Dark Side of the Comment Section

If you’re involved with any kind of online facilitation, you may appreciate this article from The Guardian. They’ve done some research into the comment section, finding that much more abuse is directed at female writers than male. (Also, for web designers, some really good layout effects, especially the way they’ve integrated the graphs and the “how would you moderate this comment” bits.) There’s a whole series around this research, articles interviewing people who have experienced the maelstrom of massive online shaming and bullying.. and articles on ideas for making things Read More …

Spambots and botnets

When spammers attacked our “English at the Beach” website, on both the Guestbooks and the Feedback Survey pages, we were experiencing the “New Chicago-style Web”. “We used to call the Internet a sort of Wild West. Now it’s more like Chicago in the 1920s with Al Capone,” says Prolexic President Keith Laslop. Writing up my research on the web usage server logs, i needed a definition of ‘botnet’. While searching, i came across an intriguing article in Wired late last year, which outlines an attack on Six Apart’s Type Pad Read More …

Publications and interviews

“Open Source, Language and Literacy” It’s been an exciting couple of months for me, as i’ve been asked to write a few articles. One for the coming Journal “Australian Language and Literacy Matters”, a new project emerging from Australian Language Matters and the ARIS Resources Bulletin. [“Open Source, Language & Literacy” @ ALLM : ms word doc 180k] Current Directions in Flexible Learning Another for Literacy Link, the Australian Council for Adult Literacy magazine, about current happenings in the Australian Flexible Learning Community. [FlexiLearni @ LitLink : ms word doc Read More …

big shifts afoot (from microsoft to open source)

big shifts afoot Big predictions, as the inquirer reports a worldwide shift from Microsoft to Open Source. This article is a comment with attitude – Charles at the Inquirer puts the case that the Redmond giant is about to get very badly stung by a growing movement, as governments and corporations everywhere weigh a zero-outlay software against another which costs hundreds. (i should say at this point that i am not an anti-MS crusader. i like MS Word – it’s my very favourite word processor – and i’m very grateful Read More …