Spoof Spam Lurk and Lag - the Aesthetics of Text based Virtual Realities
Spoof, Spam, Lurk and Lag: the Aesthetics of Text-based Virtual
Realities
Lee-Ellen Marvin
Department of Folklore and Folklife
University of Pennsylvania
_________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
* ABSTRACT
* INTRODUCTION
+ Worlds made with Words
+ Virtual Conversation
* Lagging in Digital Communication
* Spoofing
* Lurking
* Spamming
* PLAYING
* CONCLUSION
+ (with thanks to...)
* Bibliography
_________________________________________________________________
ABSTRACT
This paper explores communication in six text-based virtual realities
through four items of jargon: spoof, spam, lurk, and lag. Research was
conducted using the ethnographic tools of participant-observation and
close analysis of actual interactions of MOOs (Multiple-user Object
Oriented environments). Examples of how these terms are used in
real-time interaction were analyzed for what they communicate about
the aesthetics of interaction. Close examination suggests that these
articulated aesthetics serve as rules for proper behavior, markers of
experience and belonging, metaphor for poetic expression and resources
for play and challenge within the community.
_________________________________________________________________
Introduction
Ethnography, encompassing both anthropology and folkloristics, is the
writing of culture. It is the process of translating the symbolic
system of one culture into that of another. As a folklorist, I define
"culture" as a set of expressive and interpretive resources, and I
study the ways in which individual performances and artistic
expressions are constructed from these resources. From this
perspective, a "cultural group" is made of those people who recognize
and make use of a set of expressive resources. While a cultural group
is thus defined by its common expressive resources, a society is
defined by geographic, political, and economic boundaries, and may
incorporate several cultural groups. It is my work is to write about
the expressive resources shared by members of particular cultural
groups, to understand how these resources are used, extended, revised,
and negotiated, and to make them comprehensible to others.
In this paper, I examine what I believe are aesthetic values governing
the use of expressive resources in six text-based virtual realities,
known as MOOs, which are a particular type of MUD (explained below).
Four items from the jargon of MOOs -- spoof, spam, lurk, and lag --
are examined here as expressions, on the smallest and most basic
level, for what they say about how to and how not to communicate
within the MOOs. By smallest and most basic, I mean that these
aesthetics are applied to virtual "conversation" or real-time
interaction in dialogue form which takes place everyday in the MOOs.
These items of jargon were selected because they are regularly used by
participants in MOOs to identify distruptions to ideal communications.
Briefly, "spoof" is unattributed communication, "spam" is an excess of
communication, "lurk" is a refusal to communicate, and "lag" is a
mechanical delay of communication. These expressions are used as verbs
("He spoofed! And then I was lagging.") or as nouns ("I was hit with
lots of spam and there was a lurker in our midst.") There are no
positive expressions in the jargon which correlate with these negative
terms. The observed use of these expressions shows that they are not
only used to describe technical problems but are regularly used to
metaphorically describe social, cognitive, and emotional experiences.
Following Bakhtin's theories on the impact of primary speech genres on
secondary ones (Bakhtin 1986 (1952): 61), I find that these aesthetic
values as expressed in the jargon collectively shape all other levels
of communication by the experienced participants of MOOs, from the
simplest exchanges in everyday communication to the most prominent
official documents. At the same time, these elements function as rules
and limitations, which are then exploited, distorted and negotiated as
expressive resources in themselves, and become symbolic tools for
plurality within the group. Many scholarly studies and non-scholarly
commentaries have pondered the possibility of "virtual community" and
a few papers have studied the unique features of language and
communication within MOOs. This paper examines the aesthetics of
expression within the MOOs as a resource for the construction of
community by its participants. The research was conducted through the
ethnographic tools of participant observation and close analysis of
actual interactions, saved in screen logs .
Worlds made with Words
MUDs (standing for "Multiple-User Domain") are both synchronous and
hypertext forms of communication. The synchronous component allows
users to interact in "real-time", somewhat like holding a conversation
in a room. Synchronous communication forms such as the MUDs, "Talk",
and Internet Relay Chat differ from asynchronous forms such as Usenet
newsgroups, mailing lists and electronic bulletin boards, in which
messages have a kind of permanance, somewhat like posters pasted on
walls. The hypertext component of MUDs consists of written
descriptions of imaginary rooms, objects, and people. Participants can
selectively view the objects and people, and virtually move from one
"room" to another, much as a reader of a hypertext follows links in a
document, from one passage to another.
MOOs are a particular type of MUD -- "Mud, Object-Oriented" -- based
on software developed by Pavel Curtis of Xerox Corporation. Each MOO
presents a particular kind of world -- a selected slice of reality
presented through words. The participants are provided with electronic
programming tools to extend this reality in numerous directions
through the creation of virtual spaces, objects, and characters.
LambdaMOO, the oldest and largest of the MOOs, uses the theme of a
"house", and was originally modeled after the Palo Alto home of its
developer, Pavel Curtis. The heart of this house is a living room
linked to a kitchen, dining room, deck, and hallway. Each textually
represented room, object, and character has a description, and any
participant can selectively read these descriptions, just as the
reader of a hypertext document can choose to read a linked passage.
Participants enter this world in the form of self-described characters
who can interact with each other. For those who have never
participated in a MUD or a MOO, reading a sample of interactions in
the living room and linked spaces at LambdaMOO, or making a visit to a
MOO is recommended.
The fixed descriptions of objects, rooms, and characters provide a
sense of depth and permanence to the world of the MOOs, while the
synchronous interactions of the participants animates the world. There
are a number of different ways to communicate and interact.
Participants may "say" things to each other, or direct their
statements to particular characters. They also have the ability to
"emote" or gesture to each other. Participants can use preprogrammed
scripts to quickly offer a series of gestures. With a little technical
skill, participants can also privately whisper to each other. These
simple and very basic commands allow for rich interactions.
Aside from talking and gesturing to other participants in the same
virtual room, participants can privately "page" participants from room
to room, sometimes conducting completely private conversations with
one person while simultaneously taking part in a public conversation.
There is also a MOOmail system which replicates the Internet email
system, mailing lists for posting statements to groups of people,
analogous to Usenet newsgroups or Listserv mailing lists on the
Internet, and "gopher slate" objects which allow participants to
access gopher files anywhere on the Internet from within the MOO. In
addition, there are multiple-person channels for talking to several
characters at once, designed to represent a virtual citizen's band
radio or the Internet's IRC. Some MOOs have developed virtual
"television systems" which allow participants to selectively view a
textually described "video". Clearly, what the MOOs recreate most
completely is the Internet itself and telecommunications in general,
and the accuracy of this replication leads to the necessity to
distinguish between "real life" and "MOO life" with special MOOwords .
MOOs have social systems with varying degrees of official and
unofficial dynamics. Some of these dynamics reflect the history of MUD
development by retaining names for participants and administrators
which reflect the gaming origins of MUDs. Some are ruled exclusively
by an "arch-wizard," who is the individual responsible for creating
the MOO, selecting its theme and building its most public areas. This
person often has control of the actual Internet server which runs the
MOO software. In many MOOs, it is the arch-wizard who takes
responsibility for the society by issuing guidelines for acceptable
behavior, punishing transgressors, and judging disputes between
participants. LambdaMOO has created a system of ballots, petitions and
disputes, for decision making and the establishment of standards of
behavior and negotiation of conflicts. Some of the MOOs oriented
toward professional and educational use have established non-profit
corporations to oversee the social and technical issues.
This paper is based on 18 months of participant-observation at six
different MOOs. Though each of these MOO communities have different
purposes and histories, I have found that they all share this jargon,
and thus these aesthetic values. These resources are shared because
they are reactions to the limitations and demands of the MOO
technology, and because many of the most active participants have
memberships in several MOOs.
Virtual Conversation
The text that may be communicated within the MOOs is limited, as it is
in most Internet forms, to the range of characters on a typical
computer keyboard: all lower and upper case letters of the Roman
alphabet, numbers 0-9, and the symbols !@#$%^*(){}[]+=.,;:'"~`. As in
other Internet forms, participants of MOOs write in a way which is
most accurately described as "written speech". (Elmer-Dewitt, 1994) An
informal, everyday quality is created through the use of smileys,
non-standard spelling reflective of vernacular pronunciation,
punctuation to indicate pauses rather than speech clauses, special
symbols borrowed from programming languages and an extensive special
vocabulary. These are the most prevalent "expressive resources" of
synchronous MOO interaction. Here is a brief sample of a typical
exchange on LambdaMOO between three participants. Their names have
been changed, but the exchange is reproduced here as captured on my
screen log .
SAMPLE ONE
a Tempi says to Tofu, "Yep. Have you read the
petition?"
b Rice aiiiee petitions and politics, and bitterness
abounding.
c Tofu [to Tempi]: Yeah, it's um...um...well,
interesting!
d Tempi says to Rice, "Sorry 'bout that. I forgot you're
!political."
e Rice [to Tempi]: Sokay. :) At least you remember.
In line e of the sample above, Rice used a two-character smiley to
indicate to Tempi that he is forgiven for a transgression. Some
attention, mostly in the popular press, has been lately put on the
emergence of "smileys" as a special feature of writing on the Internet
(Elmer-Dewitt, 1994; Sanderson, 1993). These popular books and
articles list the different expressions used by Internet typists to
add another dimension to the severely limited tools of the typed text.
Smileys such as :-) or 8-( are appended to typed statements that are
ironic or subtly humorous, to alert the reader that the statement is
not to be read literally. These symbols are the paralanguage of the
Internet (Dery, 1993), the winks which signal the playfulness of a
statement over the seriousness it might denote, such as Bateson
observed in animal and human play (Bateson, 1972).
The use of a smiley by Rice suggested something of the status between
the participants as well as the intent of the statement. Many smileys,
and the spelled out gestures of "smile" or "grin" (emotes) are
appended to statements which are not ironic or ambiguous. They are
friendly gestures, indications of approval or appreciation, much as
smiles are often intended in face-to-face interaction. However, smiles
in face-to-face contexts can be strategic or spontaneous and
unintentional. In the context of the MOO, whether expressed with the
iconic :-) or the symbolic "smile", every smile must be consciously
indicated. In private something flowing across the computer screen
might cause a participant to spontaneously smile, but a conscious
choice must be made to type it out; a participant might frown at the
keyboard and but strategically decide to type a strategic smile.
The interaction between Tempi, Rice and Tofu included some interesting
spellings, and all of them are conventional within the MOOs. Rice used
"aaiiiee" and "Sokay", Tempi used "'bout'. "Aaiiiee" (spelled with any
number of a, i, and e letters) is often used to express horror, shock
or dismay, along with other utterances such as "um, hmmm, mmm, er",
"yep, yup, yeah, yay, hey", "ack, ugh", "yikes", and "euugh". "Sokay",
"'kay" and "OK" are all used. "'Bout" is not very common, but
suggested a number of other contractions such as "y'all" for "you"
plural, "'cause" for "because", "gonna" for "going to". These
spellings all suggest the sounds of informal spoken American-English.
In a manner which parallels the aurality of spelling in MOOs,
participants use punctuation marks unconventionally. Sentences are
often ended without periods, commas are positioned to indicate pauses
rather than clauses. Tofu said, in line c, "Yeah, it's um...um...well,
interesting!" is typical of how ellipses are used to suggest pauses.
Participants use symbols and variations in lower/upper case letters
for emphasis. As in other Internet genres, the use of upper-case
letters in MOO interactions is understood to mean SHOUTING, but at
times, MOO participants will for emphasis, capitalize one word or
bracket a word with asterisks, as in, "I DROVE to the store," or "I
*walked* to school today". This agreed conventionalized use of
typography increases the sense of spoken conversation.
(Review Sample One)
Symbols are sometimes used in MOO interactions, as demonstrated in
line d. Tempi's use of "!political" is a borrowing from programming
code. Many participants of the MOOs know some programming, and the
skilled programmers are praised and admired, as well as frequently
consulted, for their knowledge. Some programming conventions are used
by participants in conversation. By using "!political", Tempi has said
"not political" with the convention of an exclamation point as a
prefix. Other examples of symbols or programming code used in
conversational interactions are "=" for "means, is same as",
"s/werd/word" to indicate corrections to a mistyped statement.
Sometimes the syntax of lines of code is used, as in "Have you
asked(players)?" which means, "Have you asked any of the players?" A
less technical symbol is an arrow pointed to a participant's name as
in, "lmarvin Like occupational groups (McCarl, 1986: 76) and
closely-knit families (Zeitlin, 1982:146-161), the participants in
MUDs have a specialized vocabulary based on their unique environment.
Newcomers are frequently confronted and confounded by a lexicon which
includes symbols and unusual words such as brb, bots, call-wasted, e,
em and eir, idling, lag, lurk, morph, mav, pokes, rofl, rl/vr
slippage, spam, spivaks and splatts, spoof, tinysex and moo-rape,
teleporting, threads, @toading and @newting, ttyl, wizzes and waveys
(see the Glossary for definitions). Furthermore, conversational topics
such as the "hacking verbs", or the "rl @genders of the typists of
certain players" are confusing to beginners. Some of these words
(lurking, rofl, and spam for instance) will be recognizable to
participants in other Internet genres. Some words may have came from
other MUDs (call-wasted, tinysex) and from the Dungeon and Dragon
games which inspired the first TinyMud (wizards, wizzes, wielding),
but many come from the MOO programming language itself, others from
experiences unique to the MOOs. These specialized > have primary
meanings, but are also used metaphorically, as is the occupational
languages of specialized work groups. Ironically, the use of these
specialized symbols disrupts the illusion of virtual speech created by
conventionalized misspellings and paralingual smileys. They are the
marks of "inside status" because they demonstrate knowledge and skill
which are the requirements of belonging for a group with no kinship,
geography or occupational ties.
The programming of the MOO is the source of the attributions of each
speaker (Tofu says, ""), as well as the quotation punctuation. In MOO
interactions, there are also automated messages such as announcements
of participants' movements in and out of rooms. The distinction
between a statement typed by an active participant and an automated
message is not always easy to perceive in the MOO, especially for
newcomers. Automated messages are usually programmed to conform to
rules of written American English, with proper punctuation and
spelling. The formal quality of these statements helps participants to
recognize the "live" from the pre-programmed because the live elements
are written like speech. At the same time, grossly inaccurate
spellings and syntax are not tolerated without some teasing or, more
likely, a self-critical remark, often humorous. Two of the
conventionalized self-critical gestures about typing errors is "Zoo
looks at her hands," and "Park shoots his typist."
(Review Sample One)
In summing up the examples which have been drawn from the first sample
of exchange, it is clear that every communication is a typed message,
whether framed as vocal utterance (Jane says, "Hello"), gesture (Jane
waves to you), or as a preprogrammed message ("You can't go that
way."). The typed utterances made by participants consistently include
conventionalized, non-standard English usage. These conventions fall
into two large categories: first, there are the "written speech"
conventions which represent spoken vernacular language, and therefore
contribute to the "virtual reality" of a conversation; and second,
there are "insider" conventions which exploit the specialized lexicon
of the MOO. This use of a highly specialized term, with the
expectation that it will be understood by others, is an example of
what folklorist Jansen called "esoteric knowledge," knowledge or
practices which are particular to a group, and stem from a sense of
belonging. (Jansen, 1957: 46)
In addition to this set of expressive resources for communication, I
perceived a set of aesthetic values , symbolically encoded in the
daily language of the MOO participants. These values are both
commentary on and intrinsic to its expressive resources. They are the
ideals held in common by most of its members about expression,
language and interaction, and are learned early by its newcomers.
These aesthetic values are also easy targets for poetic metaphor and
creative parody because they are so well known by the community.
Lagging in Digital Communication
Conversations in a MOO environment are synchronous (real-time, like
the telephone) but digitized on a very large sampling rate. This gives
them a temporal quality entirely different from the timing of
telephone or face-to-face interaction. There is a waiting period
between lines, as each participant types a contribution to the
emerging exchange. Once a message is typed and sent, the entire text
appears on the screen. For the recipient of a message, there is no
period of time during which the message is *being* communicated. There
is only a wait during a time of "no message" followed by "message".
This digitized, on-off/yes-no process has an impact on the
communicative structure of "virtual conversations".
In digitized, synchronous, text-based interaction, the participants
are forced to type quickly, with less concern for spelling errors and
typos, using as few words as possible. There is a curious reversal of
turn-taking management when a participant makes a long speech. In
face-to-face conversations, a listener waits for an ending to a
speaker's long statement, and stays alert for opportunities to speak,
perhaps inwardly thinking, "When will this person stop?" In typed
conversations of the MOOs, a long statement requires a long wait on
the part of the reader, during which the reader wonders, "When will
this person start?" Very long pauses of a minute or two can lead the
reader to wonder whether the typist is still participating.
To speed up this slow pace, experienced participants in synchronous
modes such as MUDs and IRC often create multi-layered and
multi-dimensional conversations. Two people can and do discuss two
topics at once: while one is composing a statement to one topic, the
other is writing about a second topic. In conversations with more than
two, the exchanges might be briefer, centered around one topic but
responding to sub-themes within the topic in a round-robin fashion, so
that everyone is typing at the same time. These topics are called
"threads", the same term used in other Internet genres such as Usenet
newsgroups and Listserv mailing lists. In large groups, there can be
several very different threads underway at once, as happens in
asynchronous media. At such times, the conversation moves quite
quickly, and the pace becomes a visible stream of words on the screen.
As each line of the dialogue is added, the lines on the screen scroll
or jump upwards, and the words seem to rush by. Some people will then
withdraw from such interactions because, "the screen is moving too
fast."
Digitized conversation is perverted by "lag". Lag is a mechanical
delay of communication in addition to the inherent delay of the
medium. Lag can take place within the computer running a MOO, or
between the connections on the Internet, or in the equipment an
individual uses. Lag becomes a source of trouble and annoyance, not
unlike the weather in the "real world." For example:
Sample Two
a beets hugs and waves accordingly.
(several seconds pause)
b beets asks, "is anyone having the horrid lag that I am?"
(pause)
c Carrot nods to beets
d Radish nods to beets
(pause)
e Eggplant nods. "Welcome to LagLand.
Participants measure lag by the delay between sending and seeing
statements on the screen. Because lag comes from several different
sources, it might effect some participants and be unobserved by
others, which is why "beets" asked for confirmation of his/her
experience of lag. Lag longer than 2 or 3 seconds often triggers
comments. Lag is a rupture to the communicative process in the MOOs
and other MUDs. Ironically, it has become one of the most prominent
features of LambdaMOO, often nicknamed "Lagda".
When lag is longer than 5 seconds, conversations lose any sense of
realism, the turn taking falls out of order, and, like bad weather,
lag becomes a topic of conversation:
Sample Three
a Grape sends a prayer
b Okra* notes the lag monster must be killing the guests
c Peas says, "the all powerful LAG"
In a campaign statement for election to an important committee, one
long-time LambdaMOO member reminded the voters that he was a "veteran
of many lag-wars", evoking the trope of countless political campaigns
and transforming the lag "monster" into a shared adversity or opposing
force, and thus reifying the sense of "community" between MOO
participants.
Spoofing
The remainder of this paper will be a close examination of one lengthy
exchange which happened to include samples of spoofing, lurking, and
spamming. This complex interaction took place in the "Living Room" of
LambdaMOO, woven around two other conversational threads which have
been edited out (the removed lines marked with asterisks):
Sample Four, part one
a Cockatoo squawks, "I think they removed the Spoof FO."
b spoon nods in greeting...
c Fork says, "Ack.. Now I just found a server that offers
real-time traffic reports of certain highways in San
Diego, Los angeles, and "Orange country""
*
d Spoof FO.. what Spoof FO..?
*
e lmarvin blinks..."hey, who spoofed?!"
f A thundering voice rumbles through the room and says:
"God did!"
g lmarvin looks up.
h ya.. god..
*
(to review full sample)
This sequence began with a line which originated from a pre-programmed
object known as "the Cockatoo". This virtual bird randomly records and
replays statements made by participants in the room. In this case, the
replay was about "spoofing". Spoofs are unattributed communications.
Normally, every line in the stream of communications is attributed to
someone or something. In this interaction, the (automated) reference
to spoofing inspired a new spoof.
Spoofs are problematical within the MOO communities because they
defeat the usual pattern of attribution. Attribution, in this case,
relates to Erving Goffman's ideas about "connectives" in normal human
conversation:
" ... a fundamental feature of experience is that deeds and words
come to us connected to their source, and that ordinarily this
connection is something we can take for granted, something that the
context of action will always provide, something that ensures the
anchoring of activity." (Goffman, 1974, 479)
A person who interacts in a MOO has only one physical source for the
words flowing across the screen and that is the computer itself.
Participants must exercise a certain faith in computers and
telecommunications technology, trusting that the words in synchronous
conversations really do come from people in other cities, states or
even countries. In support of that faith, there are efforts in the
MOO-code to attribute a source for every line which appears in the
flow of real-time interactions. Spoofing disrupts this pattern of
attribution and for that reason is a breach of good conduct. As an
unattributed line, spoofing attracts attention, is often used for
humorous effect, but can be threatening, confusing, or frustrating in
normal conversational patterns.
Spoofs are strongly discouraged in official texts on MOO manners, and
between friends. Participants of MOO communities are not provided with
the means for spoofing. Spoofing commands are newly programmed or the
code copied from other programmers. An aura of the criminal surrounds
spoofing. For example, at LambdaMOO, the on-line help manual has this
to say about spoofs in its "help manners" section:
Do not harass or abuse other players, using any tactic including: *
Spoofing (causing messages to appear that are not attributed to your
character) Spoofs can be funny and expressive when used with
forethought. If you spoof, use a polite version than announces
itself as a spoof promptly, and use it sparingly. See `help
spoofing' for more information on determining the source of spoofs.
(Review Sample Four, part one)
The spoofing demonstrated here was commentary on the politics of
spoofing. Line d was a pretence of innocence, rather like a child
saying "What ice cream?" while licking the last drops off sticky
fingers. The spoofs on lines f and h toyed with the omnipresent
quality of unattributed speech by claiming to be from "God".
Lurking
In the next ten next lines there was one spoof, and two references to
lurking:
Sample Four, part two
i spoon smacks himself hard and often.
j lmarvin looks at spoon.
k spoon . o O ( what the hell am i doing up .. this is
sunday... or is it? )
l spoon lurks...
m Cockatoo squawks, "Neuro is spoofing, I think."
n lmarvin says, "not only spoofing..but lurking too, spoon?"
o Spoofing?
p spoon lurks innocently...
q Plate teleports in.
r Guest comes out of the closet (so to speak...).
Spoon claims to be "lurking innocently", again, thereby suggesting
that there is something problematical about this behavior. Lurking is
an expression used in asynchronous Internet communications to describe
users who read but don't contribute to public discussions. A "lurker"
in the synchronous forms is equivalent to a spy: someone who listens
to discussions within a room but doesn't make his or her presence
known. This can easily be accomplished by a skilled programmer, and is
forbidden in the official texts:
Spying -- Don't create or use spying devices. If you reset your
teleport message, make sure it is set to something, so that you
don't teleport silently. Besides having a disorienting effect on
people, silent teleportation is a form of spying.
Many virtual rooms in MOOs are considered private rooms. They have the
capacity to be "locked", or to allow only certain players to enter.
Maintaining privacy is valued because many participants hold intimate
conversations or practice "MOOsex" within these rooms. Participants
who erase the announcement of their entrances are considered lurkers,
subject to censure or lose of membership. "Lurking" is also used to
describe those who watch the screen but refrain from participating,
becoming invisible, as it were, by have no presence.
On the other hand, there is another practice similar to lurking with a
positive connotation. "Idling" is a term for being connected to a MOO
without actively participating. Participants who idle may be away from
their computer or are working on another project on the same computer.
Unlike lurking, idling involves no active attempt to hide one's
presence. Idling carries the connotation of being involved, of
participating in the community in spite of a busy life.
Spamming
This exchange in the Living Room changed when two new participants
entered the room in time to witness lmarvin's expression of interest
in spooking. Without knowing what had just occured in the virtual
room, Plate provided an elaborate demonstration of spoofing with a
preprogrammed script:
Sample Four, part three
s lmarvin says, "actually...i am right at this moment,
doing a study on 'spoofing' in the moo..."
t lmarvin asks, "how come spoofing is illegal?"
u Guest says, "whats spoofing?""
*
v Plate says, "this is spoofing""
w A can of Spam tromps into the room.
x The can of Spam locates it's target.
y The can begins making noises like it's gonna hack up a
spitwad.
*
a2 The can of Spam suddenly spews a stream of unwanted text
at Guest, tattoos a knockwurst on its forehead, then
floors it out of the room as fast as it can go.
b2 Plate [to Guest]: Thats spoofing :)
c2 Guest gasps
The expression "spam" is used throughout the Internet, on both
synchronous and asynchronous forms, for any "excess of words". In the
MOOs, "spam" also means words which enter the stream of scrolling
conversation too fast to be read. Charles Stivale explored spam as a
form of harassment covering a "spectrum of intentions." He grouped the
range of intentions into three major categories: playful, ambiguous
and pernicious (Stivale, 1994). The example above (Stivale might place
it in the ambiguously harassing category) could be interpreted as a
demonstration of both spam and spoof. In addition to being harassing,
some programs which generate spam also generate lag.
The expression is used in negative terms. However, what constitutes
spam is often a matter of personal taste. Spam was once used as the
principal argument for the expulsion of a long-time LambdaMOO
character. The proposal put up for popular vote summarized, "Many of
us are exasperated with this player on account of a long history of
vindictiveness, paranoia, slander, harassment, lying, and cheating;
but especially compulsive spam." The ballot for expulsion did not
pass, however, suggesting that one participant's spam is another's
entertainment.
Play
In response to the "can of spam" routine, several more genuine spoofs
were made, at a faster pace and with greater variety. The entire scene
took on an atmosphere of a rather carnivalesque dream. Furthermore,
lines of spoof appeared which were falsely attributed to participants:
Sample Four, part four
d2 A blast of noise and light rips through the fabric of
time and space, leaving a wake of damage in its path.
Knife is crawling from the wreckage.
e2 lmarvin says, "its kinda bad cause you can get people
into trouble by impersonating them...
f2 Haakon appears in a puff of magic.
g2 Knife is on the scene.
h2 Haakon say, "Ok, who is spoofing?"
i2 A roll of toilet paper flies through the room and says:
"This is spoofing, some silly thing and you don't know
who is doing it..."
j2 Plate [to lmarvin]: Oh that spoofing I can't even
begin to do that...
*
k2 Fork says, "Haakon says, "Someone better answer up! And
quick!""
*
Line e2, attributed to lmarvin, was not typed by me: it was a
fabrication of the spoofer, equivalent to forging a signature. This
spoof constituted more serious rule-breaking than the spoofs in lines
d, f, h, and o which were unattributed to any active participants.
However, the spoof of line e2 explained the wrongdoing it committed.
The appearance of Haakon (the arch-wizard of LambdaMOO) in line f2 was
likewise faked, creating an illusion of Haakon's participation. Again,
the line identified its own trickery by presenting Haakon in a "puff
of magic". Line i2 was attributed to a flying roll of toilet paper
which spoke of spoofing as "some silly thing." This series of spoofs
was simultaneous demonstration and commentary on spoofing, showing the
range of interpretations possible, from "some silly thing" to "kinda
bad" to grounds for an angry appearance by the arch-wizard. In line
k2, Fork showed, perhaps by mistake, that he was the source of the
spoofs (although it is certainly possible there was another
contributor!). Once oriented, the most recent participant to arrive,
Knife, assumed an ironic heroic stance with a virtual
spoofer-detection device:
Sample Four, part Five
l2 Knife [to spoon]: We gotta a spoofer around here?
m2 Fork grins.
*
n2 Plate raises his hand and shouts "ME! Me! ME! ME!"
o2 Fork sighs loudly.
p2 lmarvin asks, "hey...does anybody object if i save
these last lines about spoofing...for my paper?"
q2 spoon [to Knife]: a couple.. none dangerous...
r2 Plate says, "Nope"
s2 Guest is totally lost
t2 Knife whips out his spoofer-detecter
Though a serious crime had been committed, according to official MOO
policy, the result was a spontaneous and playful drama, created by and
for those in the room. My response, as an observer , was to ask
permission of those involved to save a log of the performance.
I found Fork's playful performance to be an example of vernacular art
because he pushed the rule against spoofing to the furthest extreme,
as he articulated it and thus, brought it into the foreground. A
speech community's articulation of its own aesthetics and ideals can
be at one and the same time: a) rules for proper behavior; b) markers
of experience and belonging; c) metaphor for poetic expression; d) and
targets for play and challenge within the community. The ability to
play with community rules calls for a keen understanding of the
underlying aesthetics to those rules. Similarly, those of us who study
the new electronic communities of cyberspace must be able to practice
the prevailing aesthetics and ideals of communication if we hope to
fully understand their creative expressions.
Conclusion
Four items from the MOO lexicon were examined in this paper: "spoof"
(unattributed communication), "spam" (excess of communication), "lurk"
(refusal to communicate), and "lag" (mechanical impedance of
communication). These terms are all expressions of negative
experiences and, as such, describe the most common disruptions to
normal communications within the MOO. They have exact technical
definitions which are understood by the experienced members of the
MOOs, and they are also all potential metaphors for social, cognitive
and emotional experiences.
There are no MOO terms for the reverse of each expression, but the
positives can be inferred: Ideal behavior in the MOOs is attributed,
brief, participatory and speedy communication. Attribution allows
others to respond to the appropriate source, brevity provides
opportunity to respond, participation is necessary for interaction to
occur, and speed increases the volume of what is communicated and thus
created. So we see that the special lexicon of the MOOs is an integral
part of its "virtual reality" and provides pointers to a newbie on how
best to behave.
If the following does not appear to you as a table, please click here.
Table 1. Lexicon meanings
TERMMEANING(NEGATIVE)OPPOSITE(POSITIVE)
spoofunattributed attributed spam excessive brief lurk
non-participatory participatory lag slow speedy
Terminology such as spoofing, spamming, lurking, and lagging are
insider's expressions for community ideals and taboos. When such
social concerns are articulated, either in positive or negative terms,
the terms and the concepts they represent become expressive resources
for those members of the community who fully understand their
implications. The character named "Fork" challenged the rules against
spoofing, but at the same time showed that he understood the reasons
for the rules, and turned those rules into creative resources for a
unique and impressive performance.
_________________________________________________________________
With thanks and appreciation to Roger Abrahams, Regina Bendix, Cati
Coe, Brenda Danet, David Jacobson, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Beth
Kolko, Diane Maluso, and my many MOO-buddies at MediaMOO and LambdaMOO
for support, encouragement, and intellectual challenges.
