Research on pressing and immediate technological issues and projects inevitably takes us into the social space of web forums, which are also great tools for figuring out what an audience values. With a sense of an audience's values, revulsions and boredom vectors, you can at the very least learn how to avoid wasting time. In this thread composed by the ubuntu community we have a remarkable example of a common trope of the Web: the free expert. Because of the scale of the Internet, it is likely that one can find an expert on almost any subject, posting slightly akimbo to their main expertise. This is extremely valuable information that corporations often spend millions of dollars procuring and securing, available on an web forum in the form of: copyright law. At the same time, it's not always easy to discern the actual qualifications of any such expert--hence there is no substitute for closely following a thread and seeing how well the poster's arguments solutions seem to stand up or strike a chord in others, or if the posters' collective solutions will work. Web Forums frequently break out in flame wars for precisely this reason: reputation, that currency of Ebay, is constantly subject to manipulation and contestation, and some posters respond to this with something like panic. But flamers often self scorch: if you read in a web forum long enough to inhabit and post in it, you will learn that such antics generally provoke silence among most other posters, and flame wars are sustained only by like minds, and ignored by most. And even extremely valuable expertise can be ignored due to disinterest. Why would anybody working in education be interested in ubuntu? Why would an ubuntu forum be interested in alternative distros? If we watch this thread, and perhaps even jump in with a query or a fact, we might find out. At the very least, just by watching this thread, we will very likely find patterns that teach us about new differentials of audience.

When we cite the free expert, we are citing a commons. The art and science of narrative teaches us how. Most interesting threads feature "off topic" interruptions and zig-zag directionalities, and so unfold as narratives.

WeekEight

This week, WeekEight, I would like each of us to find, explore, and join a community forum or listserv germane to emerging collective interests on this wiki. Cite a thread that either directly addresses one of your concerns, or one that surprised you with new ideas as it veered "off topic." By monitoring and participating in a forum and sharing items of interest on your wiki page each week, we can help each other refine and find audience for our projects.

One way to start is to explore the archives of a listserve community...that way you find the appropriate form of address for a new member, or "newbie" to take:

John Coltrane listserv