Sunshine Skyways

The characterization that one individual can make of another by virtue of being able directly to observe and hear that other is organized around two fundamental forms of identification: the categoric kind involving placing that other in one or more social categories, and the individual kind, whereby the subject under observation is locked to a uniquely distinquishing identity through appearance, tone of voice, mention of name or other person-differentiating device. This dual possibility — categoric and individual identification — is critical for interaction life in all communities except small isolated ones...(Goffman, 1983, p. 3).

In face-to-face interactions, I have a physical appearance which others see and use to place me into racial, ethnic, gender, age, and other social categories. Without saying or writing a word, my posture/stance, personal grooming, eye contact, clothing, facial expressions, use of personal space, smell, and physical gestures communicate who I am, both intentionally and unintentionally. However, in the world of cyberspace I have no physical body. I cannot point to my chest and say, "Here I am." As such, I cannot display myself as a physical entity for others to see my race, ethnicity, gender, age, height, weight, class, and other social categories based on visual inspection. Consequently, what I am in physical space is not me in cyberspace.

In a text-based virtual group or community, who I am is based entirely on what I write. I am nothing but words...


Bibliography:
Goffman, Erving. 1983. "The Interaction Order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address" in the American Sociological Review, Vol. 48, No. 1 (February), pp. 1 - 17.

Organization members who occupy high-status positions tend to dominate group discussions, which in turn gives them more power and social influence than members in low-status positions. For example, managers talk more than subordinates and men talk more than women. Higher-status members are more vocal even when they are not more expert on the topic under consideration... (Weisbrand et al., 1995, pp. 1124, 1125).

Does computer-mediated communication promote equality among members of a group? A person in cyberspace who communicates in text messages is not seen; s/he has no discernable body. Consequently, without face-to-face contact, physical features, such as race, ethnicity, and gender, that are used to determine or assign status to and discriminate against a person are missing. Also missing are the person's posture, proximity, touch, body movements, facial expression, eye behavior, smell, and vocal cues, which are used to communicate with others. One could say that in text-based cyberspace, every person is reduced to the written word.

Does this reduction of every group member to text eliminate racial, gender and other differences? The answer would be "Yes" if there were no verbal cues to differentiate members. However, the answer is "No." Text includes both intended and unintended cues that are used by readers to assign race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and other labels to the author.

As stated in my January 22nd posting "Community and Social Networks, Part One", Wellman (1997) considers six characteristics of social networks:

1. Density,
2. Boundedness,
3. Range,
4. Exclusivity,
5. Social Control, and
6. Tie Strength.

When a network is dense, members of the network have direct and frequent contact with all other members; however, when a network is sparse, only a few members communicate directly and frequently with each other. In a tightly bounded network almost all of the relationships remain within the network's population; but, in a loosely bounded network members of the network communicate with people outside the network. An example of a dense, tightly bounded online group is the set of people on a distribution list within an organization in which anyone on the list can send and read messages with all others on the list, but no one shares those messages with people off the list. An example of a sparse, loosely bounded online group is a large public group where anyone can send and read messages with others on or off the list and where only a few within the group regularly communicate with each other.

Dense, bounded groups, such as an office distribution list, almost always have a small range, that is, the population within the group is fairly homogenous. On the other hand, sparse, unbounded groups tend to have a large range, meaning they tend to have a heterogenous population, which motivates a greater diversity of relationships. Some members of electronic groups prefer to and do have one-on-one conversations with other members via email whether the group supports exclusivity or not. However, if members of a group do not know any other member's email address or other personal contact information, then private conversations aren't going to happen because all contact is public among members.

Exclusivity is linked to social control. The ability of two members to carry on a conversation in private with and out of view of the rest of the group is dependent upon the control that someone or the group has over members' contacts with other members. In terms of an office group, it may be the group's supervisor or another higher up that works to ensure that everyone works together and communicates publicly. On the other hand, there may be a promise in the conditions of joining a group that all contacts with people in the group stay within the group. Sparse, unbounded groups tend to have less social control "because of their weak interconnectivity" (Wellman, 1997, p. 194).

One could expect that the strength of relationships in dense, bounded groups are stronger than those in sparse, unbounded groups; however, that is not necesssarily the case. If a dense, bounded group is composed of members who were involuntarily assigned by a supervisor to be in the group, the ties may be weak because members didn't come together out of shared interest or mutual gain. Instead, the reason d'être of the group may be to assist in the implementation and completion of a group project and nothing more than that. Just as friendships cannot be forced on people in real space, friendships cannot be forceably created in cyberspace. Strong ties, such as friendship, arise voluntarily. Strong ties tend to provide emotional support, companionship, goods and services, and a sense of belonging (Wellman, 1997, p. 196).

Bibliography:
Wellman, Barry. 1997. "An Electronic Group Is Virtually A Social Network" in Culture of the Internet. Sara Kiesler, ed. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers; Mahwah, New Jersey, pp. 179-208.

What is the connection between community and social networks? According to Quan-Haase and Wellman (2002, p. 2), a community can be defined as "social networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging, and social identity." When a community is understood this way, it is not limited to a village or town or other place in physical space. Moreover, one does not have to have face-to-face contact with other members of a community when it is a set of social networks.

The Internet is a collection of computer networks, and when the Internet connects people and organizations, it forms an "infrastructure of social networks" (Wellman and Hampton, p. 3). Thus, Wellman (Sept. 2001) contends that "computer networks are inherently social networks." As stated by Wellman in 1997 (pp. 185, 186):

Sitting in the privacy of their homes, people connect online with fellow members of newsgroups and other, usually specialized forms of virtual communities ... Such virtual communities inherently connect all directly with all — everyone can read all messages — but their size and fragmentation means that few members are strongly connected. Hence computer-supported social networks are not destroying community but are responding to, resonating with, and extending the types of community that have already become prevalent in the developed Western world.

Not all social networks are the same. Wellman (1997) considers six characteristics of social networks:

1. Density, which refers to the extent and frequency of contact among all members. The greater the contact and frequency of contact among members, the greater the density.
2. Boundedness, which "refers to the proportion of network members' ties that stay within the boundaries of the social network" (p. 187). Within tightly bounded networks almost all contact remains within the population.
3. Range, which describes how large and diverse the population is within its boundaries. When social networks are dense and bounded, they tend to have a small range, that is there tends to be more homogenity in social characteristics of network members (p. 190).
4. Exclusivity, which refers to the ability to contact other members of a community. The more exclusive social networks are, the less access members of a community have to each other.
5. Social Control, which considers group pressure or "community influentials" that may create, constrain, and manage a person's contacts and exchanges (p. 194). There tends to be more social control in dense, bounded groups than sparce, unbounded ones.
6. Strength of Relationships, which is a "multidimensional construct encompassing the usually correlated variables of a relationship's social closeness, voluntariness, 'multiplexity' (breadth), and to a lesser extent, frequency of contact" (p. 195). People with strong ties tend to offer each other more and a wider variety of social support in the form of "emotional aid, goods and services, companionship, and a sense of belonging" (p. 196).

In Part Two, I will explore how these 6 characteristics are used to consider differences in social networks and communities in cyberspace.

END OF PART ONE



BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Quan-Haase, Anabel and Wellman, Barry. November 12, 2002. "How does the Internet Affect Social Capital?" Forthcoming in Marleen Huysman and Volker Wulf, Eds. IT and Social Capital.
   
2. Wellman, Barry. September 14, 2001. "Computer Networks As Social Networks" in Science, Vol. 293, No. 14, pp. 2031-2034.
   
3. ------------. 1997. "An Electronic Group Is Virtually A Social Network" in Culture of the Internet. Sara Kiesler, ed. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers; Mahway, New Jersey; pp. 179-208.
   
4. ------------, and Hampton, Keith. 1999. "Living Networked On and Offline" in Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 6 (November), pp. 648-654.

World Exclusive: Scientists from NASA have discovered a creature from another galaxy living in Florida! According to an eye witness who is a relative of a friend of a distant cousin of a local bartender, the space creature's spacecraft crash landed on the west coast of Florida in 2004, and the creature was recently seen lounging in a house where this world exclusive photo was taken. The creature looks like a domestic house cat with glowing eyes.

In 1962 Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, "global village" in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. The idea of a global village was further developed in his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. According to McLuhan, the development of television and satellite communication networks was offering coverage of events across the globe in real time, thereby collapsing time and distance, which was turning the world into a global village.

McLuhan's prediction of a global village created by television did not come true. However, there are some who believe that the Internet will create such a place. However, for such a village to exist, the Internet will have to erode cultural differences and create a singular world culture. Yet, is a global village something everyone on the planet should aspire to create in the name of "one world, one people"? If so, for what reasons? Would it expand American cultural hegemony?

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal there is an interesting article by Christopher Rhoads entitled, "In Threat to Internet's Clout, Some Are Starting Alternatives". The subtitle is "Rise of Developing Nations, Anti-U.S. Views Play Role; Pioneer Sounds the Alarm. A 'Root' Grows in Germany." A memorable quote is made by Khalad Fattal, who is head of a "nonprofit organization dedicated to making the Internet multilingual." Mr. Fattal says, "'There is no such thing as a global Internet today. ... You have only an English-language Internet that is deployed internationally. How is that empowering millions of Chinese or Arab citizens?"

A central issue concerns who has control of the Internet. As the article explains, the U.S.-based nonprofit organization Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) and the U.S. Department of Commerce have the sole power over what domain names are used and who controls each name. However, "[a]s the Internet's role grows around the world, some are uneasy with the notion that a U.S.-based body overseen by the U.S. government has sole power over what domain names are used and who controls each name. Other countries such as China also say Icann is too slow in forming domain names in non-Roman languages, hindering the development of an Internet culture in those countries." Last November at a United Nations summit in Tunis the U.S. delegation was challenged by "more than 170 countries to give up unilateral oversight of Icann." The U.S. countered by arguing that "the Internet is too valuable to tinker with or place under an international body like the U.N." At the same time, the article notes fears that "Washington could easily 'turn off' the domain name of a country it wanted to attack, crippling the Internet communications of that country's military and government." One could add that it would not have to be a military attack, but it could be an economic one as well.

Community and social capital seem to be inseparable terms. This statement is supported by sociologists, such as Ferlander (2003, p. 64) who states, "[s]ocial capital is the essence of community, as social connections are the aggregations that develop community, sense of identity and belonging." Furthermore, "[c]ommunity can be seen as the arena where social capital can be created and maintained" (ibid, p. 65). Although not as blunt as Ferlander, Putnam (2000) contends the two terms are "conceptual cousins" that are positively related.

A primary concern of Putnam's Bowling Alone is the decline of social capital and community ties in the United States, which Putnam suggests is due in part to more and more Americans withdrawing from their communities and, instead, staying at home to watch television. This withdrawal from public/social involvement has caused some to fear that the Internet will continue what television started: Americans will continue to withdraw from their communities as they devote more of their time to being alone in cyberspace and having virtual social connections, which will further erode real communities. But is cyberspace a social vacuum? Does our time there diminish our community involvement?

An essential link, but not the only link, between the concepts of "social capital" and "community" is "social networks" or "social connections." That this is an essential link is not lost on Wellman (1997, p. 181) who contends that "[b]y definition, people who use computer networks have social relationships with each other that are embedded in social networks." Wellman sees virtual social networks as creating, not destroying, communities:

Sitting in the privacy of their homes, people connect online with fellow members of newsgroups and other, usually specialized forms of virtual communities... Such virtual communities inherently connect all directly with all — everyone can read all messages — but their size and fragmentation means that few members are strongly connected. Hence computer-supported social networks are not destroying community but are responding to, resonating with, and extending the types of community that have already become prevalent in the developed Western world.

Unlike television, which promotes passivity, the Internet promotes interactivity and social networking. It extends community from the neighborhood into virtual spaces where people come together out of common interest.




BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Ferlander, Sara. January 2003. THE INTERNET, SOCIAL CAPITAL AND LOCAL COMMUNITY. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Stirling, Department of Psychology. Online at www.crdlt.stir.ac.uk/Docs/SaraFerlanderPhD.pdf.

Pigg, Kenneth E. and Crank, Laura Duffy. 2004. "Building Community Social Capital: The Potential and Promise of Information and Communications Technologies" in The Journal of Community Informatics, Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 58 - 73.

Wellman, Barry. 1997. "An Electronic Group Is Virtually A Social Network" in Culture of the Internet. Ed., Sara Kiesler. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers; Mahwah, New Jersey, pp. 179-208.

// posted by Sunshine Skyways @ 8:00 PM 0 comments

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the U.S., a day to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. Today on WMNF, my favorite local radio station, I heard a wonderful interview of William Pepper, author of the book An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King. Dr. Pepper was the King Family's attorney in the 1999 legal trial King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Conspirators. The jury of that trial heard sufficient evidence to confirm that Martin Luther King was assassinated by a conspiracy that included Loyd Jowers and agencies of local, state and federal government. Nonetheless, the beliefs that James Earl Ray acted alone and killed Dr. King and that there was no conspiracy seem to live on despite the evidence to the contrary.

The political economists of the nineteenth century from Marx to Marshall to Bellamy — took capital from the social point of view. Today's social capitalists, apparently take 'the social' from capital's point of view. The one reflected an age coming to terms with capital, the other an age cominng to capital for its terms. Then, 'social capital' expressed an explicit antithesis to an unsocial perspective upon capital, now, an implicit antithesis to a noncapitalist perspective on society (Farr, 2004, p. 25).

According to Putnam, the first known use of the term "social capital" was by West Virginia rural educator Lyda Hanifan in 1916 (2000). For Hanifan, social capital was:

those tangible substances [that] count for most in the daily lives of people: namely good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit... The individual is helpless socially, if left to himself.... If he comes into contact with his neighbor, and they with other neighbors, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may be a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. The community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbors (Putnam, 2000, chapter one).

If one scans the online and traditional literatures, it seems that there is widespread agreement that Putnam is correct in his assertion that Hanifan was the first to use the term. For examples, the following authors repeat that Hanifan was the first to explicitly use the term: Bagchi, Bertin and Sirvan, Herrman, Olate, Smith, and Wulf. However, conceptualist historian James Farr shows that Hanifan was not the first. Philosopher John Dewey used the term, although not defined the same way, in his 1900 publication The Elementary School Record and in subsequent works, which may have influenced Hanifan (Farr, 2004). Moreover, the term was in use at the time that Hanifan wrote about it. Furthermore, Farr demonstrates that Marx was the first to use the term "social capital" (gesellschaftliche Kapital) "as an aggegate or 'quantitative grouping' of individual capitalists that formed a fund for further production" in 1867 in Capital (ibid, p. 18). Consequently, what social capital is has not been the same since its use.

Recently, social capital has become a useful concept when studying virtual communities, in large part because of Putnam. According to Putnam, social capital "refers to social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity. ... Social networks have value" (Putnam in oecd Observer). Moreover, social capital "is comprised of a complex of obligations, expectations, norms, and trust embedded in the relations between members of a community. ... Whereas physical capital can be thought of as the tools and training that enhance individual productivity, social capital refers to the 'features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit (Putnam, 1995, p. 67)" (Young Larance, 1998, p. 6).

At present, there seems to be no universally accepted definition of social capital. However, Farr notes that "social capital is complexly conceptualized as the network of associations, activities, or relations that bind people together as a community via certain norms and psychological capacities, notably trust, which are essential for civil society and productive of future collective action or goods, in the manner of other forms of capital" (2003, p. 4).

End of part one.

Bibliography:
[1] Bagchi, Barnita. September 2, 2005. "Engendering ICT and social capital" at Digital Opportunity Channel, online at www.digitalopportunity.org.
[2] Bertin, Alexandre and Sirvan, Nicolas. [date unknown]. "Social Capital and the Capability Approach: A Social Economic Theory." Online at www.socialeconomics.org/uploads/Bertin-Sirvan.doc.
[3] Clarke, Rory J. March 2004. "Bowling together" in OECD Observer. Online at www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/1215/Bowling_together.html.
[4] Farr, James. 2003. "Social Capital: A Conceptual History" in Political Theory, vol. 31, no. X, pp. 1 - 28.
[5] Herrmann, Vera. [date unknown]. "The Concept of Social Capital in Network Analysis: Implications for Design and Intervention." Online at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/46/2382134.pdf.
[6] Olate, RenÃ. 2003. "Local Institutions, Social Capital and Capabilities: Challenges for Development and Social Intervention in Latin America." Online at http://cniss.wustl.edu/workshoppapers/olatepaper.odf
[7] Smith, Mark K. 2000, 2001. "social capital" in Infed encyclopedia, The World Bank Group. Online at www1.worldbank.org/prem/poverty/scapital/topic/edu1.htm.
[8] Young Larance, Lisa. September 1998. "Building Social Capital from the Center: A Village-Level Investigation of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank." Online at www.movingideas.org/content/en/report_content/wealth_in_america.htm.


Modified 1/17/06

The following timeline of "significant developments in the evolution of virtual communities" is based on Karyn Y. Lu's article "Virtual identity and virtual community".

1975: Electronic mail and mailing list
According to Keith Lynch's timeline of net related terms and concepts, the first mailing list was the MSGGROUP for those on ARPANET. However, Lu does not identify the MSGGROUP as the first virtual community. Instead, she gives that honor to the ARPANET mailing list SF-LOVERS, which Lu says was created in 1978; however, Lynch gives SF-LOVERS a 1979 launching. Regardless of which was truly the first virtual community and what is the correct date of the creation of SF-LOVERS, there appears to be general agreement that the first virtual communities were mailing lists on ARPANET, which included
HUMAN-NETS, NETWORK-HACKERS, SF-LOVERS, and WINE-TASTERS.

1978: Bulletin Board System (BBS)
The first BBS was created in 1978 and was called the Computerized Bulletin Board System.

1978: Multi-User Domain/Dungeon (MUDs)
A MUD is a multi-player computer game. According to www.livinginternet.com, the first MUD was created in 1978. However, Wikipedia claims the first MUD was created in 1977. Lu's timeline lists the beginning of MUDs as 1979.

1979: Usenet
Usenet is a "distributed Internet discussion system" that was conceived in 1979 and implemented the following year.

1986: ListServ
ListServ is an automatic mailing list server/system, which was developed in 1986 for BITNET.

1988: Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
An IRC is where people can get together on the Internet to have an online text conversation in real-time. The first IRC was created in 1998 in Finland as an alternative to a BBS.

1989: America On-Line (AOL)
In 1989 the Bulletin Board System company Quantum Computer Services changed its name to America On-line. The company's aggressive marketing strategy has greatly increased the number of people online and as members of online communities.

1991: Webcam
The Trojan Room coffee shop was the first online group to use a Webcam to send a live image.

1993: Doom
In 1993, Doom introduced the world to networked multiplayer gaming.

1994: ThePalace.com
An avatar is an image or graphical representation of a person online. According to Lu, when ThePalace chat software was created in 1994, it became the first site in cyberspace to create an avatar world. However, Wikipedia does not seem to support that view. Regardless of when avatars were created, they have become commonplace in online communities.

1995: Wiki sites
In 1995, WikiWikiWeb became the first wiki site. In a wiki, anyone can change or create new pages.

1996: Instant Messaging
The use of instant messaging exploded after November 1996 when Mirablis introduced ICQ, a free instant-messaging utility that anyone could use.

1999: Live Journal
Live Journal, which was created in 1999, is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a diary, journal, or blog. What made Live Journal stand out was its friends list.

1999: EverQuest and Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
EverQuest was not the first MMORPG; however, its fancy graphics and "sheer scale ... was just something else." According to wikipedia, an MMORPG is "an online computer role-playing game in which a large number of players can interact together or against another in the same game at the same time."

1999: Napster
The original Napster was released in June 1999, and it was the first first peer-to-peer music sharing service. At that time it allowed community members to trade MP3 files free of charge.

2003: Friendster
Friendster is a free online community that is a social networking site. Although it was not the first social networking site, it was the first to be "based on the Circle of Friends technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon" (Wikipedia).

// posted by Sunshine Skyways @ 10:00 PM 0 comments

What is a virtual community? Can a virtual community exist? According to the Dictionary.com, one definition of the word "virtual" refers to something that exists only in the imagination or is fake, such as virtual reality, which is simply a computer simulation of what is real. If one limits the definition of virtual to that which is unreal, then a virtual community is not real; it is no more than a pseudo- or simulated community. As a pseudo-community, it exists only in cyberspace when people are logged on to their computers.

Nonetheless, communities do exist in cyberspace. According to Rheingold, a virtual community is a social aggregation that emerges from the Net "when enough people carry on ... public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form [a web] of personal relationships in cyberspace." Fernbach & Thompson define virtual community as a set of "social relationships forged in cyberspace through repeated contact within a specified boundary or place )e.g., a conference or chat line) that is symbolically delineated by topic of interest." A definition that I like is inspired by Roberts: a "community is a group that you belong to, that you feel you belong to, and that you share important things [or interests] with," whether in the material world or in cyberspace.

The community where one lives is created and held together by geography and family: shared geography and genealogy. An online community, however, is created and held together by the shared interests of its members, who may live in different parts of the world and have no shared genealogy.

I recently found online the article "Information exchange in virtual communities: a typology" by Gary Burnett, which appears in the July 2000 issue of Information Research. For Burnett, almost all online communities "rely upon the exchange of texts between writers and readers in an ongoing discursive activity" (p. 2). Consequently, online communities "function as social spaces supporting textual 'conversations' through which participants can find both socio-emotional support and an active exchange of information" (pp. 2, 3). Burnett's typology considers the types of information exchange/behavior that occur in online communities.

Burnett divides information behaviors within online communities into two broad types: 1) Non-interactive behaviors, and 2) Interactive behaviors. The classic example of a non-interactive behavior is "'lurking,'" when someone reads messages written by others, but does not write, and, consequently, is among the "largely invisible." [1] Interactive behaviors, on the other hand, involve writing messages as well as reading others' messages. Burnett divides interactive behaviors into two essential types: A) Hostile interactive behaviors, and B) Collaborative or positive interactive behaviors. Hostile interactive behaviors are "a sort of verbal violence" that can involve either a few participants or an entire community. Burnett identifies four types of hostile interactive behaviors. First, and the most common form of hostile interactive behavior, is "flaming," which is "simply online ad-hominem argumentation, aiming neither for logic nor for persuasion, but purely and bluntly at insult" (p. 14).[2] Second, is "trolling," which is "deliberately posting a message for the purpose of eliciting an intemperate response" (p. 15).[3] The third form of hostile interactive behavior is spamming, sending unsolicited and unwanted emails and messages; and fourth, is "cyber-rape" or virtual rape, which is the most violent exchange of messages. The most well-known example of cyber-rape occured in Lambda Moo, and is discussed in a November post of this blog.

Burnett divides Collaborative Interactive behaviors into two primary categories: 1) behaviors "not specifically oriented toward information" and 2) behaviors "directly related to either information seeking or to providing information to other community members" (p. 18). Behaviors that ARE NOT specifically oriented toward information are divided into three types: A) Neutral behaviors (pleasantries and gossip), B) Humorous behaviors (language games and other types of play), and C) Empathetic behaviors (emotional support). Behaviors that ARE specifically oriented toward information include 3 types: 1) Announcements; 2) Queries or Specific Requests for Information, with queries i) made by other community members, ii) taken outside the community, or iii) presented directly to the community; and 3) Directed Group Projects.




1. Although invisible to the community, lurkers are engaged in "significant information-gathering activities" (p. 13).
2. For more on flaming, see Andrew Heenan's Guide to Flaming and wikipedia's definition of the term.
3. For more on trolling, see wikipedia's definition and Urban75's discussion of the term.

I am looking forward to seeing the movie, Brokeback Mountain, this weekend at either the Burns Court Cinema in Sarasota or the Tampa Theatre in Tampa. After doing a word search of "Brokeback Mountain" in Blogger, I found at the blog, Just Keepin it Real, a copy of a letter about the movie by Larry David, which is a great satirical piece that counters some of the homophobic commentary about the movie.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, so we went with friends to Fort DeSoto Park, which is located in St. Petersburg. In addition to its beautiful beaches, especially its North Beach, which was rated as the U.S.'s top beach in 2005, the park gives great views of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Yesterday was a fine day for exploring Myakaa River State Park, which is one of Florida's oldest and largest state parks. It's a great place to see birds and alligators, as shown in the accompanying photo.