So, like hundreds of other disgruntled Digital Britain Citizen I’ve been poking and prodding around the issue of the Digital Economy Bill. The more I read, the more I dislike.

While trawling through the “tinternet” I found Open Right Group‘s “Email you candidates“. This contact form, complete with suitable “I’m not so happy with your behavior right now…” letter enables you to email your local area candidates and give them a little bit of a grilling to find out where they stand. So I did. To my surprise, and some might even venture shock, I had an email from a candidate within an hour and way past the watershed too. This is the reply I received. Short, but still a reply.

Dear Richard

Thank you for your email.

This is an issue that has been raised with me many times and it is a real cause for concern.  As you say there was little debate and the consequences of the DE Act could lead to swingeing repercussions for web-users.  Had I had the opportunity I would have supported Tom Watson MP, who campaigned against the DE Act, and I am more than happy to commit to attending a meeting organised by Eric Joyce on this issue.

Standing by my principles is important to me also.

I hope that this is helpful?

Kind regards

Clive Grunshaw

Call me skeptical but I do wonder how quick the reply would have been if we were not in the week leading up to a General Election? It is however appreciated.

Clive is the Lancaster and Fleetwood Labour candidate for the coming election. In the interest of fairness, when/if I get replies from the other candidates I’ll post them too.

Todays homepage image on the Piratebay.org, that rather famous and recently chastised bit torrent site is a rather fitting homage to Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill. All though I would say that it is perhaps a tad unfair that it’s Gordon Brown’s mug shot up there. Perhaps Mandelson would have been a better target.

With the recent world events and current feeling of unrest and political disbelief, it seems odd to me that only 5% of MP’s would bother to show up and debate the passing of the Digital Economies Bill (#DEBill). This is a bill that has the potential to stifle creativity and induce restrictions over the very connectivity that Digital Britain needs. Repercussions will ripple far further than the Digital Creative community.

The controversial “Clause 18″ which would have enabled the government to block sites, was replaced with a slightly sugar coated version. “Clause 8″ which allows the Secretary of State for Business to block any sight deemed to be infringing, about to infringe or has infringed on copyright material in the past, if deemed so by the court. However unlikely, Google could be deemed

Many a finger bashing “thrill seeking” teenager might be shocked to learn that “Clause 41″ and “Clause 42″ of the DEBill have the potential to censor video that may be deemed violent. Not so relaxed about it now, huh? But I wouldn’t worry too much… This law might take months to pass. At least you have the summer for any extra gory titles to release. But say your more of an online gamer, then these laws could have a much more encompassing grasp than you might think. With cooperating ISP’s and publishers DRM’s look set to get tighter and tighter.

The impending General Election will surely not be a run away affair for any one in the now three horse race. So it seems rather odd to me that politicians would so readily alienate themselves from such a large section of society as the “digitratti”.

The vote was won by Government 189 votes to 47.

So, before you take your vote on the 6th, why not take a look and see if your MP bothered to show up and vote. Either way odds are, they probably didn’t attend the two hour debate.

Numerous website hacked together by feverishly working exasperated techies have sprung up over the following week, many of them within hours. Here are a few of them:

http://www.votethemout.co.uk/

For the record, my MP didn’t vote… “My MP Ben Wallace didn’t vote on the #DEBill”

See how your MP voted

and email your local candidate to see what their views are: http://bit.ly/emailyourcandidates

Not sure who to vote for? Why not let vote match help you decide…

The elections this year are shaping up to be a close run affair. News “sound bites”, flyers, brochures and radio only help to muddy the political spectrum. VoteMatch asks a series of questions around political stand points and ideals, then tells you, in percentage terms, who you should vote for… Now all we need is a “click here to vote” button.

I just finished reading an interesting article for NetTuts about the role of University learning for the Web Developer. It asks the increasingly relevant question of “Is University necessary for Web Development?”. It doesn’t give it’s own definitive answer but it does poll many of it’s readers for their opinions.

I’m finishing up my four year degree at University, infact, in 5 weeks, it’s all over… I will become another unemployed statistic. Thank you to the bankers and the ever present “R word“. But hopefully not for too long. So I think this puts me in the ideal position to give some sort of insight into this.

The short answer is, yes, do go to University. But its not for the obvious reason of learning how to develop code or draw pretty digital pictures. That can be done on far away from the red brick (or grey brick if, like me, you choose one of the newer Uni’s) institutions. Blogs, tutorials and inspiration flood through the wireless networks of countries the world over. Feversihly read by those eager to learn and written, often for no tangible gain, by those working for the ‘greater good’. I myself learnt more from blogs and tutorials in the last year than any single lecturer in the past four combined. I could digest more information from twenty minutes of reading than any lecturer, good or bad, could expell in a single hour slot. Do not missunderstand me, this is not a slating of my lecturers’ prowess behind a lecturn. My course is top in the country for what I am doing, these are talented individuals, it’s just that the odds are often stacked against them.

Take this for example, it’s one of my pet gripes: Picture if you will, first lecture of the day. I’ve had my coffee and relatviely speaking, I’m awake. It’s more of a theoretical lecture today and concentration would be advised as this lecturer is sometimes prone to wandering off topic and it can be hard to keep up. But that’s fine, as I keep trying to convince my girlfriend, I’m a good listener… But then, without fail, they start to talk. That row at the back. Every single time. Why bother? Why come to the lecture at all? This isn’t Cambridge. You don’t have to attend. You can probably just get the notes in the revision lectures any way. You are just ruining it for everyone else.

Compare that to a blog. I can read it in piece, I can read it in the middle of the night, I can cut and paste code to see if something works then and there. Right in front of me.

See what I mean?

So why got to uni? Well, at the risk of ageing myself by a good twenty year with the use of one sentence, it’s about the life experiences… It makes you more employable. It gives your learning some structure. There is ususally one-to-one, face time if you need it. You have deadlines to meet that wont risk a lawsuit if they are missed. Doors that are closed for Undergraduates, open with a nicely presented piece of paper. You will make friends that will last you a life time (so I’m told, as I am not dead yet I find it hard to difinitively answer what did and didn’t last the distance. All though I have some nice kitchen knifes that I’m told will go the whole hog.). This is the most important bit, you will communicate with people. Nothing beats talking face-to-face. You have to think on your feet, it grooms you for the real world. That’s why I came to University. Well that and because I thought my name would look nicer with some extra initials…

So my advice is, do it. You wont regret it. It’s one of lifes great adventures and good or bad, atleast you’ll have some stories to tell…

Read the original article

In 2000 Amy Jo Kim proposed a membership life cycle for online communities. It states that members go through different stages of membership throughout their membership life cycle and must pass through ‘barriers’ before progressing (Kim 2000). The barriers tend to signify confidence increases in the user and generally result in increased participation. Kim’s theory was also mirrored by Lave and Wenger’s model (Lave et. al. 1991). They suggest five phases in the life cycle and introduced the term ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (LPP). LPP put states that “Through learning, newcomers become part of the community of practice” – (Lave et. al. 1991) and that “Learning is then the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice.” – (Lave et. al. 1991).

Lave and Wenger’s model suggests five types of trajectories amongst a learning community:

1. Peripheral – An outside, unstructured participation (Visitor)
2. Inbound – Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation
3. Insider – Full committed community participant
4. Boundary – A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions
5. Outbound – Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks

(Lave et. al. 1991)

Lave and Wenger’s Model Applied to YouTube
One of the most important factors surrounding online communities is participation and participation motivation: how do you get people involved? There are many theories based around online participation motivation, as many contributors face no monetary gain from their input. Altruistic motivations aside, Peter Kollock breaks them down into four categories.

1. Anticipated Reciprocity
2. Increased Recognition
3. Sense of efficacy
4. Sense of community

(Kollock 1998)

1. Anticipated Reciprocity - A member is compelled to contribute content or help others in the anticipation of one day needing help in return. This is an anticipated reciprocal relationship on the part of the contributor.

2. Increased Recognition - Reputation is the most recognized key factor in participation motivation. Users show a desire to gain notoriety and are generally willing to work for it. It can make Users key figures in communities and is often regardless of physical world situations or status.

3. Sense of efficacy - Users may contribute to a community because that contribution results in a sense of involvement and effect on the community. Normally driven by a Users belief in their ability to benefit the community either through expertise or group participation (Alexander et. al. 2004).

4. Sense of community - Many people are directly motivated by the desire to have people respond to their contributions. Social psychologists refer to this as a ‘sense of community’, Marc Smith refers to this as ‘communion’ (Smith 1991). Most online communities allow for this by enabling users to comment on contributed content. Using facebook as an example, Users are constantly confronted with requests to comment on other users actions. User actions can be rated, ‘liked’ or commented on. It is commonly acknowledged that there is some overlap between establishing a ‘sense of community’ and users increasing their reputation. It should also be acknowledged that there are degrees of overlap in all four of the key motivations (Smith 1992).

A virtual community is a group of people or social entity that have a primary means of communication other than face-to-face contact e.g. telephone, email, online social networks or instant messages. Generally these networks are used for a social, professional or educational means. They can be the sole source of communication between acquaintances or they can be a secondary supplementary source. It is common in today’s digital age for a user to have both a digital and physical relationship with.

Most online social networks make use of Web 2.0 technologies and ways of thinking. This has lead to many describing them as ‘Community 2.0′ (Ripanti 2008). However precursors to this modern phenomenon of online social medium were evident in the mid 90′s. Sites such as TheGlobe.com (1994), Geocities (1994) and Tripod (1995) attempted to bring users together through chat rooms and message boards. These were the harbingers of blogging and today’s social network platforms (Wikipedia 2009). In the early 2000′s modern social networks began to appear. Standard bearers such as flickr, mySpace and facebook had arrived. Similar trends are becoming apparent in the professional arena, as more and more companies begin to represent their staff and customers in a virtual community.

Online, and physical communities are dependent on similar kinds of social interaction and communication. Without these interactions, communities become dormant groups of people with no collective purpose or goals. Virtual communities can develop in much the same way as physical communities, in that they can develop cliques, fracturing to form new groups (Kim 2004). However one sees them, online social networks are now deeply embedded in everyday life. Be it social calendar, professional job hunting or online learning and tuition.

I found this for anyone else who gets slightly annoyed every time Leopard informs them they are opening something they downloaded from the web. I don’t want to sound too self confident but I would like to consider my self a well versed user, maybe even a super user (without the cape) and I am fully aware of where I got the files that now reside in my downloads folder…

It’s a safe way to get rid of it and easily reversible.

Create a text file called com.apple.DownloadAssessment.plist under Library/Preferences in your home directory, with the following content:

Then logout and log back in

Original Article