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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Bullying, Challenging, and Appeasing: The Patterns of B-Hebrew

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  • From: "John M. Linebarger" <jmlineb AT comcast.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Bullying, Challenging, and Appeasing: The Patterns of B-Hebrew
  • Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:57:44 +0000 (UTC)

I'm a B-Hebrew lurker who occasionally posts questions, and has also
commented about the Jim Stinehart phenomenon. However, by trade I am a
Computer Scientist. My dissertation work was on computational support for
group collaboration patterns in a distributed virtual environment for product
design.

So I'm both professionally and personally fascinated by the patterns (ruts,
really) that the B-Hebrew mailing list has fallen into over the last several
months (what I call the "Jim Stinehart" era). In fact, I am considering
using B-Hebrew as a case study in disfunctional Web-based collaboration and
submitting the results to a conference or journal.

Here are my observations:

1. Three patterns characterize recent B-Hebrew postings: Bullying (Jim),
Challenging (Karl, et al.), and Appeasing (the moderators, although George
has adopted more of a Challenging pattern of late).
2. The net effect of the Bullying, Challenging, and Appeasing is that those
patterns have drowned out the Question/Response, Requests for Assistance, and
Responsible Hypothesis Floating patterns that used to characterize the list..
Statistically, they simply dominate all other traffic.
3. Not only do these new patterns dominate all other traffic, my hypothesis
is that it squelches and discourages other traffic because questions get lost
in the crossfire. I know that I have submitted questions from time to time
recently that were never answered, simply because all attention was focused
on Jim.

In short, it is hard not to conclude that the B-Hebrew is currently
disfunctional with respect to its original goals. Sad, but absolutely
fascinating. It will make a great case study. Thanks!

John M. Linebarger, PhD (Computer Science)
Sandia National Laboratories
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA




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