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Re: WWW Conferencing - Forum One Report
Paul Jones wrote:
>
> Following up on our brief discussion of online communities and online
> fora, here is a report by a net-study group on online communities and
> conferencing environments. Give it a read and let us all know what you
> think. Notice especially their prediction that the only moderated fora
> will be for-pay ones, not free or ad-based ones. are they right?
>
<snipped for brevity>
I don't think free moderated forums will disappear any time in the
near future. I'm currently writing a paper for my JOMC 154 class {
http://www.unc.edu/courses/jomc154/ } on proposed ethical codes for
cyberjournalists. One problem with Web ethics is the line separating
objective content with advertising. Often, sites will present
themselves as having performed an objective analysis between two
products where as in reality the site is sponsored by one of the
products. This fact is obscured to the surfer. I think free moderated
forums may develop along these lines but the surfer may or may not be
made aware that they're participating in a cyberinfomercial. It will
depend on the ethical considerations of the moderator or sponsor. For a
good article on this subject check out
http://www.hotwired.com/synapse/hotseat/97/33/index2a.html . It's a
Real Audio interview so you don't have to read the transcript with all
the links.
Staying on topic: On Sept. 4 there will be an interactive forum on
advanced technologies at
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/forums/telephony/itelhome.htm . It's sponsored
by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (the
Information Superhighway guys!) and will feature Real Audio and have a
still JPG image updated every 5 seconds. See the site for more details.
--Bill Bean--
References: