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From: carm@tove.umd.edu (Richard Chimera)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: self-moderating posting scheme (Project NICK Mood Indicator)
Message-ID: <22733@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 24 Feb 90 01:07:56 GMT
References: <5938@uswat.UUCP> <889@lclark.UUCP>
Sender: news@mimsy.umd.edu
Reply-To: carm@tove.umd.edu (Richard Chimera)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 33

In article <889@lclark.UUCP> miller@lclark.UUCP (John Miller) writes:
>Concerning a system that gives the speaker automatic feedback on the mood
>of his/her audience:
>
>I once saw such a system demonstrated for Rhetoretician Ivan Illich.
>He was horrified and criticized the inventor for creating such a device.
>He felt that this is essentially what Hitler did.  If the speaker can use
>the feedback immediately to modify what is being said, is there any limit 
>to the delusions that could be created by the modern politician?

Are you (or Ivan Illich) saying a politician presently doesn't listen
and look at crowd reactions to say more about one topic and less about
another?  My political comment is that an uneducated population can be
persuaded/fooled into anything.

Perhaps the issue at hand is that members (I was going to say
"persons", but computerized agents can also be "members" in a group)
in a distributed synchronous group could send mood indications
randomly or different than that they are really feeling, whereas it is
more difficult for a true crowd at a rally to fake a feeling.  Of course
this 'anonymity factor' has been researched a fair amount, and is a
factor in groupware systems.

This begs the question, can groupware systems handle the uncooperative members
of a group.  Is CSUW (Comp. Supported Uncooperative Work) a separate topic?
Here at the Univ of Md, colleagues of mine are creating a teaching theater 
which will have groupware elements in it (given enough programmer hours :-), 
and one of the main theoretical issues (in my mind) is how to deal with
uncooperative freshmen whose only goal is to disrupt the group environment.
Comments?

Rick Chimera
Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, U of Md