In just two weeks, I’m looking forward to participating in a discussion at ScienceOnline ’10 with two of my favorite science bloggers: Janet and Isis. Our panel–as the title of this post suggests–is “Online Civility and Its (Muppethugging) Discontents.” As you can imagine, the session outta be good! Over the weekend, we chatted about the plan–and that’s where you come in…
Janet has posted the following terrific questions over at her place, and I encourage readers to read through them while thinking about the meaning of online ‘civility‘. We invite you to contribute with your perspective in comments below or at the ScienceOnline’10 wiki.
- Is there some special problem of online civility (vs. offline civility)?
- Is being civil online essentially the same as being civil in offline engagements (whether dialogues, debates, street fights, more unidirectional communications, or interactions not primarily aimed at communication)?
- Is being civil online fundamentally different than being civil in offline engagements? (If so, why? How?)
- Is being civil online different from being civil online, but only in degree? (Again, if so, why? How?)
