From: Gail Barnes Subject: FROM NEWBIE TO NETHOOD IN FIVE NOT-SO-EASY STEPS (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list NETDYNAM FROM NEWBIE TO NETHOOD IN FIVE NOT-SO-EASY STEPS By Jim Hursey With the Greater Columbus Freenet now up and running and the on-ramps to the information superhighway clogged with newbies, allow one sojourner into cyberspace who survived the journey to outline for those just getting started the phases that one can expect to go through, from first introduction to the net, to the final achievement, by some, of mature nethood. Not all netters will reach the final zenith of phase five. Some may get stuck in a phase for much longer periods. Some may even stagnate in a phase and never get out. Some brilliant few may even race through them all in just days. But ultimately, eventually, for those who make it, the mature user will pass through all phases and settle finally into phase five. 1. Learning period. Average duration: a week or two. During this phase you are just trying to learn what the net is all about, how to log on and off, the very basic commands, probably some elementary Unix. You will read Kehoe's book, try to pick up some lore, understand basic netiquette. You are determined to learn whatever it takes, you are anxious to find out what is there. At this point you are the totally clueless looking for a clue. 2. Initiation and intimidation. Duration: a month or so While still a newbie, you have gotten past the first hurdles, learned the basics and are finally online. But there is so much out there that it is overwhelming. You will probaly start by looking at the Usenet newsgroups, although you are too intimidated even to attempt a post. What should I say? What if I dont get through? What if I get laughed at, ridiculed (the net meaning for the word "flame" has not yet entered your vocabulary)? Finally you make your first post, a timid "This is a test" message. You are amazed, when you check the group, to find your post, with others, for all to see. There's your name, your e-mail address, the very sentence you wrote. You are learning. You start looking at more groups, concentrating at first on non- professional topics you know something about but afraid, as yet, to get into the subjects close to your own area of expertise. What if everyone there is more expert than you? So rec.travel seems like a good, safe one, you've done a little travelling. You read the posts for several days, "lurking," a new word you have learned, until someone asks a question that you are positive you can answer. You post the reply and see it pop up. You get a reply and thank you via e-mail. Other posters answer the same question. Their answers are similar, generally no better than yours. People actually listen to you, read your posts. You are communicating on the Internet! You start lurking in other groups, posting more, answering questions. You ask a question yourself, get many answers. You start looking at the technical groups. But you are careful. You don't want to get flamed. You discover Gopher and Archie and take a few careful steps into Gopherspace, finding endless warehouses of data to which there are few guides. It is a vast unexplored country, so you don't wander far. 3. Enthusiasm: Perhaps 4 to 6 months You have graduated from intimidation to enthusiasm. Soon you are subscribing to 30 or 40 newsgroups, trying to read them all, posting frequently, spending hours, whole days on the net. You get into flame-fests, arguments, discussions. You discover mailing lists, subscribe to one, then another and another. Soon you are getting a hundred e-mails a day from people all over the world, trying to answer them all and still keep up with the newsgroups. You wander further in Gopherspace, explore with Archie, discover Mosaic and hypertext, which give you a clear and easy-to- traverse window into the entire World Wide Web. You look at art exhibits in Moscow, photo exhibits of medieval architecture in Toronto, electronic journals of criticism, fiction, poetry. You are in net heaven. You become more knowledgeable. You devise a clever sig, smileys, perhaps even become a bit of a net personality. You have reached, you think, the ultimate state of online bliss. But you also begin to discover the downside. You find yourself getting very little else done. If you are logging on through an employer, you might find work piling up, perhaps your boss frowning; if through a university, you find term papers due and undone; if through a commercial provider, you find your bill skyrocketing. Neglected, your significant other may start looking elsewhere for companionship. 4. Weariness and waning enthusiasm. Duration: another 2 or 3 months It finally begins to dawn on you how much time you are spending on the net, much of it talking, via e-mail, at great length, with perfect strangers on the other side of the world, about esoteric topics in which you had never before had the slightest interest. You find yourself reading, even joining, numerous, bickering arguments that seem to go on forever, never resolved, nit-picking of unbelievable picayunity; or reading electronic journals that are amateurish and dull compared to your daily paper or almost any magazine you could pick up in the library or on the newstand; or reading uncomfortably on a screen a book or article which you could as easily be reading in book form in a lounge by the pool. Why am I doing this? you say. Just because it is there, because it is possible? Is this really how I want to spend all of this time? You find yourself skipping over more and more of your subscribed newsgroups. Eventually you may find that the only one you look at every day is rec.humor.funny, perhaps a handful of others a couple of times a week. Even the serious groups seem less attractive. You seem to find less useful information, and are getting tired of answering other people's questions. What was once an ego trip is becoming a lot like work. The mailing lists, too, start to pall, the discussions seem less important. You post less often to this list, then that one, eventually unsubscribe until you are down to the one or two lists. These you will keep as you move into phase five. Even the riches of the Web or Gopherspace become less interesting as you find yourself spending more time looking for something to look at than in actually looking at something. 5. Final net maturity. Duration: years. You subscribe regularly to only a small handful of groups, although you check from time to time to see what new has been added. You keep the two or three mailing lists where you have met enjoyable people or where you can find pertinent professional or technical discussion. You still occasionally surf around, but ultimately you are spending much less time on the net, which time tends to be "quality." You use the net mostly for business and professional contacts, and you may occasionally help others through the labyrinth, advise then on netiquette. You might, if your interests and skills lean that way, become a bit of a net guru. But it finally becomes clear that, after all, there are other things besides the net: that just settling down with a good book, or a real printed magazine, or just getting away from the screen, having a conversation with "real" people, can, after all, still be a good way to spend time. The net has become, finally, what you had hoped, but what you did not fully understand in your early ignorance, and what you lost sight of in your later enthusiasm: a valuable communication tool, a research aid and maybe even occasionally a fun toy; and, while a serious and integral part of your personal and professional life, not your entire life. Copyright 1994, The Dispatch Printing Company. ISSN 1074-097X