HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:33:44 EST
From:         Wayne Butler <USERGGBY@UMICHUM.BITNET>
Subject:      Notes on lurking from behind the wallflowers

I have been a lurker, for the most part.  Those who know
me personally know I am not a wallflower.  To continue the
"jr. school dance" metaphor:  I did not dance because I
was too shy to participate.  I did not dance because I
did not know how (even in the late 60s and early 70s when
knowing how to dance was not always a requirement).  I was
too self-concious of what I perceived to by my awkward
shuffling, especially when I compared my own style to those
who had been apparently rehearsing for American Bandstand
all week.  I've lurked on MBU (and I appreciate those who
are trying to change "lurk
" to something else because for me lurking is someplace
between leering and peeping) because I still haven't
learned how "to dance" to the MBU beat.  If this message
gets through, it will have been only a couple of the
dozens I've tried to send since early September.  For
some reason (I might have had the address wrong), my
messages weren't getting through  (this was confirmed
by peers at Michigan who I had on the lookout for
my several test messages.)  If this message has
gotten through, I will have learned the first "step."
Now my frustration is with the text editor and
software package I am using.  Until I learn the
finer points of uploading word processed contributions,
I am forced to compose my messages on a line editor,
a prospect that scares me to death.  Why?  Because
I just can't compose what I consider to be significant
contributions one line at a time without the opportunity
to revise (and spell check) easily.  I am not going out
onto the dance floor with all of you watching unless I
can dance in front of the mirror first, by myself or
with my sister, in the safety of my own home.  I, like some
other "lurkers" and "wallflowers," often find the pace
too intense.  I sometimes dread coming into work on Tuesday
(I'm off campus on Monday) because I know as soon as I log on
the mail system, I will have 122 messages to deal with.  At the
risk of beating the metaphor to death, "I'm Dancing
as Fast as I Can."  But I continue to "lurk," picking
up little tips along the way and pestering my new
colleagues to teach me the "steps."
Any tips on dealing with the beat of MBU will
be greatly appreciated by me, and probably by
my fellow lurkers, too.
Got to go--student in the hall.
Wayne Butler
U of Michigan
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sat, 7 Nov 1992 11:31:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) RE: Wireless Network! (26)

Entry: 26
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1992 08:46:32 EST
From: IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.COM" Robert Royar, (C&CD Moderator)
Message-id: <1992Nov07.084632.v7.009.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject: RE: Wireless Network! (26)
Reply-to: "Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

Trent Batson mentions the wireless network with regard to its installation
on a Pow$erBook. The wireless network has been available for quite a while
now. One such computer on which it works is the (MS-DOS) HP-95LX Palmtop
computer. You get an EarthStation about the size of a VHS cassette. The cost
for the entire package is ~$1,200.00 (excluding the $50.00+ additional
cellular connection charge and the $0.10 - 0.15 per minute trans/rec charge.
The HP95LX also allows for local connection to a LAN via infrared. I think
the Poquet (propeil pocket computer) also supports such.

These are all available today.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    "The present-day composer refuses to die."
                                                           - Edgard Varese

------------------------------
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Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 11:46:31 EST
From:         mer <MROSE01@UKCC.UKY.EDU>
Subject:      Re: enough of election

Nancy:        On Clinton and Rain:

              When that I was and a little tine boy,
               With hey ho, the wind and the rain,
              A foolish thing was but a toy,
               For the rain it raineth every day.

              But when I came to man's estate,
               With hey ho, the wind and the rain,
              'Gainst Knaves and thieves men shut
                      their gate,
               For the rain it raineth every day.

              But when I came, alas, to wive,
               With hey ho, the wind and the rain,
              By swaggering could I never thrive,
               For the rain it raineth every day.

              But when I came unto my beds,
               With a hey ho, the wind and the rain,
              With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
               For the rain it raineth every day.

              A great while ago the world begun,
               With a hey ho, the wind and the rain,
              But that's all one, our play is done,
               And we'll strive to please you every day.

                                     --*Twelfth Night* V.i.389-408

                                                    mer
From: STU_K1SPENGL@JMUVAX.BITNET
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Subject: Re: Clinton/Gore
Date: 5 Nov 92 03:14:18 GMT
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I don't know any of you, but I just have to add that anything is better
than a leader who condemns others for their character yet turns around
and lies to the American public.  READ MY LIPS...I think we need a change
and someone who is willing to relate to the younger generartion (or as
Bush says, "the teeny-boppers").
                                           Kristin Spengler
                                           James Madison University
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Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 09:26:23 EST
Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was cyselfe@WALKER2.HU.MTU.EDU
From:         "(Cindy Selfe)" <cyselfe@MTU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: doctorial programs

Tim--

You bet!!  Michigan Tech has a great Ph.D. program in Rhetoric and
Technical Communication--lots of computers and technology studies!  For
information, just send me your snail mail address, I'll ask the secretary
to pop some material in the mail for you!

Cindy Selfe

  Cynthia L. Selfe
  Humanities Department
  Michigan Technological University
  1400 Townsend Dr.
  Houghton, MI  49931

    Internet:  CYSELFE@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU
    Telephone: (906) 487-2447
    Fax:       906/487-3347
From: SSELBER@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU (Stuart Selber)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Subject: Re: Books on Teaching Writing
Date: 6 Nov 92 02:17:16 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
              5 Nov 1992 16:40:49 CST from
              <peckham%CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>

For books on pedagogy, I'd add:

Bartholomae and Petrosky's _Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts: Theory and
Method for a Reading and Writing Course_ (Boynton/Cook, 1986)

Caywood and Overing's _Teaching Writing:  Pedagogy, Gender, and Equity_
(SUNY Press, 1987)

Tate and Corbett's _The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook_ (Oxford University Press,
1986).

A few possibilities.

Stuart Selber
Michigan Tech
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Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 09:36:40 CST
From:         Wes Chapman <WESCHAP@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Reply to Re: Lurkers or Wallflowers?
              11 Nov 1992 20:18:00 EST from <00djfitzstep@BSUVAX1>

00djfitzsteph, While I understand the desire to avoid being pigeon-holed,
I think that yes, we do have to have labels, for at least two reasons.  First,
whatever we call lurkers--no, viditors--the phenomenon of viditing is very
important; it is one of the sites where the fundamental differences between
electronic communication and FTF on the one hand and print writing on the other
become visible.  We need some kind of vocabulary to talk about that phenomenon.
Second, there's no question of going without labels; we've already got them.
What's at issue is whether we have a relatively neutral term like "viditor"
(the neologism helps, because it doesn't have the connotative density of an
accepted word--good thinking, whoever came up with this) or a term laden with
negative connotations like "lurker" or "wallflower."
Wes Chapman
Illinois Wesleyan University
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 02:18:06 EST
From:         ENGJTF@NCSUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Test

>This is a test.

I hope we passed.
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Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 01:27:22 -1000
From:         James Shimabukuro <JAMESS@UHUNIX.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Those big software bucks

On Mon, 2 Nov 1992, Gordon Thomas wrote:

> I really love participating on MBU.  It's great when you're in a somewhat
> isolated place like Idaho to be in touch with people all over the country.
>
> -- Gordon Thomas
>    Univ. of Idaho

I share Gordon's feelings.  Until MBU, I was in solitary.  Well, almost.

Jim S.
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Original_To:  BITNET%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sat, 7 Nov 1992 11:31:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) Bitnet to Internet gateways (7)

Entry: 7
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1992 09:12:14 EST
From: IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.COM" Robert Royar, (C&CD Moderator)
Message-id: <1992Nov07.091214.v7.009.4.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject: Bitnet to Internet gateways (7)
Reply-to: "Computers & Composition Digest (R. Royar)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

>From: "Rhoda Carroll, Vermont College, Montpelier" <RHODA%MUNIN@NORWICH.BITNET>
>Subject: Yankee Trader Pays Up! (*MBU*)
>Message-id: <01GQTSZWAW9S8WXIAG@ulkyvx.bitnet>

>So, tell me what you want, and send snail mail address.
>I can RECEIVE Internet mail but I can SEND only through Bitnet, remember!

Has anyone at your site looked into a BITNET<>InterNet gateway (such as
that at City University of New York's IBM, CUNYVM)? Whenever I reply to
bitnet mail on my internet account, replies go through something like
 name%node.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
And years ago to get to ArpaNet the explicit routing was
 name%node.bitnet@cunyvm.bitnet
There was a similar gate at ucbvax.berkeley.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    "Do not search for the truth. Simply cease to cherish opinion."
                                                                - Sengstan

------------------------------
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Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:31:24 EST
From:         Wayne Butler <USERGGBY@UMICHUM.BITNET>
Subject:      Test

This is a test.
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Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 1992 18:58:47 -0500
From:         WENDY <WARREN@EDINBORO.EDU>
Subject:      Re: hypercard in Basic Writing

Jeff,

Using Hypercard in Basic Writing? Wow! What a great way to get students
interested in writing and in learning how to connect ideas. I'd be
interested to see how it goes.
W. Warren
warren@edinboro.edu
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Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 10:24:14 -0500
From:         Angela Murphy-Walters <WALTERSAM@WCUVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Wallflower

     OK, OK.  Maybe browsers or readers or spectators or country gentlepersons
or _something_ else.  But, Margaret, if you continue to suspect a sinister
intent if I call myself a lurker or even _once_ call _me_ a bowser, I'm
going to rip up my wrist corsage and go home! ;^)  I still like wallflowers,
even if it is sexist and I can't find a wall in here to lean against.

                                     ?            Deck the Walls!
                                   (* *)          Angela Murphy-Walters
                               --m---U---m--      WALTERSAM@WCUVAX1
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1992 11:39:00 CST
From:         SLATIN@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: is the end of "the paper" in

Michael Gos, I don't at all agree that moving toward hypertext "weakens the
position of the writer."  True, relinquishing the ability to control the
precise order in which a reader will encounter material is relinquishing a
great deal, and does indeed challenge our notions-- built up as you say over
millennia-- of persuasion and argumentation.  But there is also an
augmentation of the writer's freedom: how many times have you, in the course
of writing a paper or a dissertation or whatever, regretted your own
developing argument's demand that you *not* follow one or another of its
posible threads? how many times have you shrugged off disappointment at having
to cut a superb quotation that isn't quite directly enough related to the
point you're making at that particular moment in your argument? how many times
have you wished you could show readers multiple possibilities, situate a
particular point in a richer context...? These things are easily done in
hypertext, though we know very little as yet about the consequences to our
conception of writing of taking advantage of these capabilities.

And perhaps there's something to gain, too, from relinquishing that conception
of persuasion that you talked about-- or rather, not relinquishing it, but
instead coming to see it as only one among many ways of thinking about
persuasion and what it is.  And isn't that a gain, too?  Suppose we took
"persuasion" to mean "putting the reader in position to create a new concept
in his or her mind"; suppose further (for the sake of argument[?]) Douglas
Hofstadter's contention (which I quote too often in too many contexts) that "A
concept is a concept by virtue of the way it is connected up with other things
that are also concepts"; then persuasion has to do with the process of
"connecting up" concepts-- and perhaps sequence doesn't matter so much, in
this scenario, as "mere" linkage matters; and if that's possible, then again
hypertext offers great flexibility, great persuasive capability.

I don't pretend that what I've said is the solution, or even really "a"
solution, to the problems you and others have posed.  I'm more concerned, in
certain respects at least, to suggest alternatives to thinking of the
weakening of traditional sequencing as a forfeiting of power on the writer's
part. It seems to me rather a matter of constructing a new kind of
relationship between reader and writer, or among readers who are also writers.

John Slatin
UT AUstin
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Mon, 9 Nov 1992 08:32:42 MST
From:         "David E. Schwalm" <IACDES@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      Hypertext in comp and lit

From: David E. Schwalm
Received load and clear. Sounds like a really interesting course, particularly
since you are having students construct hypertexts rather than use hypertexts
constructed by others. I don't know what their hypertexts will look like, but
I bet they'll have a pretty good understanding of the literary work that is
the focus of their work. And perhaps that's the point. Thanks for your useful
contribution.

-- David E. Schwalm, Assoc. Provost for Academic Programs
___Arizona State University West
___4701 West Thunderbird Rd.
___Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100___(602) 543-4500
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Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 11:07:33 -0500
From:         Nick.Carbone@WRITING.UMASS.EDU
Subject:      Reply to Re: Lurkers or Wallflowers?

Wes's leap into the dictionary raised some good reasons for not using
wallflowers, added to that is the absence of walls anyway in Megabyte Uni-
versity.  Since we read through a screen, screeners?  Or since some
read from a window, window shoppers?  Or since we sometimes read
casually, browsers?  But since the sense of lurkers has always been--at
least for me--of people who are on the list but in the shadows until they come
out, shades might be a useful term.

Nick.Carbone@writing.umass.edu
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Wed, 11 Nov 1992 09:33:59 -0600
From:         tmmyers@IASTATE.EDU
Subject:      doctorial programs

I am currently looking for a doctorial program in English composition, and
I would like to do research involving the use of computers in the composing
process.  Does anyone know of any programs that would allow me to do this
type of research?  I would appreciate any help that anyone has to offer
either through MBU or to my personal address (tmmyers@iastate.edu)

tim myers/Iowa State University
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 6 Nov 1992 09:40:40 EST
From:         rselfe@MTU.EDU
Subject:      interesting question

I don't know how many of you received this question (aire) but it was
thought provoking.
>> >     Briefly describe a few ways in which your online learning
>> >     or teaching experiences have been different from your
>> >     learning or teaching experiences in a traditional face
>> >     to face setting.
>> >
My subjective answers?
More on-going, less periodic; more peer to peer, less authoritarian; more
personal, less academic; more real-world constantly mediated/conditional,
less rule governed.

>> > Thank you for taking the time to read this.  We would very much
>> > appreciate your response.  We hope to hear from you soon.
>> > Please send your responses to the address below:
>> >
>> >       sekhon@sfu.ca

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dickie Selfe              rselfe@mtu.edu
Humanities Dept.          906-487-3225
Michigan Technological U.
Houghton, MI   49931
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 6 Nov 1992 12:34:35 EST
From:         rselfe@MTU.EDU
Subject:      hello TEX

Glad to see/hear you Tex.

I think we should all get our grant ideas dusted off and updated for
networked teaching and software development.  We could also be Goreging
ourselves out of the government trough.

I saw flakes on the may around Lubbock yesterday?  It's snowing to beat the
band here in Houghton.  May be a golf course skiing day.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dickie Selfe              rselfe@mtu.edu
Humanities Dept.          906-487-3225
Michigan Technological U.
Houghton, MI   49931
From: TABRON@BRANDEIS.BITNET (Pseudopodia can only be so long)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Subject: Re: Clinton/Gore
Date: 5 Nov 92 21:40:00 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Original_To:  BITNET%"MBU-L@TTUVM1.BITNET"

Lady Falls Brown,

actually, i was inclined towards bill clinton from the moment that I found
out that Hillary had been Hillary Rodham until Bill ran for his second term
as Governor, and it was the people of Arkansas, not Bill, who made her
change her name to Clinton because they got all hot under the collar about
a woman living in the Governor's mansion who didn't have her husband's
name. (I'm not sure of the reasoning on this one, but that was the gist
of it.)
so you can make me a T-Shirt that says
Hillary RODHAM
My kind of woman!

ok, i'll shut up now.

Judith
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Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:36:26 -0500
From:         Angela Murphy-Walters <WALTERSAM@WCUVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Lurkers or Wallflowers?

     Michael S. Hart posted a suggestion that "wallflowers" be used in
place of "lurkers."  Gee, I really like that!  As a died in the wool
lurker/wallflower (with exceptions, of course) I wholeheartedly approve.
I was a wallflower at every school dance from 7th grade through high
school (I did eventually blossom. . .) but anytime I was *asked* to
dance I did, and had a wonderful time.  It is exactly the same for me
here.  Sometimes I have asked you to ask me for input.  If one or two
megabunnies said yes, I was happy to join in the fun.  But for the most
part I really enjoy watching/reading what everybody else is doing, just
as I was content to people-watch at all of those school dances.  As an
outsider here (I am a curriculum librarian, not a classroom teacher) I
feel some of the same inadequacies that kept me off the dance floor, but
I am still having a good time!  Being a wallflower is not all bad.  And
I have been made to feel that my input is welcome; a real improvement
over the 8th grade dance when a friend refused to dance with me for a
"ladies choice!"  Ah, the good old days. . . ;)  [That should have been
the same _kind of_ inadequacies above.)
                                          Back in the shadows again,
                                          Angela Murphy-Walters
                                          WALTERSAM@WCUVAX1
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1992 12:34:15 EST
Comments:     Resent-From: Stuart Selber <SSELBER@MTUS5.cts.mtu.edu>
Comments:     Originally-From: bwresch%UWSPMAIL.UWSP.EDU@KSUVM.KSU.EDU
Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was
              MBU-L%TTUVM1.bitnet@KSUVM.KSU.EDU
From:         Stuart Selber <SSELBER@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: is the end of "the paper" in sight?

Bill Wresch writes:
I like your idea of power and hypertext.  I have thought for some time that
hypertext creates freedom for the reader.  And while it gives the writer more
possibilities, it also creates more responsibilities.  Add to this the
increased use of visuals, and I think we have the beginnings of real problems
for writers who are barely holding on to the rudiments of the five paragraph
theme.

Bill, two ideas.  First, hypertext may create the *potential* for user freedom
(freedom often being the claim of advertising for hypertext).  Actually, what
I think many current applications offer users is choices of system and
author-generated links/connections,which still locates heavy responsibility
with the writer as well as readers as well as system designer. Second, does/
should hypertext reading/writing presuppose some facility with print-based
reading/writing strategies or does it offer a different forum that requires a
different rhetoric (as Slatin and Moulthrop discuss). And, as Eric Crump has
recently asked, different pedagogical strategies than what we currently use for
teaching print-based writing. What do you think?

Stuart Selber
Michigan Tech
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