The Word "Okay"

According to yourDictionary.com, “ok” is the most popular word on the planet. Its origin:

“OK” originated in a joke in the 1830’s, spelled “oll korrekt” in Boston newspapers, the joke being, both words were incorrect. It became so popular, that it was soon abbreviated to simply “O. K.” Despite its popularity, the word would have fallen by the wayside had not Martin van Buren, called “Old Kinderhook” for being born in Kinderhook, N.Y. used it in his presidential reelection campaign of 1840.

The more you know!

Spam Laws: CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

The President signed into law today the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003,” oh-so-cleverly known as CAN-SPAM. It goes into effect January 1, 2004. I’ll be interested to see how it works out.

Nerdcore Chic

I’ve said it before, but today’s Guardian article, “We are all nerds now” makes the point anew: nerds are the new jocks. Skinny with retro sweater is the new polo and khakis. Spider-Man earned $400 million in the theaters and at least that much in DVD/video sales. The Return of the King will easily take the Lord of the Rings franchise above the $2 billion mark. Last year, video games sales overtook box office numbers. Adult Swim regularly wins its weekday timeslot. Seth Cohen is a sex symbol. I think the evidence is clear that nerd culture has taken over the main stream.

Of course, fat, zitty nerds are still fat and zitty, and grade school bullies can always find other labels and excuses to beat kids up. But I love the fact that, while nerd jokes are still easy to come by, I can have discussions about Hobbits or Matrix philosophy with normal-ass people.

Iraq Deserves Capitalism

The disgust I harbor for what this country is allowing itself to become grows daily. We detain our own citizens without stated cause and deny them access to counsel (“the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial […] be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation […] have the assistance of counsel for his defense” Amendment VI). We invade, unprovoked, a sovereign nation (“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war” (John F. Kennedy). Somehow either the majority of the American public just missed these facts, or no one’s explained it to them properly.

Today’s Washington Post article about our refusal to allow Iraq reconstruction contracts to non-coalition entities contains a quote by Canadian prime minister-to-be Paul Martin. He says, “I understand the importance of these kinds of contracts, but this shouldn’t be just about who gets contracts, who gets business. It ought to be about what is the best thing for the people of Iraq.” Brilliant. Remember all that Bush rhetoric about how the entire war should be for the good of the Iraqi people? Someone explain to me how restricting free trade, thereby denying a chance that the best contractors to do the job might have a shot, can be in Iraq’s best interest? I understand that we’re bitter that no one wanted to go to war with us, but now Iraq deserves the best reconstruction possible that leaves the jobs in its economy when everything is all done.

Rest in Peace, Ernestine

Ernestine, the universally-beloved cafeteria worker at William & Mary, passed away Sunday. Below is a letter from Amy Barnes of the Office of Student Affairs, followed by a transcript of her final message “to all her babies.”

December 9, 2003

Dear Friends of Ernestine,

Because you have loved Ernestine as I have, I knew that you would want to know that she passed away peacefully yesterday afternoon in the company of her children and close family members. She was at the Hospice Care of Williamsburg where I can assure you she received the best possible care during these last few weeks of her life. The goal was to keep her comfortable and as pain free as possible, and she had the opportunity to spend quality time with family which was her wish.

A memorial service and celebration of Ernestine’s life will be held on Sunday, December 14, 2003 at 1:00 p.m. at the University Center, Chesapeake Room. A reception will follow. Her family has extended the invitation to all alumni and students who wish to attend. I will send along any additional information in a follow up email including an address to send contributions to in lieu of flowers.

Also, an article will be published this Thursday in the William and Mary News that will include a letter that Ernestine asked me to share with alumni after her death. I have included the rough draft as an attachment, but I encourage you to also connect to the William and Mary News through the College’s web page on Thursday. It is a beautiful letter and it was very important to her that she be able to communicate her gratitude and love to all of the students who reached out to her during her illness. I hope you will find it as moving as I did. Even in the moment when we were appreciating her, she wanted to reflect back the same love and affection.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me by email or by calling 757-221-2203. And please forward this message on to as many alumni as possible.

In loving memory of Ernestine,

Amy Barnes
Graduate Assistant Office of Student Affairs The College of William and Mary

Amy’s introduction to Ernestine’s message:

Over the last several months, I had the wonderful opportunity to stay and visit with Ernestine about once every week. Every time I visited with her she would ask for me to get her mail (which usually included 5-10 letters and cards from former students) and to read each one to her, sometimes more than once. She loved the letters and especially the photos that were often included. Other friends and family would stop by and she would ask them to read the cards out loud again. I could see how much joy those letters brought to her in the last few months of her life.

During an afternoon visit with Ernestine in October, she asked me if there was some way that she could write a letter to all the students who had been sending her cards, letters, flowers, and prayers to express her gratitude. She was too weak to write on her own so I promised to show up with a tape recorder during my next visit so she could send her love and appreciation to all her boos. She asked me to hold onto it until she passed away and then to find a way to send it to as many former students as possible. During the recording she taking pain medication and so it is a bit repetitive, but I decided not to edit it much at all. I certainly wouldn’t want to alter her words – words that I know came from her heart.

To all my babies,

Many of you already knew that I am very sick and that I have terminal cancer. I wish that I had more time than I do to talk to each and every one of you in person. But instead we will have to opt for this recording and this letter. I don’t know how much longer that I might have, but in the short period that I do have left, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank each and every one of you who took the time to write cards, or to say a prayer, or just to remember me and the years that we had the opportunity to spend together. There were a lot of touching letters and cards – some which were very comical and then there were some that really touched me to no end. I have thoroughly enjoyed the cards I have gotten. It made me know, if I didn’t know before, how much I am loved. And I can honestly say that I didn’t know the degree or the depth of how much I was loved and cared for until the last month or two because of the cards and the letters. I appreciate it so much.

For most of you, it seemed that you thought I had forgotten you. Even though I am fading fast, my memory is still pretty good. Even though there are lot of things that I have forgotten over the years, not many students have escaped me. And that is because of the memory and impression that you all made on me. You seem to think that the time spent at William and Mary was more beneficial to you, but actually, it was more of a benefit to me. Just being in your presence helped me to realize that I was a well-loved person. You helped me to be a better person, you helped me to be a better mother, and even though I am divorced now, you even helped me to be a better wife. And I want to thank you for that. I wish that there was more time – I really do – so that I could express more about all of the good times that we had together. There were happy times, and there were sad times. But we knew that the happy times would always outweigh the sad. We were able to talk about things – family problems, boyfriends, love affairs – not too much now – we didn’t tell every thing (laugh), you know, secrets – who likes who and what I thought of this guy or this girl. And I do hope that in that time period I was able to give all of you constructive feedback. I appreciated that you took my advice on some of the things and that you actually listened to me. I know that if I didn’t feel that you were listening, then I wouldn’t have had such self-worth. And that is what you made me feel. You made me feel that I was worth something and that I was somebody. You made me feel that the things that I said and the things that I did – that they made a mark on you – that it made some difference in the way that you responded to your parents, to your friends, the way you responded to your teachers here at school, or anyone that you cared a lot about. And that anything worth having was worth working hard for. And for those things I was grateful because it made me feel that hey – I made a difference. And because I made a difference in your life, then just perhaps I could make the same kind of wonderful difference in my own family’s life – with my children, my parents, my other relatives. And so I am truly grateful.

I am trying to recollect some of the letters that I have received over the last two months or so and the visits that we have shared – and the impression that you have made on me. What I think is so wonderful is that you loved me so much that you wanted to include me in your families. Not just with mom and dad and what might be going on at home. Or with the different struggles that might be going on between someone being ill in your family. But other things like – now that you are parents. I remember the first time that I saw the first class come back, the kids were older, some of the guys were bald (laugh) and they brought their children and they would say, “Oh Ernestine, look! This is my oldest” or “This is my daughter” or “Here is little Connor” or even just to tell me stories about their kids. Or to tell me about their struggles—those not things that are just shared with anybody except sometimes just with a few close friends or family. Also, just seeing the achievements that you’ll have made has really impressed me. If you did nothing at all except just work hard each day in order to do something that would make your life happier or the world a better place to be, each day would have been a tremendous mark – you would have made a mark. There are so many things going on in the world today that could bring us a lot of unhappiness, but I do know that everybody from William and Mary seemed to try to make a difference. You struggled to become lawyers and doctors or in whatever you did. Now, you know, I have never really been much on prestige. When people asked me why I was so close to you’ll and I would try to explain that we had a special relationship, and they would say, “Oh, are you a professor?” And I would just get so tickled. And I would say, “No, I work in the cafeteria!” Because to me it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s what you do with what you do or what you have.

And so if I could make some kind of impression on somebody just being me and just taking life in stride and using whatever wisdom I’ve learned in my life to make a difference – to help somebody else; to appreciate the next person; to treat that next person like they are important and that they mean something to people. Because we all have a gift that we can give to one another so we should all just take a moment to make somebody else feel good. Because I know that when I went to William and Mary, I was fairly young – I still think I am young (laugh). But I remember that my whole reason for working was so that I could make a difference in somebody else’s life. I never knew that was going to be my career job. When you think about the students being so far from their families – if I could help another young person find their lot in life. If I could have done that – help that person deal with one more day—deal with one more problem – find a solution to something that they thought was a mountain – that it was just a little thing – that they could just jump over that little hurdle and say, “I made it.” If I could do that for someone, then I too had accomplished something. And then just to see your young trusting eyes …

I always had a selfish motive for working at William and Mary – one was the children that came (they will always be children – 60 years old and they are still children to me). I always focus on the kids – the students – and what would make the happy. Making them smile. Making their hearts a little less heavy. That was my main aim in coming to work.

At this point, Ernestine became too tired to continue. We tried to finish the letter during later visits, but unfortunately she didn’t feel well enough to try again. However, I feel that what she said in her words above was all she needed to say – so much wisdom and love from such a beautiful person. I believe that I can speak for every student she touched when I say we will never forget the impact that she has made on our lives, the opportunities that we had to spend with her, and we always will cherish the memory of her sweet voice calling us “boo.”

Winter Style

I’ve broken my stylesheets up into “structure” and “color” so that I can easily update the tone of the page without accidently messing with the layout. My intention is to rotate the colors and image at least once a season. I couldn’t wait until another few weeks until the official start of winter, so here it is. (Safari users: hit “reload.”)

Data Preservation

Jeremy Hedley of Antipixel writes today about the problem of data preservation. I’ve been (very slowly) re-reading The Shadow of the Torturer, which has gotten me thinking about the state of the our world as it will be many years from now. I think we have a problem that’s burning from both ends: we’re both losing lots of data and accumulating lots more. Great works may well be lost to data corruption or fires, but just as many may be lost of the inaccesible vastness of Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque information stores. There are already too many books I’d like to read that I’d have to stop socializing to get through them. Today, when I want to read about a topic, I look it up in Google and maybe read the first three or five hits I see. I can see a future where that same search turns up hundreds. Obscurity by abundance.

On Comment Systems

What good is an opinion without someone to tell you why you’re wrong? The rise in popularity of weblogs has given voice to over a million people across the internet. If the best thing about them is their ability to provide an open channel for individuals to say what they want, then their most crucial feature must be the comment systems that allow the rest of the world to respond. A good-sized group of my friends stays in touch daily by posting and commenting on each other’s LiveJournal pages. Comments move fluidly from serious discussion to inside jokes to event planning because the system that manages those comments is robust enough to proctor such conversations. Still, though online discussion boards predate the visual World Wide Web, I’ve yet to see a comment system that does it all.

In “It’s all about Context,” Mena Trott remarks that in developing TypePad, “we learned that commenting methods evolve […] and we hope we never claim that anything we do can’t be improved.”

While the behavior of discussion modules in weblogs allows for an amazing amount of interaction between people all over the world, there are a number of areas that still need to be honed. I’d like to lay out below a number of features that I think would improve that ability to have online discussions.

It’s All About Context

As discussed in the above-mentioned article, comments should always appear on the same page as the post they’re talking about. They should never collapse into “headers-only” mode if their number soars above a magic threshold, and should also not continue onto a second page even if their number continues to soar. It’s important that the full context for a discussion is always available on the page, and discussion tends to stop when comments spill over to a second page.

WYSIWYG HTML

While maintaining a webpage requires some knowledge of HTML, leaving a comment on one should not. All comment fields should have WYSIWYG formatting buttons above them. The set of WYSIWYG, or “What You See Is What You Get,” buttons would work just like those in MS Word. Highlighting text and clicking the “Bold” button would make the text appear bold, while under the hood remembering to put <b> […] </b> (or strong) around the text when the user clicks the submit button. A “link” button would launch a little dialogue box asking for the link destination and link text, and would inset a working link into the text field. Colors, text-alignment, and fonts would be marked-up using in-line styles. The person leaving the comment would always see the text as it will appear, and would never see the underlying, valid, XHTML. And, of course, the user would be free to type out his own code if he’d prefer.

A spell-check button would also be nice.

eMail Addresses Should Never Be Displayed

Spam is a big problem these days. Even the best encryption can eventually be broken or foiled by people with the patience to hand-copy addresses. People leaving comments on your page don’t want their email addresses harvested by spam-bots so that they can get more ads for male enhancement. The only reason someone leaves their email address is because they don’t know any better (which you shouldn’t penalize them for), you make them do it because you don’t allow anonymous comments (which doesn’t mean you have to display their address on the page), they know you might want to write them about their comment (which, again, doesn’t mean that you have to display their address), or they want to receive emails containing future comments so they can follow the discussion long after they’ve forgotten your URL (bingo: why else are they giving you their address?).

Notification

What LiveJournal does pretty well and MovableType/TypePad doesn’t do at all is notification. There’s little point in making comments on a weblog entry if no one ever checks the entry again to respond to you. Every discussion should be available via email and RSS. ScriptyGoddess write a nice plug-in for MovableType that gets this feature mostly right. Here’s how I think it should work: every comment form should have a checkbox labeled “Subscribe to This Post.” If a reader enters his email address and leaves this box checked, he’ll get an email every time someone leaves a comment on that entry. Below the comment form is a separate form in which he can enter his email address to subscribe to comments without having to leave one of his own. Each email should contain the text of the newest comment, a link to the full post, and a link to unsubscribe to the mailing list for that discussion.

I have the vague understanding that RSS 2 has a feature that accommodates comment notification. This would be useful as long as readers are given the option of a comment-free feed as well. It’s downright annoying when every post gets marked as new whenever someone comments on it. If I care about a particular post, I should be able to subscribe to it individually.

Referring to Previous Comments

Having the entire text of a conversation readily available is a strong advantage that online discussions have over verbal conversations. If I want to directly refer to something that someone else has said, I can simply copy and paste the quote and respond directly to it. This works fine for instances in which I want to talk about a specific part of a specific comment, but what if I just want to agree or disagree with the entire comment? I could say, “I agree with Sally,” but it’s very possible that Sally’s said four different things already in this thread.

Comments should be numbered. The weblog system should automatically number and label each comment as it gets added to the page. This way, I can say, “I agree with 5,” referring without question to the fifth comment left on the page.

Each Comment Should Have Its Own Permalink

Weblogs thrive because of their interconnectivity. As they continue to mature, they have to grow to allow for themselves. Picture a future student writing a research paper for a webpage. Just as he uses parenthetical citations to refer to the page number of a book, he should be able to use them to cite a particular comment on a weblog.

Threaded Comments are a Bad Idea

I admit, the way that LiveJournal allows people to respond to individual comments adds an interesting dynamic to conversations, but I think it hurts the discussions as a whole.

Conversations in real life happen in real time. Even though you can go back and address a previous point directly, you still have to listen to everything that’s said before you get a chance to speak. Many times in an LJ discussion, there will be five or six good points that get left behind because people are too busy bickering over a previous one. Sure, they’re still there, but they’re sitting at the bottom of the page. The a-temporal grouping of comments commenting on an earlier comment disrupts the natural flow of the discussion, oftentimes neglecting or undermining comments that were made before everyone started ganging up on the earlier point.

It’s in the nature of discussions to twist and go off on tangents, but this should happen, er, naturally. If you line up twenty comments in a row, it’s very easy to follow the conversation from where it started to where it has led. This is because you’re reading the posts in one dimension (moving temporally in a straight line from the time of the original entry to the time of the most-recent comment.) But if you jumble them up so that the threaded view shows the discussion in 2-D, you add an unnatural grouping that often falsely attempts to model the flow of the tangents.

Say there’s a comment with three responses followed by another comment, each of which makes a new point about that comment. Now say that three people want to talk about the second comment. Now we have eight comments. In what order should they be read? In a threaded discussion, they would appear in the following order:

1. First Comment (10:00AM)
   1. Response One (10:10AM)
   2. Response Two (10:15AM)
      1. Response 1 to Response Two (10:18AM)
      2. Response 2 to Response Two (10:25AM)
      3. Response 3 to Response Two (11:55AM)
   3. Response Three (10:21AM)
2. Second Comment (10:02AM)

The two comments made the closest to each other chronologically are actually the farthest apart in the above example. Response Three was made before any of the responses to Response Two, but appears after them. By the time you’ve read all of those responses, you may have have forgotten enough about the original context to understand Response Three.

While I appreciate the utility of being able to comment directly on a comment, for the above reasons and more, I think that threaded comments are a bad idea. And since our weblogging system is already labeling each comment with a number, we can just refer to a comment’s label when talking about it. Should a tangent get so off-topic that the proctor (weblog owner) decides it merits its own forum, he can always start a new entry about it. (Or it could move via TrackBack to another location.)

Thoughts?

So that’s what I have to say on the subject. Please discuss. (I realize that my TypePad comment system doesn’t do it all, bear with it.)