Obama announced that he wants to heavily incorporate the internet in his work as the US president. He plans on publishing new draft laws on the internet for at least one day, so that everyone can comment and rate them. He also will start his own blog and write about everything there, his life, his plans, his dreams, etc. etc. etc.
Now I think he not only pretended to be a reformer, but in fact really is one. Maybe he sets a course for the good old days, where the USA still was the nation of hopes and dreams.

quote:

so that everyone can comment

Imagine the number of trolls on a US president's blog.
Every single web-enabled nutjob in the world would be there.

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:

quote:

so that everyone can comment

Imagine the number of trolls on a US president's blog.
Every single web-enabled nutjob in the world would be there.

What are we waiting for? Let's go!

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:

quote:

so that everyone can comment

Imagine the number of trolls on a US president's blog.
Every single web-enabled nutjob in the world would be there.

Even trolling is a form of democracy.

quote:

Originally posted by Biochips:

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:

quote:

so that everyone can comment

Imagine the number of trolls on a US president's blog.
Every single web-enabled nutjob in the world would be there.

Even trolling is a form of democracy.

Well spoken, sir. One aspect of democracy is the forming of groups who decide in contests of strength-by-number, who is the troll and who is the gruff goat.

Until I came to this forum, I would not even conceive of calling someone a troll, especially a 'mere/just a' troll. The term, troll, is almost never applied (in my exposure to it's usage) but instead used as a one-size-fits-whomever term for 'I/we don't like you'.

Not liking someone is natural and sometimes wise, but using it as an excuse to apply stupid labels that long ago lost their meaning through the wear and tear of vernacular usage, is the sort of stupido mobocracy for which most democracies favor republican methods than directly democratic modes.

Or, put another way, democracy promotes group trollery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/politics/16blackbe...rnet+security&st=nyt


November 16, 2008
Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe
By JEFF ZELENY
WASHINGTON — Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.

A year ago, when many Democratic contributors and other observers were worried about his prospects against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, they reached out to him directly. Mr. Obama had changed his cellphone number, so e-mail remained the most reliable way of communicating directly with him.

“His BlackBerry was constantly crackling with e-mails,” said David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist. “People were generous with their advice — much of it conflicting.”

Mr. Obama is the second president to grapple with the idea of this self-imposed isolation. Three days before his first inauguration, George W. Bush sent a message to 42 friends and relatives that explained his predicament.

“Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace,” Mr. Bush wrote from his old address, G94B@aol.com. “This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you.”

But in the interceding eight years, as BlackBerrys have become ubiquitous — and often less intrusive than a telephone, the volume of e-mail has multiplied and the role of technology has matured. Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.

Mr. Obama’s memorandums and briefing books were seldom printed out and delivered to his house or hotel room, aides said. They were simply sent to his BlackBerry for his review. If a document was too long, he would read and respond from his laptop computer, often putting his editing changes in red type.

His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons. The time stamps provided a window into how much he was sleeping on a given night, with messages often being sent to staff members at 1 a.m. or as late as 3 a.m. if he was working on an important speech.

He received a scaled-down list of news clippings, with his advisers wanting to keep him from reading blogs and news updates all day long, yet aides said he still seemed to hear about nearly everything in real time. A network of friends — some from college, others from Chicago and various chapters in his life — promised to keep him plugged in.

Not having such a ready line to that network, staff members who spent countless hours with him say, is likely to be a challenge.

“Given how important it is for him to get unfiltered information from as many sources as possible, I can imagine he will miss that freedom,” said Linda Douglass, a senior adviser who traveled with the campaign.

Mr. Obama has, for at least brief moments, been forced offline. As he sat down with a small circle of advisers to prepare for debates with Senator John McCain, one rule was quickly established: No BlackBerrys. Mr. Axelrod ordered everyone to put their devices in the center of a table during work sessions. Mr. Obama, who was known to sneak a peek at his, was no exception.

In the closing stages of the campaign, as exhaustion set in and the workload increased, aides said Mr. Obama spent more time reading than responding to messages. As his team prepares a final judgment on whether he can keep using e-mail, perhaps even in a read-only fashion, several authorities in presidential communication said they believed it was highly unlikely that he would be able to do so.

Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University, said presidents were not advised to use e-mail because of security risks and fear that messages could be intercepted.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

She added: “It’s a time burner. It might be easier for him to say, ‘I can’t be on e-mail.’ ”

Should Mr. Obama want to break ground and become the first president to fire off e-mail messages from the West Wing and wherever he travels, he could turn to Al Gore as a model. In the later years of his vice presidency, Democrats said, Mr. Gore used a government e-mail address and a campaign address in his race against Mr. Bush.

The president, though, faces far greater public scrutiny. And even if he does not wear a BlackBerry on his belt or carry a cellphone in his pocket, he almost certainly will not lack from a variety of new communication.

On Saturday, as Mr. Obama broadcast the weekly Democratic radio address, it came with a twist. For the first time, it was also videotaped and will be archived on YouTube.

Jan 30

Here it is, my first post.

I'm really excited to be starting this blog. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the different issues facing us in this great country. Looking for your feedback on a few draft laws soon.

~B

Feb 2

Great to read all your comments - even those that don't agree with me. I'm your President too.

~B

Feb 10

Sorry, I know I haven't posted in over a week. Between the Presidency, juggling the economy, and trying to spend time with my girls I haven't had much time. I think my schedule is freeing up a little over the next month, so hopefully I can post regularly.

~B

March 3

I'll be posting when I can, but I can't promise regular updates. Apologies to my regular readers and thanks for your positive comments.

~B

Could we offer him a Safe Haven here?

We do have the Ignore function? And Boogerhead?

ARRRGH

Monkeytime, Fair Use (and the eyeballs of the community) would appreciate if you excerpted a paragraph or so rather than copy entire articles of text from copyrighted sources.

quote:

Until I came to this forum, I would not even conceive of calling someone a troll, especially a 'mere/just a' troll. The term, troll, is almost never applied (in my exposure to it's usage) but instead used as a one-size-fits-whomever term for 'I/we don't like you'.

Not liking someone is natural and sometimes wise, but using it as an excuse to apply stupid labels that long ago lost their meaning through the wear and tear of vernacular usage, is the sort of stupido mobocracy for which most democracies favor republican methods than directly democratic modes.

Nup. The term has a quite clear and simple meaning, which is not what you say here. It means someone who posts something inflammatory with the specific intention of causing a fight, rather than participating in a discussion in good faith. The term is sometimes misapplied, and may have been to you here sometimes, but it does mean something, and it's not just about like/dislike. I'm not even enough of a postmodernist to suggest that the diagnosis of troll behaviour is entirely subjective...

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:

quote:

Until I came to this forum, I would not even conceive of calling someone a troll, especially a 'mere/just a' troll. The term, troll, is almost never applied (in my exposure to it's usage) but instead used as a one-size-fits-whomever term for 'I/we don't like you'.

Not liking someone is natural and sometimes wise, but using it as an excuse to apply stupid labels that long ago lost their meaning through the wear and tear of vernacular usage, is the sort of stupido mobocracy for which most democracies favor republican methods than directly democratic modes.

Nup. The term has a quite clear and simple meaning, which is not what you say here. It means someone who posts something inflammatory with the specific intention of causing a fight, rather than participating in a discussion in good faith. The term is sometimes misapplied, and may have been to you here sometimes, but it does mean something, and it's not just about like/dislike. I'm not even enough of a postmodernist to suggest that the diagnosis of troll behaviour is entirely subjective...

My point, Bravus, is that I rarely see it applied with the accuracy you describe. Mostly, I see it used as a way to dismiss persons whose communications do not fit the preferences of others. Which is why I very carefully stated 'The term, troll, is almost never applied (in my exposure to it's usage)' (emphases added).

Apparently, I was so busy being careful to state my subjective experience I forgot to comlete the premise of my sentence, which *should* read:

"The term, troll, is almost never applied (in my exposure to it's usage) with objective accuracy but instead used as a one-size-fits-whomever term for 'I/we don't like you'."

Fair enough.

Have to admit, the idea of a Crackberry-hooked Pres is much more attractive to me than the idea of a Luddite one (McCain).

quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
Fair enough.

Have to admit, the idea of a Crackberry-hooked Pres is much more attractive to me than the idea of a Luddite one (McCain).

The troll thing, to me, is an example of canard meets projection.

There is something about me that is off-putting, and it's not just my postal verbosity. That I accept. But when I see the term troll bandied about as I have in the past, whether applied to me or others, it has struck me as off-putting also.

I was very pleased to see how this board handled biochips' recent entry. He obviously approached the board in an unfortunate manner, but he was treated as an individual with problems to consider (or ignore), not as a species (i.e., 'just another troll').

In fact, I think I was so pleased I let myself use the T-word.

Re: Obama, one thing I ponder is, well, just how much he ponders the many differences he poses as a president and that this period in history poses to him.

It really looks like a new ballgame all around, with high stakes and odds stacked against him (and us). If this decade has so far been a make it or, nah, let's just break it eight years, Obama's first term looks more like do or die than any presidency I've lived through.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kenmeer livermaile,

My point was simply that the term 'troll' does have some utility - and my main quest in life at the moment is protecting babies from sharing bathwater's fate (hey, it's Womack Month!) Our current culture seems to have too much of a propensity to say "A screwdriver was used to lever the lid off a paint can! Oh noes, no screwdriver can ever be used to tighten a screw again!!"

To be clearer, the cure to misuse of 'troll' is not abandonment but correct use.

I agree. 'Troll' also has the virtue of being poetic, which is as good as it gets for me.

I think it is a term that should be applied prudently and, at first, in a questioning and explanatory fashion.

It is too often used as a mere poo-poo word to discourage posters who are disliked by some. In the process, those using the term become trollish.

The terrific freedom of expression the internet encourages is a tricky thing.

A screwdriver used to open a can of paint becomes, however briefly, a can opener, but remains a screwdriver so long as we are surrounded (and we are) by screws that need driving.

A word, however, especially a relative neologism brought about largely by vernacular exchange, becomes whatever it is used as more often than not. Consider that we are not surrounded by trolls but merely by each other.

Nay, I would not bury troll-term, I would honor it.

quote:

Originally posted by Biochips:
Obama announced that he wants to heavily incorporate the internet in his work as the US president. He plans on publishing new draft laws on the internet for at least one day, so that everyone can comment and rate them. He also will start his own blog and write about everything there, his life, his plans, his dreams, etc. etc. etc.
Now I think he not only pretended to be a reformer, but in fact really is one. Maybe he sets a course for the good old days, where the USA still was the nation of hopes and dreams.

wait, he's going to blog his dreams? That's too much, too touchable, too pedestrian. I am all for his transparency and sharing ideas but dreams and thoughts and inner workings of hi head... too MySpace, to Gotgirl666. I doubt he'll be doing that.

quote:

Originally posted by theminx:
ARRRGH

Monkeytime, Fair Use (and the eyeballs of the community) would appreciate if you excerpted a paragraph or so rather than copy entire articles of text from copyrighted sources.

Authors like to have their work read by a lot of people.

People on internets.

{Looks away innocently...}

quote:

wait, he's going to blog his dreams?

It worked for MLK, at least in the spoken word.

Yeah, but you take the fun out of it when you get all semantically accurate.