Online Communities

The net-comic XKCD – “awesome geeky” according to Boing-boing’s Cory Doctorow has published a Map of Online Communities. Geographic area represents estimated size of membership.

I’m a member of several of these communities myself, but they are rather time-consuming without offering much information exchange.

An interesting case in point is Slashdot, the community with “News for nerds, stuff that matters”. I give the initial post in a thread a quick scan (usually it is recycled information from another website, that is only new to me because it is not in my favourite feedaggregator), but then you’d better skip to another topic.

The process by which Slashdot members post is mapped by Wellington Grey in a flow-chart.

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  1. […] are a way of organizing your thoughts. Earlier I wrote about the Wellington Grey flowchart on Slashdot publishing. [?] Share […]

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  • The Aesthetics and Beauty of Knowledge

    Shih was the opposite of facts and raw information; shih was the elegance of knowledge, the insight and skill to organize knowledge into meaningful patterns. As an artist chooses colours or light to make her pictures, a master of shih chooses textures of knowledge – various ideas, myths, abstractions, and theories – to create a way of seeing the world. The aesthetics and beauty of knowledge – this was shih.

    – David Zindell, The Broken God, 1993

  • Geek Attitude

    The attitude thing is about flexibility, portability, creativity, sociability and jamming (ran out of suitable “ity” words!). It’s about improvising – in the practical and musical senses of the word; not getting tangled in boundaries and the “right” way to do things.
    Definitely the only way to travel.
    Martin Delaney – “Laptop Music”.