http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/stephaniec part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh Sun, 07 Apr 2013 19:05:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1 http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/stephaniec/2013/02/24/fishy-behaviour/ http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/stephaniec/2013/02/24/fishy-behaviour/#comments Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:19:00 +0000 Steph Carr http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/stephaniec/2013/02/24/fishy-behaviour/ I carry out task based lurking behaviour (Kozinet’s 2010 p.26) on many subjects – one of which is keeping tropical fish. I’m a beginner and I like to learn how to do things properly so I google many questions and that often leads to searching through fora to get hints and tips from ‘real people’ (Kozinet’s quotes p.27). What I find interesting is how the status of the *experts* is displayed. This example shows that the member offering help to the newbie is a five-star ‘Hero member’ – you couldn’t get a much more explicit clue to his helpfulness within the fishy world! We also see that he is a fairly established member of the community having contributed a fair number of posts (1696). In addition, under the line, he gives an impressive account of his own aquarium and its inhabitants. I believe that this signature etiquette is suggested so that participants in the forum can have enough information about a contributor to avoid asking basic questions; but it also lends gravitas to this member (the Juwel 180 is a serious bit of (expensive) kit). It appears that sethyr has established his postition of dominance using the symbols which Paccanella (in Kozinet p.24) discusses.

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