differences in tone and style. These familiar strategies not only provide coherence and involvement but also send "a metamessage of rapport between the communicators, who thereby experience that they share communicative conventions and inhabit the same world of discourse" [139]. These familiar strategies help build community.

>Bette is probably one of the best people to ask about COLD, and 
>whats more shes usually easily found there!!

ME?!?!?  on COLD?!??

never!!!!

*grin*

there used to be a FAQ on COLD but, errr, I kinda did a reformat c:\ and I
didn't know I didn't have it on my UNIX account (the AGM FAQs are on there,
I thought the COLD one was as well).

I will rewrite it...  promise!

Bet :) back on Windoze cos SHE CAN'T FIGURE DIP OUT!!!!!!!!

;grrrs

;is still sigless, maybe (I think I fixed it)

Another language structure that conveys a metamessage of involvement is the use of repetition [139]. Not only does repeating the phrases of other speakers further the conversation, it situates your response to another's, shows acceptance of their utterances and gives evidence of your participation [139]. When Joy asks what MarLena did to bdl, he responds with "What did she do?" repeating the question and positioning himself in the conversation. Other phrases repeated in the post include "talking to you" and "Berlin." Moreover, most of the post is a repetition of several previous posts using the quotation system of newsreaders. Only the unmarked lines are new material. This repetition shows how the new message is related to the previous conversation, binding and linking the speakers to the discourse and to relationships with each other [139].

The heavy use of ellipsis seen throughout the samples serves multiple functions. Ellipsis are used for indirectness, conveying unstated meaning and for conversational pauses. They are a means "to save face if a conversational contribution is not well received, and to achieve the sense of rapport that comes from being understood without saying what one means" [139]. Lena's question ". . . . how do you mean????" can then be interpreted as polite query, assertive confrontation or teasing retort. Bette's promise to rewrite the FAQ for COLD, "I will rewrite it. . . promise!" is endowed with a measure of uncertainty in spite of the assurances of her promise. What is not stated is that the rewrite will occur on Bette's schedule instead of anyone else's. "[I]ndirectness contributes to a sense of involvement through mutual participation in sensemaking" [139].

Mitchell advises that the economic base of a community provides insights to understanding how any community has grown and survived [94]. In cyberspace, the economic system is founded on the "production, transformation, distribution and consumption of digital information" [94]. North argues that the Internet and Usenet use a reciprocal economic exchange system [100]. This pertains to AGM as well. Knowledge capital [114] or lore exchange [130] is one source of currency. Bette and her knowledge of COLD, Neth and the birthday list as well as all the others with their particular knowledge are important to AGM. The members of AGM provide the group's collective goods that bind the individuals into a community [114]. Self-revealing stories or disclosure are important in AGM; they are another source of currency which is spent to keep the interaction moving [29]. Other valued posts are bricks as well as other creative and unusual posts and threads. An additional source of interaction and therefore currency are the friendships which are maintained via AGM. The games, the silliness and the fun are integral features of the information produced and consumed on AGM.

Involvement in and commitment to the group is another characteristic of a robust community. Although many of the AGMers who responded to the questionnaire admitted to some level of addiction to AGM, it is really the holding power of the group which keeps them involved. Because the focus of an addiction is the external cause of the habit, Turkle dislikes that analogy:

I prefer the metaphor of seduction because it emphasizes the relationship between person and machine. Love, passion, infatuation, what we feel for another person teaches us about ourselves. If we explore these feelings, we can learn what we are drawn to, what we are missing, and what we need. The analysis of computational seductions offers similar promise if we drop the cliche of addiction and turn to the forces, or more precisely, the diversity of forces that keep us engrossed in computational media. [145]

The diversity of forces that keep AGMers engrossed in the newsgroup include the shared history, shared communicative conventions and shared expectations of future experiences. Other sources of rapport are the topics of conversation and the ways of talking about those topics. To label the style of speech as polite connotes a type of communication too shallow, contrived to do justice to the depth of relationships formed on AGM. Included in the messages on AGM are frequent references to food and beverages, the sharing of pizza or chocolates, the offering of tea or coffee. Newbies are offered a "cuppa" to help them feel welcome. One newbie lamented, "Now that I've promised myself to drink a mere solitary cup of coffee per day, I've run into this group and everyother message invites someone to pull up a chair and a cuppa. Help!!!!!!!!!!!" Widge commented:

I think it's one of the things that helps to make public posts feel personal to the individuals concerned, and helps to relax people in our company. In irl communities a number of group activities involve food and drink in some form or other. Gatherings that don't involve food or drink tend to be more formal or structured occasions such as theatre outings where many people are gathered together but are not really a cohesive group or a community as such despite having the theatre (or whatever) as a common interest. On occasions such as conferences etc., it is usually the refreshments table etc. that starts to draw people together and offers the opportunity for people to stike up conversations and for the group as a whole to begin the 'gel'. It makes me wonder if the food and drink element in AGM plays a larger and more subtle role in the group dynamics than we maybe realise.

Food and drink are popular topics on AGM. There are periodic exchanges of recipes and discussions of holiday meals. Adding couscous from North Africa or apple cake from Finland to any meal is another way to share customs as well as forge bonds the community. Some of the references to food allow an element of play to be incorporated into the messages on AGM:

>>> I just made a pot of Caramel Nut Fudge coffee from freshly 
>>> ground beans.  Mmmmm!  This is pretty good.  
>>Joy *faints* by the thought of having that in her mouth....  
> OH NO!  Joy has fainted on the floor. WHAT SHOULD I DO?  
> I have to think......I don't want to do the wrong thing......  
> I'VE GOT IT !!!  I know exactly what to do now.  
> (Derek goes to make another pot of Caramel Nut Fudge coffee so he can 
> enjoy another cup while he waits for Joy to wake up.) :) 

This calls for drastic measures. Quick, get the chocolate pizza!  Nobody 
can stay in a swoon when there is chocolate pizza.

bdl (Feeling a little strange today)

Yet there is something more, something different about the communication on AGM. Much of the discourse is the exchange of relatively insignificant details about daily life. "It's dark when I get up, and dark when I go home from work." Questions are posted not so much as a request for information than as a way to continue the conversation. "Tell me, what time is it when your are posting? Is this a typical time of day for you to post? Do you often, or at all, post more than once a day?" Naming people in posts engenders a sense of involvement in the messages. "How do you know Frankie?" Referring to individuals by name is a common practice on AGM, not only in response to a message but also in USPs (user specific posts). There is continual emotional support, sending hugs, greeting newbies, wishing welbacks and happy birthdays as well as congratulations and sympathy. "I don't know if this helps much, but I just wanted to let you know that I am praying for you and your parents." Each of these types of posts creates and reinforces commitment to relationships and community by sending metamessages of rapport and caring [139].

This form of speech has been characterized as stereotypically women's language [53, 55, 64, 107, 139]. Men typically ask questions to request information, do not link their utterances to previous ones, use overt aggressiveness, act as experts and offer advice at the mention of a problem instead of sympathizing or sharing their own problems and make abrupt topic shifts in the conversation [53]. They are less likely to use emoticons, expression of supporting references, self-references, self-disclosure and references to others [64]. In mixed-sex CMC groups, men post longer and more frequent messages than women, are more overtly hostile, flame more and make greater use of sarcasm and self-promotion [55]. Women are more inclined to report details of daily events than are men [139]. This is not the case on AGM. Of the six very heavy posters, three are men and three are women. Men post as many self-revealing messages as the women do, are as likely to send hugs and offer support as the women and are as likely to use any and all of the paralinguistic features. For some newbie men, this requires a change in the way they write, "and many hugs to you. I have come late in life to the merits of hugs, they are rather good aren't they." Whether this group appeals only to those men who normally converse in this manner or whether men have to change their style of writing is not evident in the postings or from the interviews. The men I talked with about this style of writing were amazed that how they wrote was any different from other men's writing. Waldo could recall only one infrequent poster who was asked to "tone down" his writing. Learning to talk like an AGMer may occur during a period of lurking or it may come naturally. In either case, adapting to the AGM-style of conversation is fundamental to involvement and commitment in the group. Lave points out that "for newcomers then the purpose is not to learn from talk as a substitute for legitimate peripheral participation; it is to learn to talk" [77] as a legitimate member of the practice community.

ommunities often have to deal with conflict both from within the group and from external forces. Conflict on the Internet may be waged in private email wars, in "public brawling on Usenet," in complaints to system administrators and by threatening to bring in external authorities [114]. Most conflicts can be traced to ignorance or malicious transgressions of net norms or to straight forward differences of opinion [114]. The specific causes of conflict on Usenet include posting a message to an inappropriate newsgroup, posting a message to too many newsgroups, asking frequently asked questions, posting chain letters, posting articles that break the law of mainstream societies and asking for unnecessary or excessive assistance [114]. AGM has not been free of such storms. In the two major cases of conflict, one from an internal source and one from external forces, AGMers have met the challenges with commitment to the group and its norms. In mid-October, 1995, AGM was experiencing growing pains. Posts began to appear which caused confusion and concern. The group which had attended AZAGM in August, the largest IRL gathering of AGMers, had formed close friendships and shared experiences beyond what was visible to others on AGM or the talkers they frequented. Forty people shared a history to which the others were not privileged. Some AGMers felt left out of the interactions. In addition there was some conflict on the talkers which bled into AGM:

          Shiny silver coins reside,
          heads, tales, flipped over
          sides.  Breathing truth or
          wicked lies; forked tongue
          or pristine eyes?  Dimness
          and sooty red!  Hurt, hate
          and human.  Twinned tales,
          convoluted; complex.  Find
          a moral pillar; broken and
          rebuilt - shattered like a
          once proud group - will we
          lose it all for blindness?

Ted - who is very, very unimpressed with some new developments in the 
group.  All around me, where unity once reigned supreme, I see
dissention, derisive comments, factionalization.  I despair for all 
that AGM once represented - a serene gathering hall in the vastness of 
misundersanding and turmoil the world has become. Now split asunder by 
half truths and by those quick to judge without reason or recourse.

Monique sent a message entitled "WE NEED TO TALK PEOPLE" addressing the nature of blanket posts and AGM. In it she appealed, "if you have a problem with the whole group, tell the whole group exactly what that problem is and maybe, as a group, we can work it out. If you have a problem with one, two, five, ten people. . email them and tell them, and maybe you can all work it out." For the first time, dissension and discord among AGMers became a topic of discussion. An outgrowth of that discussion was an accusation. "For the past few weeks I'm recieving much too much hate mail from within this group . . . I have tried to deal with this in private Email, but the results were non. I'm totaly fed up with it and I want this to end NOW!" Sandel not only accused AGMers of sending hate mail, he named six of the oldbies, AGM regulars, who personify the friendly and supportive nature of AGM. AGM was shocked.

Joy answered Sandel's post with a request for the originals. He sent her two examples, one of which had been copied to AGM as a posting. Upon comparing the post to the email, Joy and her husband, Travis, found major discrepancies between the two. Now the question became whether the mails were genuine. A few posts on AGM expressed the confusion that was felt by many, "I'm really starting to wonder what's going on here. Can outsiders copy E-mail and re-send them to one of us while changing the message, leading us to believe that it came from the original AGM member?" The people that Sandel had accused were the least likely to send such email. They posted explicit denials, "ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO! I DID NOT SEND YOU ANY HATE MAIL." Sandel now posted, "I can't believe it anymore, but I don't know what to believe." The thought of someone tampering with your email was like a violation, "I feel like I have lost my best friend! I don't know why anyone would say such a thing like that. I don't know what to do. This is so sad, I can't believe my name is here. Somebody please find out what is going on." Meanwhile, some AGMers were urging that the matter be handled offline, out of the newsgroup. Travis decided to continue keeping it public:

I said in my original post that I did not want to start discussing this by email, and this still stands at present. As I said before, I think it is a public matter since you placed it in the public domain. . . When you posted your angry posts, you put this matter firmly in the public domain. In your email you said that the topic does not belong in AGM. Well, I think you are wrong. Since it started in AGM, I think that is where it should end.

The next day Sandel posted an apology to AGM, for flaming and for accusing people of wrong doing stating that "someone indeed is using my password and loginname to use it on my account!!! This person lives in my country . . . I hope he or she did not do anything illegal in my name." Joy accepted the apology but tenaciously followed it with more questions about details of all the hate email, his exact actions after receiving the email, who might have access to his account and why someone would do that to him?

One group of AGMers began routinely using the copy (cc) function to include at least one other person in their correspondence as a means of protecting themselves if such tampering happened to them. AGM posts changed from shock and dismay to support and acceptance of Sandel's apology, "That is GREAT BIG HUGS to you cause I believe you need them now more than ever. . This was a good lesson for a lot of us Newbies and I am, selfish to say, but Glad it didn't happen to me as I probably would've handled it a lot worse than you did. ." But there was one public voice, Cory, who said, "I honestly believe that Sandel is just after a bit of attention here, and that in all probability, he send the email to himself." That opinion was difficult to accept because it questioned the implicit trust that AGMers have in the good nature of other AGMers. Posters tried to reassure themselves and others "that the TRUTH that is AGM is still here. We ALL have to believe that and when we do the garbage will go away and the beauty that is AGM will remain."

Joy furthered the confusion when she asked whether any of those on the list had received any private email from Sandel addressing the problem. Travis continued the questioning. Three days after the accusation was made, Sandel posted the following:

Subject: The Truth

I felt left out... a lot... Cory, Travis and Joy were absolutely right 
for blaming me 'just seeking for attention'... Instead of just asking
for it, I wrote a story about people from within this group writing me
hatemail... they didn't... nobody ever sended me hatemail.  I made it
up for a number of reason, but without the intension to paint anyone
black... I even did not expect so much from this post.

Joy read the post and a reply from me to someone where I stated there
was a taboo in AGM (my taboo...). Joy replied to both posts and in some
mysterious way made me very very mad.. So I went editing Email to
proove to Joi she was wrong about her reply to me...

After a sleepless night I decided to post apologies, hoping it would
soon end, but I misjudged Travy... He just would not give up in his
search for the truth (he knew it al along, and he knew I knew that).

Again trying to end via Email did not work... I saw myself sinking
deeper and deeper into this matter.  Tonight I wrote a very large and
bad flame towards Joie and I was ready to post it here, pack my bags and
never return.  Deleted all Email and adresses from this group.  Faith
held me from posting this... my server was down.

I sat for a moment... knew what to do... be honnest.

I can't deal with my life nor AGM... I lied since I was a little boy,
hundred of times in the same way like this... seeking for attention,
but in a way nobody understands (I don't understand it either).  I lost
maybe hundreds of friends playing these tricks on them... and they were
right to hate me for it... I seek for help, but this doesn't change
much...

I hope AGM will return to it's usual peace and quiet... I won't say
sorry again, because coming from me it does not mean anyting... I
canceled all the prvious messages... as I said before, they don't
belong here...

Thanks for the two happy months, they really made a diference...

Because of the temporal discontinuity of Usenet, Sandel's confession was mixed with posts expressing confusion, denials of wrong doing, followups to the first apology and supportive messages to those accused as well as other threads totally unrelated to the hatemail incident, including increasing numbers of crossposts. Sandel's confession exemplified the ultimate cooperative behavior; he not only confessed to the wrong doing, he accepted responsibility for his actions and the expected ostracism from another set of friends. He used conciliatory strategies in the post. He used a diminutive form of names for Joy and Travis, Joi and Travy, in an attempt to increase intimacy [107] between himself and his two main antagonists. He solicited empathy by stating his feelings of being left out of AGM interaction which touched on some of the earlier 'AGM has changed' posts. He implicitly asked for understanding and sympathy by showing his concern for AGM, "I hope AGM will return to it's usual peace and quiet" instead of himself. Amid all the various threads of conversation on AGM, here was a cry for help. The response was an outpouring of love and forgiveness. Trust had been violated yet he was welcomed back. "I am not a mean or vindictive person, and even though I was not 'directly' involved, I still feel hurt and betrayed by this fiasco. You probably don't care about my feelings on this, but I will say it anyway -- I forgive you." Those who were directly involved also posted forgiveness, "Ok, for my part, I forgive you and welcome you back to agm. Nothing has been done which would cause me to wish you harm or expulsion form AGM. Wether you lurk, or post, agm is stiil home to you as it is to me." Wilfred posted a banner, a variation of a brick, that urged the group to reflect:

Echoing the sentiment, Widge followed up two days later with a banner of her own:

They did not use humor to dissipate and diffuse the emotions; they used poetry. These two banners express their messages at several levels. First is the explicit call to learn from the experience, to heal from the distrust and to return to normal. Next is the presentation itself. The messages are strengthen by the formality of form. The formality places the messages beyond mere opinion. The use of colors to describe the obstacles abstracts the experiences AGM had just endured and lends another measure of formality. The balance called for in the first banner is also echoed in its form, the line lengths paired into a banner, perhaps a flag of truce. Widge echoes the form of Wilfred's banner, signaling solidarity and unity of purpose. Emphasizing the similarity, she included Wilfred's banner in her post.

A week later, Sandel returned to AGM with the following post of a teapot. His use of a graphic form to test the waters was like a peace offering to the group and to Joy in particular. He seemed to recognize the importance of this type of currency in the economy of AGM. It indicates great effort and involvement; its creativity increases its value. His use of 'NO' and 'YES' resemble a ballot--reject the offering or accept it.

A month later, Sandel wrote to AGM, "A couple of weeks ago I spoke to my psychiatrist about the things that happened her on AGM (me and my lies) . . . I'm diagnosed as being Bipolair or Manic-Depressive-Disorder. The meds I was taking only made this worse . . . I'm changing meds within a few days, thank God for that." He posted for a while longer then lost net access.

As the episode with Sandel was winding down another challenge to AGM was picking up. The many-to-many form of communication allows an individual to broadcast messages to the community and get multiple responses back from individuals. This is an empowering experience [51] which can lead to massive crossposting of messages. Such was the case when AGM was included in a crossposting campaign by a Canadian poster, Ray Moore, who was concerned that Quebec would vote to secede from the Dominion. Ray also included AGM in his religious spam. Whereas AGM normally receives a minimal number of crossposts which are easily ignored, crossposts reached a high of 18% of the total posts during the week before and the week after the Quebec vote. On the day of the vote, over a third of all AGM posts were a result of crossposting. Although other people included AGM in their crossposting, Ray's campaigns resulted in the most traffic of this type on AGM; he contributed over a hundred messages himself.

Ray included AGM among his list of newsgroups because of its high number of Canadian participants and his belief that AGM is a general discussion forum. On the first day that I saw his posts, he had posted four messages, three of which were similar to AGM posts except for the list of seventeen newsgroups--he told of meeting a friend at the library, he asked that hugs and kisses be sent to Quebec to show that Canadians are friendly and he told of waking up:

So I woke up this morning and climbed out of my bed.  Looked into the
mirror and realized I wasn't dead.  I could have looked down and
realized I was still above the ground but what the heck I didn't think
of it.  I grabbed something to wear and did what I usually do slip into
the kitchen for some breaky.  My usual 2 eggs, 4 strips of bacon, two
toasts and not to forget to top it all off my tall glass of milk.
Yummy!  Than I was off to the showers and cleared the cobwebs out.
Brush my teeth and voila a new man again.  Throw some clean cloths on.
Make my bed and dive on top of it to read a good book that I am sure you
all have read.  Said a few prayers and a good morning to the Lord.  The
next thing that I did was post this message to you.

Good Morning!

The fourth message was entitled "Help! Canada Could Become Extinct!" Newsgroups are public forums. Anyone may post any message to any newsgroup. Yet one of the Usenet norms is to limit your posts to the small number of appropriate newsgroups [48]. The above post was appropriate to AGM but not to the other sixteen newsgroups it was sent to. The plea for Canadian solidarity was not appropriate to AGM. What Ray started resulted in almost five hundred messages, many of them flames, being sent to AGM. His was a deliberate campaign to generate discussion, but the political issue was replaced by the issue of crossposting. Ray used Toronto Freenet as his Internet service provider (ISP), a freenet with a reputation for its great tolerance of customer behaviors. Some responses to his call for Canadian solidarity were thoughtful discussion, others were requests to stop crossposting but most were flames. Ray followed up some of his own posts and some of the responses to his messages mixing in religious spam and some of his poetry:

Mail Bomb 
======== 
slivers of light 
holding back the night 
calm all around 
sense of peace found 
follow-up stylish flare 
life to newsgroups
showing your care 
work files generated 
replies anticipated 
mailing lists flooding boxes 
how do they dare 
crosspostings cursed 
to the boards delight 
posting of blanks 
cyber stage fright 
Cc: your friends
awaken the battle 
flamings the sword 
net experience the reward
follow-up stylish flare 
life to newsgroups
showing your care 
work files generated 
replies anticipated 
mailing lists flooding boxes 
how do they dare 
crosspostings cursed 
to the boards delight 
posting of blanks 
cyber stage fright 
Cc: your friends
awaken the battle 
flamings the sword 
net experience the reward
virtue eventually restored
all is forgiver
NO CARRIER hungers pang
busy signals insomnias flame
can't hold back
I'm alone and an under attack
cyber addict
give me a line
for my wandering mind
please one more time
out of Ctrl x
Article Posted 
Yes!

The visible response from AGM was not immediate. Silence had been used effectively against flamers in the past and was used initially against Ray. But the volume of crossposted messages became too large to ignore; they caused one British system to crash briefly and caused many individuals to "error out" when trying to read AGM. Several different tactics were then employed. Some AGMers tried the direct approach, "I mailed him, asking him politely to take us off of his mailer list." Others directed their requests to Toronto Freenet. Waldo used the newsreader kill facility, "I signed on and there were 109 posts. I did a Kill on Ray Moore and now there are only 37. I'm sorry I had to do this." Changing AGM to a moderated list was briefly discussed then discarded. Kill files became a popular topic and many AGMers began corresponding through email teaching each other to use kill files. When Ray began stalking one of the AGMers, wanting them to "breed cyber-brats," AGM began an email campaign of its own. Several AGMers mailed the postmaster@torfree.net all the crossposts as they arrived. Others mailed the Toronto Freenet board members and others mailed each of those who responded to the crossposts. Many of the crossposts were complaints about the volume and inappropriate content of the messages sent to their groups. By instructing these posters about editing followup lines and use of kill files, the number of crossposts began to drop. Toronto Freenet responded to one AGMer:

For the past while the Board has been attempting to come up with a
satisfactory Acceptable Use Policy, and this has turned into one of the
more ...  hotly debated topics that the board has had to deal with.
Some are arguing the the T.F.N. should as much as the law allows take a
hands off approach, and only act when it is clear that the Criminal Code
of Canada has been violated (this occured once, and the account in
question was terminated within 5 minutes of us realising what had
happened).  Others have been urging a "get tough" view against Mr.
Moore and those who's actions while not illegal have caused signifigant
annoyance to part of the Usenet community.

Ray did not sit idly by while this was occurring. He spammed the seventeen newsgroups with pages of Usenet FAQ, the Electronic Bill of Rights, What Usenet Is from news.admin and two Toronto Freenet job notices. These posts fueled another series of crossposts and flames. Responding to a letter sent to him from a Toronto Freenet Board Member that asked him "to reflect on the difference between the responsible and wise exercise of a fragile freedom," Ray crossposted that he had "signed on with the Toronto Freenet to have fun and enjoy life not to be oppressed and laid waste by a bunch of jealous non posting heathens in a camouflage of justice and rights for which they know nothing about." He challenged them to revoke his membership, "I am calling your bluff TFN board and all you back stabbing cocksuckers who would yell flames. If you are going to have a flame war than do it or fuck off. I take no prisoners and I play no games I mean business." Mixed with his crossposts full of vilifications, Ray would also followup in a friendly spirit on a few AGM threads, only to be met with silence. AGM made jokes about him and crossposts in general. "What's the difference between Ray Moore and a terrorist? . . . You can negotiate with a terrorist!" In a reply to a post, "SPAM ALERT!!! Check your headers," another AGMer wrote, "Thanks. My headers is sitting on my shoulders :-)"

Ray made the mistake of forging a moderation approved notice on articles posted to the moderated newsgroup, soc.religion.christian.bible-study. Toronto Freenet reacted quickly and suspended Ray's posting privileges. Silence had not seemed to work. Politeness had not seemed to work. Anger had not seemed to work. Going to higher authorities had some impact, but in the end, Ray's own activities got his account restricted. Silence on Usenet is death. He was gone.

As a postscript to this episode, Ray changed ISPs and began posting to AGM about six weeks later. He asked to be a member of the group and this time was hesitantly greeted in the AGM manner. Many AGMers retained their kill files and never saw his return. During an email interview he confessed that AGM's silence was the most insulting action, that AGM welcomed everyone but not him. He soon reverted to his crossposting and his new provider revoked his account. Usenet rumors from alt.culture.usenet said that Ray had gone through thirteen or more different providers, each revoking his account when he would relapse into his crossposting behaviors. His brother posted on AGM for a short while and reported that Ray had finally returned to using BBSs.

Conflict arises from simple disagreements and from violations of societal and community norms. The levels on which these differences of opinion and depth of misunderstandings occur are more extreme in "broadly cross-cultural communication" [139] such as Usenet. Spam and crossposting are communicative weapons. Silence is also a powerful communicative tool [65] and is an effective weapon on Usenet against flaming and other normative transgressions. When silence does not work, other power structures are available. Active filtering (kill files) can be used to manipulate the environment, thus silencing the cause of the disturbance. On Usenet, if you cannot see and cannot read the poster then he does not exist. You can appeal to several levels of authority from reasonability and self control to community pressure, from mailing the postmaster to petitioning the owner of the ISP to banish the offender. All these tools were used in dealing with Ray. Silence was finally the most powerful tool. The ill feelings he generated were dispelled with humor. With Sandel, direct action and reasoning lead to the truth. In his case, love and caring were the powerful weapons. As Rheingold stated, "simple corny all-powerful love was the only way to make a community work when it is diverse, thus guaranteeing friction, and at the same time committed to free expression which can and does get out of hand" [114].

The skills needed to resolve conflict on a newsgroup are related to issues of power and trust. Power, or more precisely, influence on a newsgroup is not easily defined. "The usual means of maintaining power through potential or actual violence are not available when cyberspace communities are geographically widely distributed or cross jurisdictional boundaries" [94]. Power and influence on a newsgroup are evident in the commitment of individuals to the life of the newsgroup. Respect and therefore influence are gained by the value of your role in the newsgroup and by the value of your posts in the discourse of the group. Randy gains influence because of his role as greeter, Wilfred gains influence because of his creativity. Joy has influence because of her interactive posting style and good humor. Widge gains influence because of her role as very heavy poster. Bette is respected for her knowledge of trivia and her computer knowledge. Neth gains respect for his helping others with computer troubles and his ASCII pictures. The list grows as individuals commit time and effort to the newsgroup. Their influence is related to the strategies they use to communicate, share and protect the community [147].

A community is emotions as well as reason and data [114]. It is seen in the expectations that "lurk between the lines of the discourse in the assumptions that CMC users make about the connections they have to other users" [66]; it is seen in enthusiasm and excitement, shared humor and addiction [100]. It is evident in the ways people "think-feel-talk-mean-act . . . that everyone in their group takes to be normal (or a meaningful variant, including eccentricity) and everyone outside it takes to be utterly strange and ultimately meaningless" [144]. Usenet works against the formation of a community with its text only communication, the overwhelming number of people and messages, the asynchronous distributive system and the parquetry of messages available at any one time to any one reader [12, 100].

Despite the challenges of Usenet, AGM has built a robust community. In this chapter, I have shown AGM to be a collection of distinct individuals who creatively use this text-only medium to fashion unmistakable and well-defined identities for themselves. They have created a group identity with a shared history. Through their on-line behavior and language constructs they continue to build and reinforce their group identity. Their discursive practices reveal their ideals and the support they give to and receive from the community. Their commitment to AGM is evident in their handling of conflicts within the community, in the efforts to maintain the homepage and the newsletter, in the plans for each of the annual meetings and in the continued efforts to post to AGM. AGM was not torn apart by the conflict and challenges to the group from outsiders crossposting or from internal strife. In the end, it was made stronger due to the group commitment to the ideals and purposes they had set for themselves. A new rule has been added to the AGM FAQ, no crossposting.

Cultural systems are complex dynamic systems that work constantly to maintain themselves [81]. AGM is no different. They have used humor and other patterns of communicative play to create solidarity and affiliation within AGM. They have a shared history and continue to build that history from discursive practices and IRL meetings. The special vocabulary of AGM is a distinguishing trait of this community and provides identifying markers for participants on AGM. Discursive practices convey the attitudes and assumptions which underlie the culture of AGM. AGM has built into the community the possibility of FtF interaction through multiple backchannels of communication and actual IRL meetings. They have included tangible objects in the community--t-shirts, pictures, postcards and IRLs. AGM is people who are connected to each other, not to computers. The computer is invisible. It is also an extension of the individual using it. Through their creative use of textual information AGM has defined the discourse of their community. In the next chapter, I describe these creative discursive practices.