Can’t get there from here: Identity

“What is Truth?”--Pontius Pilate ^(?)

You can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys by the color of their hats when you can’t see their hats. You have to listen to their drawl. The slogan is, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The reality is that nobody cares if you’re a dog unless you write like a dog or argue like a dog. If a monkey writes Hamlet at random and then posts to the Usenet newsgroup alt.prose, it’s not a monkey: it’s Shakespeare.

On the Internet, no one knows if you’re an adult or a thirteen-year old snot-faced kid. How can they? Some children write like adults, and some adults write like children. Steve Jackson Games solves this by requiring anyone who wants to be an “adult” on their virtual city Freegate to send in a photocopy of their driver’s license. Until you do this, you are not an adult, as far as the city is concerned. An entire “seedy” section of town is off limits to you: virtual cops wait at a virtual bridge and virtually kick you back into the “nice” side of town. When they receive proof of your age, a single byte is toggled on your virtual self. You.adult changes from zero to one, and suddenly you have hair on your chest. Which could be problematical if you’re a woman or a small kangaroo. Other Internet vendors have other ways of proving you’re an adult. It’s no different from the problems mail-order companies have: you can’t tell someone’s age by their handwriting either.

In most cases, however, the Internet, like mail-order, is age-blind, a dream for teen-agers and a nightmare for college students: if you write like an adult, you are treated like an adult. If you write like a child, you are treated like a child. There is no reason for it to be any other way. There are no drinks served via computer modem, and no deadly three-vehicle pile-ups on the infobahn. As long as you act like an adult, you are, as far as your friends on the Internet are concerned, an adult.

Here in California, the public school system is slowly bringing itself ‘on-line’ and hooking themselves up--as the K-12 network--to the information highway. As the K-12 network ventures on-line, a few of those children will be able to pull it off: write like an adult, and be accepted into adult society.

People have certainly managed far stranger tasks. There’s a psychiatrist in New York City who posed as a woman on the Compuserve network: a woman confined to a wheelchair, told stories of world travel, and became the confidant of a number of other women on Compuserve. When he was ‘outed’, many of ‘her’ friends were devastated. ^(?)

One woman married another woman, and didn’t discover the truth until four months into the wedding. The “man-woman” claimed to be a businessman dying of AIDS. She met him/her over the Internet. She fell in love with him/her there--or fell in love with the words he/she used. She wasn’t quite so much in love as to accept the gender betrayal, however; she sued and won $264,000. (Washington Post 5/17/97)

There’s an anti-Semitic who wanders the various Usenet newsgroups, posting articles about how World War II never happened, or even if it did, the Nazis weren’t such bad folks anyway. As you can imagine, he was a bit lonely in his views. Until, that is, he created a second persona and used the second name to send articles as well. He even engaged himself in conversation on these articles, replying and commenting on his own posts. That, too, was discovered eventually. Dan Gannon/Ralph Winston “made #7 on the list of ‘most evil net.personalities’, just behind Serdar Argic.” ^{(What list?)}

Rob Perelman, in 1996, was the seventeen year-old master of San Diego Rocks.^(?) Ron, like me, had foregone the pleasures of vehicle ownership at sixteen for the trials of computer programming. But whereas I learned BASIC at sixteen, he’s learned HTML. This high school student authored and maintains the major San Diego music scene web site. The owner of Goldenrod Records called him “representative of the future”, and called San Diego Rocks “one of the most impressive Web sites... anywhere.” That Ron is seventeen hasn’t stopped him from writing web pages for major local bands. He could as well have been ninety-seven. On the net, no one can hear you age.

Except perhaps by the fee you charge. Ron’s been doing the pages for free, but he’s gotten tired of having to share a car with his mom.

Who you are on the infobahn is who you make yourself to be. No one except yourself can see, for example, what you’re wearing, or (more to the point in the electronic age) whether you’re using this year’s model or last year’s, or even an old clunker from a decade ago. ^(maybe...) In face to face discussions, participants must assess the trustworthiness and reliability of the other participants by observing behavior, dress, speech, and facial expressions. In electronic discussions, other factors are observed: the use of appropriate capitalization, appropriate line breaks, spelling, and grammar all contribute to making these decisions. Too many words in ALL-CAPS make you look like a street corner preacher. Lines that ‘run over’ eighty letters per line indicates that the writer is a ‘newbie’. Most computer screens only display eighty letters per line, so the readers either won’t see anything beyond the first eight letters, or the writer’s text will ‘wrap around’ right in the middle of words.

Most people start out on the infobahn as either lurkers or newbies. A lurker is someone who just reads, but doesn’t write. Being a lurker is a good thing: it’s part of the learning period of getting acquainted with netiquette, the etiquette of the net. Lurkers are an amorphous Heisenberg mass: it is hard to pin the ‘lurker’ label on any one individual, because as soon as an individual becomes known on the net, they’re not a lurker anymore.

A newbie (also, clueless newbie, for the particularly daft) is someone who is new to the infobahn but writes anyway. Because they’re new, they don’t understand all (or even a few...) of the customs of the net, and they break them. One of the easiest ways of spotting a newbie is the phrase “everyone knows”. On the infobahn, everyone doesn’t know. It is almost guaranteed that someone will disagree with that statement, even if its as painfully obvious as everyone knows that prohibition results in higher crime. The term clueless is reserved for those newbies who not only break net customs, they’re also loudmouthed and obnoxious about it, and they go out of their way to do it. A newbie might get onto talk.politics.drugs and claim that “everyone knows cocaine is bad for fetuses”. A clueless newbie will find a study that says “While we must recommend that pregnant women not use cocaine, every reasonable study has found no effect of cocaine on newborns” and quote it as “We must recommend that pregnant women not use cocaine”, not as evidence that pregnant women shouldn’t use cocaine, but as evidence that cocaine is dangerous. This is an example of cluelessness because the newbie presumably doesn’t realize that out of the millions of other people on the infobahn, one of them will have access to the same study, and will look it up, reporting the clueless newbie’s misrepresentation to the net at large. ^(!) Depending on the topic that the clueless newbie chooses to expound on--drugs, guns, ^(!) abortion, and homosexuality are particularly sensitive topics--the newbie may also rate being categorized as flame bait. They’ll get flamed mercilessly by people who are more experienced debating the topic over the infobahn. Some newbies look clueless because their local bulletin board system suddenly provided them with Internet access without telling them what the Internet is. So they post to the infobahn without realizing that it’s not just another part of the inbred service they’re paying for. Folks from America On-Line gained a bad reputation when they were thrust onto the net at large. These folks usually learn pretty quickly, though, because they are usually charged for each electronic mail message they receive from the Internet, and twenty million people can send a lot of mail. That becomes a strong financial incentive to learn.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have net.gods, people that the net in general respect, or at least have heard of as net personalities. There are different levels of net.godhood. At the high end, the person’s name will be enshrined as part of the net vocabulary. A newsgroup is ‘spaf’, for example, if it’s on Gene Spafford’s list of non-bogus newsgroups, a ‘bogus’ newsgroup being one that was created inappropriately, or for no apparent traffic. Gene Spafford has faded into the real world (he claims not even to read news any more), but his list and his name live on.

Similar to the net.gods, net.legends are usually the strange or unpredictable, but rarely strangely unpredictable. In fact, the worst net.legends are usually strange and very predictable. You can pretty much guess what they’re going to say at any time. The most infamous will appear on the list of most evil net.personalities. Gary Stollman (who, as far as I know, did not appear on the evil list) wrote quite strongly of alien invasions, and believed that people (or aliens) were following him. “He was manic, paranoiac, and a man of his convictions. I think he’d had several convictions, though he was not guilty by reason of insanity...” ^(?) Eventually he tried a holdup with a fake gun, and even made it on television.

Most likely, however, your net presence will not be so extreme, should you decide to venture onto the infobahn. The biggest part of your identity will be your grammar and your spelling. Even people who can’t spell worth a damn can still spot bad spelling in other people’s posts. This also results in some pretty funny flames ^(!): a netizen who has had a bad day will flame someone else for a spelling error, and end up making a heinous spelling error of their own; normally, spelling errors are not flamed, but a spelling error in a flame about a spelling error is open season.

Good spelling is quite easy to fake. If you are worried about your spelling, you can probably run your message through a computerized spelling checker before sending it out. Your grammar, however, is up to you. The best you can do (unless you actually want to take a night class in English, which is kind of overkill) is to pay attention to other people’s messages and learn from the good ones. I’ve seen a number of people improve their spelling, grammar, and typing speed after a few months on the infobahn. It’s like riding a bicycle. Once you learn how, you’re set. (Just watch out for the non-English speakers at the four way stop. Flaming someone’s grammar when their native language is something else entirely is a real good way to embarass yourself publicly.)

As important, if not more important, is the factual quality of your messages and the logical flow of your argument. This isn’t the evening news: the Internet is big, and the people who read your messages can respond to each and every point you make. Someone out there knows more than you do, no matter how well you know the topic at hand. Some people know you better than you know yourself. If you want your conclusions to be taken seriously, your arguments need to back them up. If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, your sources need to back your arguments up. And if you want your sources to be taken seriously, you’d better not misrepresent them.

From: [a--a--r] at [jabba.cybernetics.net] (Mike Dunnagan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: COPS: good, bad, ugly?

Sol Lightman ([v--d--t] at [twain.ucs.umass.edu]) wrote:
>>What choice does a crack baby have in the matter?
>What crack babies?

That’s the same shit the KKK says about the holocaust. Are you that twisted?

>>Name one positive thing that can be said of addiction?
>Name one person who is addicted who wouldn’t be better off if drugs were legal.

Name one person who wouldn’t be better off if drugs weren’t addictive.
Rant and rave all you want. I’ve stated my views.

End of article 13373 (of 13377)--what next? [npq] F

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Receiving Information...

Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: What about Crack Babies? REFERENCES !!!
Date: 8 Jan 1994 06:37:30 -0600

Here’s a new article on “crack babies” from Science News, Nov 9, 1991. Clip and save!

“Smoking out cocaine’s in utero impact” Despite many reports of cocaine’s ill effects on the developing fetus, scientists lack definitive evidence specifically linking cocaine to adverse reproductive effects (SN: 9/7/91, p.152). Using a powerful statistical technique, a Canadian research team has found that cocaine by itself causes very few problems during pregnancy.

Gideon Koren of the University of Toronto and his colleagues identified 20 previously published cocaine studies that involved pregnant women and yielded mixed results. Those

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	5.  Cocaine Babies (7k)
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	9.  The Facts About Drug Abuse (3k)

Crack

	1.  Crack and Federal Law (2k)
-->	2.  Crack Babies and Fetal Alcohol  (11k)
	3.  What About Crack Babies? (7k)

Receiving Information...

From: [l--w--s] at [aera2.mitre.org] (Keith Lewis)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: What about Crack Babies?
Date: 13 Dec 1993 23:04:10 GMT

[g--e--r] at [utdallas.edu] (Dale M. Greer) writes:
>I’m all for legalizing marijuana, benign as it is, but what about crack?
>I have no experience with it, so I don’t know if the stories I hear about
>its addictiveness are truth or propaganda.  There does seem to be quite
>a problem with crack babies, though, and this is exactly the kind of
>thing the pro-WoD people will bring up, and rightly so.
>
>My question, then, is this: if you are for the legalization of all drugs,
>what is your answer to the question “What about crack babies?”
“Crack babies”, inasmuch as they exist, are the same old babies who were
categorized as “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome” babies before cocaine became
popular.  It turns out that if you exclude mothers who use other drugs,
babies born to cocaine users are just as healthy as those born to nonusers.

Alcohol, tobacco, neglect, and the general poor health that goes with poverty
are the real causes of the cocaine syndrome politicians talk about so much. 
But could they ever blame the legal megadrugs?  Noooooo; that would be
political suicide.

Old posts containing references to follow.

From: [lamon t g] at [milton.u.washington.edu] (Lamont Granquist)
Newsgroups: alt.drug,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Crack Babies
Date: 19 Jan 92 04:52:46 GMT

This was sent to me from an anonymous post -- I didn’t type it in.

   (From The Boston Sunday Globe * January 12, 1992,     pg 69)
    (Permission to reproduce this article has not been sought)

   THE MYTH OF THE `CRACK BABIES’

   By Ellen Goodman

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Receiving Information...

From: [v--d--t] at [twain.ucs.umass.edu] (Sol Lightman)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: What about Crack Babies?
Date: 10 Dec 1993 21:24:53 GMT

Using an as yet undetermined appendage Dale M. Greer ([g--e--r] at [utdallas.edu]) wrote:
]My question, then, is this: if you are for the legalization of all drugs,
]what is your answer to the question “What about crack babies?”

What about them... in fact.... What ``crack babies’‘?

--------

“Untruths, unreliable data create obstacles in war on drugs.”
From PITCH: Kansas City’s News and Arts Weekly (Nov 27-Dec 3, 1991):
by Richard Lawrence Miller

[Secret #6]: THE PERCENTAGE OF CRACK BABIES BORN AT ANY GIVEN HOSPITAL IS APPROXIMATELY ZERO.

While continually heckling me at a public presentation, a medical man finally shouted in fury, “You’re saying all the crack babies coming into my emergency room since 1976 are my imagination!” I asked if he agreed that crack first appeared around 1986, and the medical man nodded. “Then,” I went on, “the first ten years you observed crack babies it was your imagination, because the substance didn’t exist.” The medical man looked embarrassed and shut up.

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1: quote -sweil<r>r

“Drug abuse is much more than the use of illegal and disapproved drugs by some members of society. It is the whole mentality that leads a society to make available to its citizens worse drugs rather than better ones.”

2: exit<r>r

>Put down your bong long enough to see if you remember that Kun Sa also
>wanted $15 BILLION! Now, who in there right mind would give the biggest
>drug lord in the world that much money, and take his word that he would
>stop selling heroin?

>: ]What choice does a crack baby have in the matter? 
>: What crack babies?
>That’s the same shit the KKK says about the holocaust. Are you that twisted?

>: ]Name one positive thing that can be said of addiction? 
>: Name one person who is addicted who wouldn’t be better off if drugs
>: were legal.
>Name one person who wouldn’t be better off if drugs weren’t addictive. 
>Rant and rave all you want. I’ve stated my views.

Send, abort, edit, or list? send<r>r

From: [a--a--r] at [jabba.cybernetics.net] (Mike Dunnagan)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: COPS: good, bad, ugly? 

Jerry Stratton ([j--r--y] at [acusd.edu]) wrote:
: >: ]What choice does a crack baby have in the matter? 
: >: What crack babies?  
: >That’s the same shit the KKK says about the holocaust. Are you that twisted?
: You know, I always suspected that Science News was a mouthpiece of the
: KKK. If you really want to learn the truth about ‘crack babies’, gopher
: or ftp to cerebus.acusd.edu, and do an index (’quote site f babies’ in
: ftp, just grab the index in gopher) on babies. There, you’ll find such
: right wing documents as the Boston Sunday Globe, Science News, and the
: Kansas City News and Arts Weekly.

I got the articles you mailed me. It’s amazing, but I didn’t see one 
single endorsement for doing crack or other drugs. Let me quote part of 
the article from the BSG.

 “This is not, he cautions, a green light for taking drugs during
   pregnancy.  Drugs remain a serious health problem, and cocaine
   specifically contributes to premature birth and small head size.”

HELLO! Does this tell you anything at all? If not, then I’m beginning to 
think you guys are too high to think straight. Do you really think this 
is acceptable?

: >Name one person who wouldn’t be better off if drugs weren’t addictive. 
: >Rant and rave all you want. I’ve stated my views.
: You’re trying to change the laws of nature, and you call *us* raving? What,
: pray tell, is your plan to make tobacco, opium, alcohol, and coffee
: non-addictive? And will you follow with making the Earth flat
: afterwards?

You’ve yet to answer my question above. 

End of article 13389 (of 13395)--what next? [npq]F

Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny] y

[a--a--r] at [jabba.cybernetics.net] (Mike Dunnagan) writes:
>Jerry Stratton ([j--r--y] at [acusd.edu]) wrote:
>>>>>What choice does a crack baby have in the matter?
>>>>What crack babies?
>>>That’s the same shit the KKK says about the holocaust. Are you that twisted?
>>You know, I always suspected that Science News was a mouthpiece of the KKK
>I got the articles you mailed me. It’s amazing, but I didn’t see one
>single endorsement for doing crack or other drugs. Let me quote part of
>the article from the BSG.

>  “This is not, he cautions, a green light for taking drugs during
>   pregnancy.	Drugs remain a serious health problem, and cocaine
>   specifically contributes to premature birth and small head size.”
>HELLO! Does this tell you anything at all? If not, then I’m beginning to
>think you guys are too high to think straight. Do you really think this
>is acceptable?

>>>Name one person who wouldn’t be better off if drugs weren’t addictive.
>>>Rant and rave all you want. I’ve stated my views.
>>You’re trying to change the laws of nature, and you call *us* raving? What,
>>pray tell, is your plan to make tobacco, opium, alcohol, and coffee
>>non-addictive? And will you follow with making the Earth flat
>>afterwards?
>>You’ve yet to answer my question above.

Send, abort, edit, or list? send<r>r

End of article 13389 (of 13395)--what next? [npq]

End of argument as well. Presumably, aviator didn’t have any answer to that last question. ^(*)

A few people are afraid of the responsibity of providing backup, and hide away on the net so that they don’t have to deal with it. On Usenet, for example, it is good netiquette to “redirect” discussions when the topic of the discussion is heading away from the topic that the newsgroup was designed for. A discussion on misc.writing had headed into the politics of gun control, and I dutifully set the follow-ups on my messages to talk.politics.guns. I was chastised by one member who wanted to follow the discussion, but didn’t want to visit talk.politics.guns because the people there “never listen to one another.” It’s hard to imagine them listening to each other less than if they left the newsgroup entirely, as this person did. It was laughable: she doesn’t read the newsgroup designed for the topic because the members don’t listen to each other. Instead, she took the discussion to a completely unrelated newsgroup so that she wouldn’t have to listen to them.

The Internet certainly encourages diversity.

Some people on the infobahn make their identities as trolls. They troll through discussion groups: come in; post inflammatory, sometimes even silly, statements or information; and leave before the flames break out. The most annoying trolls can even end up with their own newsgroup (such as alt.ted.frank.troll.troll.troll). The biggest problem with trolls is that no matter how ridiculous their post is, someone’s going to believe it. Recently, it seems that some trolls have even started believing their own posts. This kind of thing involves trolls going into, say, a cooking newsgroup and posting long articles about the evils of milk; or going into a politically-oriented newsgroup and posting multiple, long articles about the newsgroup’s topic. Despite seeming to believe in their trollings, they are still ‘trolls’, because they don’t actually reply to discussions about their long posts. Trolls can even annoy people on their own side, because their posts ‘waste bandwidth’. The original messages are long and take up a lot of space on computer hard drives, and as often as not a flame war breaks out between those who debate the trolling and those who actually support the trolling.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. On the Internet, nothing is so stupid that you can’t find somebody, somewhere, willing to believe it and support it.