Hello Craig, Thank you for your thoughts. I am a "tentative participant", my first and only listserv and had felt quite guilty to "lurk" and to "delete". It is enlightening to learn the protocol. I am interested in your occupation. What does electronic outreach program officer entail? I am exploring alternatives, other than print materials, to provide health educational resources on a provincial basis. Are you a Webmaster or are you involved in a distance education program? Thank you, Deborah St. Arnaud Health Consultant Ministry of Health Edmonton, Alberta Canada ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Virtual space Author: "Health Promotion on the Internet (Discussion)" <[log in to unmask]> at Internet Date: 7/3/96 7:54 PM I am going to break a lazy habit with this contribution. Most often what I do is pick an interesting contribution to whichever mailing list I'm on and reply which leads me to remain on thread but quickly leads me along the path already set by the content of the contribution I reply to. The reason I'm breaking with this lazy habit is to highlight the (I was going to say disjunctive character of the virtual space of mailing lists) inconsistency of language and voice and disrupted conversations on a mailing list. Many of us who have been participating for a number of years have grown accustomed to this distinctly computer based method of communication. We have learnt to not be disconcerted by the importance of some contributions and look for those snippets of conversation and information that convey meaning to us. Many of us lurk unwatched, reading and gaining confidence. Waiting to realise that this is a virtual space without some of the constraints of the literal world so that I could in fact contemplate questioning the language of some contributions as being overly academic and distant. In so doing I can start to create my own virtual space. I can start my own thread of discussion, using my own language and voice and know that there is a place for my language and academic discourse and that they can follow each other on a mailing list without undermining or disparaging or devaluing the other. In fact that is one of the positive aspects of this virtual space. This threading business that is. You can watch and particpate in a number of conversations at once. You can overhear (lurk) conversations. Its a bit like being able to rush around at a conference and talk to everyone and listen to each conversation after the main lecture. But I reckon the most important thing to learn is how to relax in the virtual world. To do this you need to learn three important lessons: 1/ You can never keep up with it all 2/ It doesn't matter if you don't 3/ its OK to delete stuff The best mailing lists I participate in ebb and flow, they rush past me when I don't have time, only to grab my interest when I'm tired of the project I'm working on. They provide a familiar place where I recognise the names and can chuckle at the known quirks of participants. One thing I really enjoy is reading something I can immediately dismiss as rubbish and exercising the old delete key. Very satisfying Please do so now if you wish to. So I suppose I should make an incisivie comparison about the literal world and the virtual world now. But I'm not sure that its as important as I should think it is. Why is it important to make the distinction? Both are a part of my workspace, my life. --------------------------------------------------------- Craig Silva, Electronic Outreach Program Officer Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne Australia e-mail: [log in to unmask], Tel: 61 3 9345 3211 ---------------------------------------------------------