Guidelines for Comments

[translated from original post (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/icu_sc/20061113)]

Here we set guidelines for comments clearly in order to have constructive discussions.
The following rules are applied to this blog and discussion space.

Do not post hostile comments:
Of course, we welcome your critical opinions, but we regard offensive comments as destructive arguments.

Do not repeat what we or other visitors have already said:
For more efficient discussion, check out the past posts and comments before you write a comment.

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Our blog is for discussion. Posts of commercial advertisements and spams are against our aim.

If a post is violate these rules, we might delete the post based on our authority in this blog.

"How to be a Great Host."

Gladding emphasizes the importance of active management to make an active community, and this idea actually seems necessary to be a host of community. If we set up a community, we usually let community go on and make little intervention in it due to the common idea that community is for “others” and so we should not control it. However, Gladding claims that no one would even join in a community without active management. In order to invite people, construct membership, make active discussions, and keep safety, we have to manage and control our community intensively.
Gladding’s idea seems useful especially for the security of community because community is often dominated by vicious people such as hackers, spammers, and so on. We should shut out such people by active means, for example, asking partners to present guidelines, or using up-to-date software to guard the community from hostile posting.

Framework for Developing My IE (revised)

1) Identify developing issues (Self analysis)

Education is certainly the most important problem in present Japanese society. Children make the next age and the new world. In order to construct better future, we have to reconsider our ways of education -- especially our educational system.
Japanese educational system seems to have many problems. School is no longer a comfortable space for children but sometimes a kind of prison.
There are many people (for example conservatism) who claim to reform Japanese educational system. Prime Minister Abe is maybe the most famous example. However, they often seem to disregard the voices of Children. They just insist that it is necessary to reconstruct education for nation -- not for children themselves.
What is most needed now is an educational system designed to help children grow freely.

2) Research and analysis issue (Credibility)

Undoubtedly, there are many problems in Japanese educational system, for example, bullying, entrance exam race, classroom disruption, declining academic abilities, and so on. Especially, as you can see, various mass media is now bringing up the issue of bullying because suicides due to bullying have happened continuously. Apparently, Japanese educational system produces those problems. Japanese children have already despaired of school. Many Japanese should feel the necessity of reforming educational system. Therefore, it must be valuable now to present a plan of the reformation.

3) Stake out a public position - your "sticky message" (Audience)

My sticky message is the following:

“The Japanese educational system should be reformed to be a more liberal institution in order to solve many educational problems in Japan. Especially it has to reflect students’ opinions much more, and thus, students should be enabled to choose what kind of school they go to, including free school, alternative school, and home schooling”

My main target group is adult people, not children, because only adults have power to reform the educational system in this society. Among adults, I send my sticky message especially to mature students, parents, teachers, and activists who have the same opinion as mine. Moreover, I will send the message to progressive bureaucrats and politicians because they can reform the educational system directly.

4) Build social network (Organizational base)

I will develop the organizational base of my IE especially through the Internet. I will try to find people who have the same opinion as me. Also I will look for existent groups which may help me to spread my message, such as student organizations.

5) IE homepage: Stake out a personal public presence (Design)

I will set up a weblog and set it as the base of my IE homepage because weblog is easy to use and almighty. Everyone can see it and post comments. I will ask other people to link their websites to my blog. I will also make links to useful websites in my blog. SNS will be connected to my blog as well.

Framework for Developing My IE (to be revised soon)

Framework for Developing My IE (to be revised soon...

By Kota

1) Identify developing issues (Self analysis)

Education is certainly the most important problem in present Japanese society. Children make the next age and the new world. In order to construct better future, we have to reconsider our ways of education -- especially our educational system.
Japanese educational system seems to have many problems. School is no longer a comfotable space for children but sometimes a kind of prison.
There are many people (for example conservatism) who claim to reform Japanese educational system. Prime minister Abe is maybe the most famous example. However, they often seem to disregard the voices of Children. They just insist that it is necessary to reconstruct education for nation -- not for children themselves.
What is most needed now is a educational system desigined to help children grow freely.

2) Research and analysis issue (Credibility)

3) Stake out a public position - your "sticky message" (Audience)

4) Build social network (Organisational base)

5) IE homepage: Stake out a personal public presence (Design)

My IE (Ver. 2) and The Map of IE

My Issue Entrepreneurship (Ver. 2)

Your message.
1. What is your sticky message? (Barabasi 3) What is the idea you wish to promote or issue/problem you want to try to 'solve'?

The Japanese educational system should be reformed to be a more liberal institituion in order to solve many educational problems in Japan. Especially it has to reflect students’ opinions much more, and thus, students should be enabled to choose what kind of school they go to, including free school, alternative school, and home schooling.


Knowledge of social network.
2. Who is your strategic social group? Can you identify and define the organisational base you will need to develop and/or tap into?

Students.
Parents.
Teachers.
Of course, shcool.


Strategy for network building.
3. How will work to create your organisational base? How will you spread and encourage others to take up your message?

I will make a blog and write my opinion on it. Then, I will register the blog in many search engines so that many people can find it. Also I will ask people to link their Web sites to my blog.

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The Map of My IE (subject to change)

Questions: Agre, p. 210 & pp. 210-214.

1. What is the central problem for citizens in democracies?

The central problem is how each citizen can take part in politics and deal with political problems.

2. What skills do citizens need?

They need skills to deal with problems actively. In other words, they need skills to detect significant political issues, prepare efficiently, and organize social networks in order to solve the problems.

3. What term does the author use to describe the process citizens use to promote their concerns about an issue?

"Issue lattice."

4. What steps are the four steps in this process?

1) The Vertical Dimension

2) The Geographic Dimension

3) The Institutional Dimension

4) The Ideological Dimension

p. 212-214
Write two of your own questions on the ideas and issues raised in this section. Lead a class discussion next session.

5. How does the recent development of Internet technologies (e.g., blog, wiki) contribute to the process of democracy presented in the text?

6. Is social networking always useful for democracy as the author says? It sometimes gives dangers to democracy. For example, undemocratic terrorists and reactionaries often make use of social networks.

7. Based on the ideas and issues raised on these pages, what additions, deletions, or modifications suggest themselves to you in planning and implementing your Issue Entrepreneurship? Tell about your ideas.

Before reading the text, I was ignorant about the contribution of Issue Entrepreneurship to democracy. Now I will begin my Issue Entrepreneurship regarding it as an important democratic procedure.
Also I would like to investigate the value of social computing as a tool of IE.

Summary: Kahn and Kellner pp.183-185, pp.190-198.

While criticizing unreal optimism, Kahn and Kellner insists that the Internet and new informational technologies have the potential to construct an alternative form of democracy, and thus the Internet has to be reconsidered from this political viewpoint. As we can see from the example of Iraq war, launched by the president Bush, the world has been involved in many conflicts and the tide of globalization. Kahn and Kellner admit that the Internet is actually utilized by such people as reactionaries, capitalists, and terrorists. However they strongly claim that many people have promoted democracy via the Internet as well. Also they regard the recent technological revolution in the Internet like blog and wiki as an important factor for the development of democracy.

Questions (Barabasi: The Sixth Link pp. 25-35)

Barabasi: The Sixth Link pp. 25-35

1. What is the principle of six degrees of separation? What number of social links does any one person need to be connected to global society? p. 30

"Six degrees of separation" means that a person is separated from a randomly selected person by six acquaintances on average, and it implies we all live in dense networks of people. In order to connect global society, we just need more than one social link.

2. How is the fabric of society today different from pre-internet society? p. 31

The fabric of society today is more densely stitched than that of pre-internet society because informational nodes are far more multiply connected due to the Internet.

3. How many more links separate any pair of web pages compared to people in society? What can explain the difference? p. 34

Any pair of web pages is separated by about nineteen links and people are separated by six social links. Separation of web pages needs thirteen links more than that of people.

4. So far, what ranges of separation have network scientists discovered in different kinds of networks? p. 34

Species in food webs (2 links)

Molecules in the cell (3 links)

Scientists in different fields of science (4 to 6 links)

The neurons in the brain of the C. elegans worm (14 links)

5. What does research suggest about the fundamentals of networks? p.34-35

If the number of links increases, each node is less separated from other nodes. Thus, the average separation of nodes in a network is not so long.

6. What is your estimate of your personal number of connections to society? What connections are your strongest?

My personal number of connection is maybe 60 or so. I have my strongest connections in ICU.

My Issue Entrepreneurship

Your message.
1. What is your sticky message? (Barabasi 3) What is the idea you wish to promote or issue/problem you want to try to 'solve'?

The Japanese educational system.
It should be reformed and be more liberal in order to many educational problems in Japan.


Knowledge of social network.
2. Who is your strategic social group? Can you identify and define the organisational base you will need to develop and/or tap into?

Children.
Parents.
Teachers.
Of course, shcool.


Strategy for network building.
3. How will work to create your organisational base? How will you spread and encourage others to take up your message?

I will make a blog and write my opinion on it. Then I will ask many people to link their Web sites to my blog.

Barabasi, A.L., Linked (2003) The Third Link: Six Degrees of Separation, pp. 25-35

Summary
Barabasi claims that the unbelievably small number of links can connect two randomly selected nodes in a network. According to him, so-called “six degrees of separation” is a good example. It originates from an experiment performed by a Harvard professor, Staley Milgram. The result of experiment told us that two randomly selected person are separated by only 5.5 persons on average in United States. Barabasi and other people also conducted an experiment, and estimated that the number of links necessary to connect two documents in Web is 18.59 on average. Barabasi insists the average degrees of separation in a network can be calculated with mathematical method.

Reaction
Although Barabasi’s opinion is interesting, he seemed to ignore the influence on human interrelationship by technology. Contrary to the age Milgram live in, now we have a number of Web technologies which connect us very easily and quickly. For example, SNS is close to “social search engine” (p.32), which Barabasi regards impossible. Of course SNS is an example and is still undeveloped, but Barabasi should take into consideration the influence of such technologies.

Reply to Kenta's Summary and Reaction

Thank you for making a comment on my summary and reaction, Kenta.
I hope the following comment will be helpful for you as well.

Summary
Very well summarized. Especially, the comparison of the two persons (i.e. Paul and MafiaBoy) is successful. In addition to the common thing they have, you depict the difference of them clearly.

Reaction
Your reaction is good because both agreement and objection are presented. As well as the accurate understanding Barabasi's insistence, you criticize the important problem of that. In fact, Barabasi does not mention what makes Paul and MafiaBoy different even if the question is important for thinking about the utilization of networks. If possible, I would like to hear your opinion about the cause of the difference as well.

Linked (2003) The First Link: Introduction, pp. 1-8

Summary
Barabasi insists that we live in complex interrelations made up of various factors, and through the networks we can have deep impacts on the world. Barabasi uses the examples of two persons in order to explain that. One of them is a fifteen-year-old boy called Mafiaboy, who hacked many computers through the Internet and attacked famous web sites such as Yahoo. Another one is Paul, who amazingly made Christianity begin to be the dominant religion in the Western world. Barabasi argues that both of them similarly use the power of social or computer networks, and as a result, they succeeded. Based on reductionism, science has developed while ignoring the importance of network, or interactions of things. However, he says, recent researchers are starting to look at the hidden power of networks so that they can see the world as a whole. The science of networks has just begun to develop. Barabasi strongly recommends us to study and know more about networks.

Reaction
Barabasi seemes to unconsciously assume that people in the whole world do not realize the importance of network, but his perception is nearsighted because such people are actually limited to modern Western people, and before the modernization of the world, relationism was not hidden, but very popular. The idea of engi (pratityasamutpada) in Buddhism is a good example. Engi means that everything is caused from, and causes everything, as the idea Barabasi presents in the text. Such a kind of thought, or relationism, was not given only by Buddhists. Taking look at the world history, one can easily find many examples of that. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that relationism is a very familiar idea for human-being, especially for premodern people. The significant problem is that reductionism actually has been dominant in the world from the beginning of modernization, and it still continues to spread. Obviously, Reductionism has strong power. It is not too much to say that without reductionism there cannot be great technologies in the world as we see now. Although Barabasi does not realize, it is important to ask why reductionism has beaten relationism, and how relationism can revive without abandoning the fruits of reductionism.

My Technobiography

When I met a personal computer for the first time, I was seven years old or so. Since then, I have done various things including games, music, shopping and so on, with PC .

I learned HTML and made some web sites. I made blogs as well.
Recently I have created a wiki site for a workshop.
I am now interested in SNS like mixi.