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Internet Culture
    Keywords: Culture & History

I've seen some resurgence of issues I've seen before, namely content in CommunicatingWithIdioticAbbreviations, and it might do to link this to etiquette and heavens knows where as well.

It is sometimes hard to imagine that there was ever a time when the Internet wasn't everywhere in society, having at least passing contact across all levels and constant interaction within some, for many people who will read this. The net is still new, however. Let me tell what I know or think I know about internet culture, as is relevant for go players, and others can correct and/or add to it later. This may be useful for people interacting in such a frequent way for the first time with other people on the internet on go servers. I'll leave out the technical stuff, timelines as far as they're irrelevant, and just try to outline an exciting time and place as I knew it without worrying about anything beyond communicating a feeling there once was (and still is for some).

The internet began. That's enough.;) At the point a culture began to take on a life of its own, however, there was usenet ( a bulletin board system), email, telnet, and gopher (a predecessor of the www) in common useage. Chat was possible in real time, even, and of course real-time gaming MUD, MOO, MUSH all that sort of thing, started bringing folks together FAST from different places on the earth for the purpose of sharing information and research, developing common ground and a common culture, and slaying dragons and evil monsters in text based role-play games. Dial-up BBS was still kicking around and quite healthy as well. WWW was kicking around and developing, but you needed pretty state-of-the-art stuff to see what all the fuss was about with it. But it was electrifying.

The Internet started to be seen as a place even by people grounded irl (in real life). "Cyberspace" was coined, but made most seasoned netizens wince. And there it is...netizen. Yes, people on the internet were considered netizens, and netizenship was an important component of the online experience. The world online was divided into newbies (no, not noobs, that came much later, we just said "newbie", pretty much), and netizens. The net was a different country, a new international culture, and it had rules. Salutations in letters? Nah, silliness. Too many rules in different societies to worry about. "emoticons", were born, though not really called that for years yet (smiley), and the citizenry was pretty posh. Well educated, of a scientific bent. Not very literary as a rule, those first community builders.

Short forms became common, a different language for a different country, with inflections described by happy and sad sideways faces. Content and intent were everything...prettiness was for rl (real life). Meeting someone online, asking them where they were from was a faux pas. If they wanted you to know, you'd tell them. (a/s/l was later, and probably came with the advent of IRC, when people started to incorporate online persona with rl, maybe never even having heard of the "netizen" ideal, as few these days seem to have).

These founders who once valued arriving at full netizenship, who dreamed of a universal society springing from the electronic seeds of the net, the very people who coined gg, lol, ty (thx came later, maybe from IRC or when the BBS users migrated whilst rolling on the floor laughing. gg came relatively late too, actually) maybe the very people who used the very first smileys at each other, still wander the internet, maybe playing go.

Go has its culture. So does the internet, where the first rule is and was from the beginning, assume the best of all you meet, (but draw a line between net and IRL, which some folks could use a refresher on these days).

What's all this mean to you? Assume someone is trying to communicate in a friendly manner until such time that they tell you they aren't. Be slow to take offense at everything, let alone use of the old-style net culture shorthands. When someone says gg, they probably mean it. Feel free to use it or not as you wish, but don't assume anything about anyone because you object to their use of what is meant to be an international standard in which other cultures or even languages can cross into meaningful congress with english language speakers. These gg'ers, lol'ers, and imho'ers either picked it up online and thought it cute, or they consider it a must-use short-hand as a proper netizen. Yes, some people still do. They might even have been the first to tap g twice to communicate a fine end to an enjoyable game, who knows. The common ground between go and net culture is respect and tolerance, and perhaps meaning over form. -TJ


Neil: I'm skeptical of anonymous socialization. I'm not going to pay attention to someone who's trying to build up an online pseudonym which may or may not have any connection with a real person.

I also feel it inappropriate to say that there is a distinction between internet interactions and "real" interactions. One should treat those around him with the same respect.

It seems to me that these two even go hand in hand. This concept of disposable personas devoid of substance removes all dignity from an interaction, giving you the kind of nonsense one so often sees on IRC and Usenet.

The original Wiki asked for RealNames?, and think Sensei's Library should, too.


mgoetze: Well, I think you are presenting a somewhat limited view of things. The wish for anonymous netizenship seems to me to have originated more from the world of BBSes and online services such as Compuserve than from the actual roots of the internet community. In [ext] hacker culture, quite some value is placed on using your real name, though this may have been emphasized more later, to distinguish them from crackers and script kiddies. Usenet was originally based on UUCP, which gave a very clear indication of which (real-life) site the post came from. What you describe is a subculture of the internet, but here we are involved in a very different subculture: that of go players. And by all that I know of go culture (not much, admittedly), "gg" and "thx" seems quite insincere, bordering on rude.

See: [ext] Hacker Slang and Hacker Culture

TJ: A little focused on one thing, anonymity...the wish wasn't for "anonymous netizenship", it was for netizenship, a small part of which was manners enough not to ask anyone for the identity behind a handle upon first meeting someone. Good netizens were recognizable by their attitude of acceptance and by not prying into information, whatever it be, that was not given freely. Of course, if you needed to know, you could find out who pretty much anyone was behind their backs. As for sub-culture on the internet, there was nothing considered a sub-culture, beyond people in general up to no good, the internet being a sub-culture in and of itself. The point I was trying to make, however, is that the internet has its own history, of which I'm trying to give a small taste, and if you play go on the internet, you're going to come across people who consider themselves old-style netizens who play go, as well as people who play go on the internet from all over the world, and you should, old-school netizen style, accept intent and content over form, and always assume that intent and content is positive irregardless of form, unless you've confirmed that the intent and content is hostile.


TJ: I appologize, really. This page is really either totally irrelevant, or I could have at least stated my opinion without reference to any specific culture and adapted the ideals contained for today without all the "in my day, young fella" claptrap. If the other contributors wouldn't mind, I'd rather ask that the page be deleted. For a page on net history, if one deserves to be on a go wiki, even, there are better qualified than I to do it anyways.:)



This is a copy of the living page "Internet Culture" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.