5. Results and analysis
5. Results and analysisIn order to establish the range of repair in email discussions, the categories identified by Hutchby and Wooffitt (see Section 2.2 above) were used. This section first discusses the findings of this analysis, and then goes on to consider what strategies are used by participants to deal with turns they consider to be inappropriate, and finally to discuss the phenomenon of metadiscussion.
In the email data there are a few occasions where a speaker carries out a self-initiated self-repair. There is no evidence of speakers self-correcting in the middle of a turn, but this is understandable: any self-correction in the middle of a written turn would probably take the form of deleting what had been written and replacing it with new text.
Problems with turn-taking are not common in email discussions because there can be no problems of interruptions or simultaneous speech in this type of discourse. When turn-taking errors do occur, they may be the result of a technical problem. Occasionally the accidental misuse of the email software results in the sending of a blank message, or the sending of a private message to all the members of the list. The former problem can be repaired by sending the message again, complete with the text; the latter problem cannot be undone, but may result in an apology. Both of these problems are identified by the sender of HR12 who has made two separate mistakes in two earlier messages, sending a private message to the whole list in HR10, and sending a message without any text in HR11:
Sorry for the confusion in trying to respond to this and to your other message about the print version of the bibliography. The latter was apparently sent out over the list when it should have been directed to you personally and this present one went out sans text on the first try. To those whose mailboxes I'm cluttering with my techno-ineptness, I sincerely apologize.
The above provides an explanation of the errors and occurs in the message which immediately follows the two problem messages (HR12 is sent only twelve minutes after HR11, and three hours after HR10). The repair takes place by sending the current message with the missing text, and apologising both for sending an empty message previously and for sending a private message to the list.
A similar problem occurs in PP41 which was sent without text, and is rectified in PP43, along with the comment:
My previous attempt having failed-I'll try again from work
This message is only two messages after the one with the error, but was sent 24 hours later and from a different email address.
The above errors are noticed by the senders and repaired explicitly. A similar error occurs in FT32, where the writer sends a message with no new text (only quoted text from a previous message), either sent by mistake before she added her own comments, or with her own comments accidentally deleted. However, in this case the sender does not appear to notice the problem and does not carry out any repair, at least not in the sample.
Because of the different turn-taking rules in email discussions, unlike conversation it is not necessary for each participant to listen to every turn. However, when a participant decides to contribute to a discussion which they have not been following, there is a potential for errors such as repeating what has already been said, or making an off-topic contribution. The sender of DX15 is aware of this danger and prefaces her contribution with an apology:
I agree. I haven't been following this thread so I may be coming in from the wrong angle and repeating things that have already been said - sorry.
Occasionally one participant will accuse another of not paying sufficient attention to a previous message - see BE23 and BE33 in Section 5.1.5 below.)
Another turn-taking trouble source is caused by cross-posting, when a participant sends the same message to more than one list. Recipients who are members of more than one of the lists to which the message has been sent will receive the same message more than once. Where cross-posting is considered necessary, it is often accompanied by an apology, as in DX17 which ends with:
(apologies to list members who are members of two lists since they would receive this message twice!)
The apology is more often placed at the start of the message, as in BE45:
** apologies for cross-postings **
Similar apologies for cross-posting are found in BE51, BE52, and BE53.
In addition to the above turn-taking problems, there are some self-initiated self-repairs in the data which address a variety of different troubles.
In WD41 the sender self-repairs in order to clarify an ambiguity that he has noticed in one of his previous messages, WD38, which was sent two hours earlier the same day. At the start of the repair message he quotes the relevant sentence from WD38, where it is not clear whether "119" is the total sample, the number who responded, or the number of respondents who asked for feedback.
When I said:
"They also say in huge numbers (119 in
sample) that FEEDBACK is what they crave!"
I should clarify:
"huge" was a bit of an exaggeration (I'm
excited, can't you tell!) and 119 was the total number of
returns out of c700 questionnaires sent out - most of these
119, however, cite feedback as a major priority.
In BE52 the sender self-repairs in order to correct a factual error in her previous message BE51, sent fifty minutes earlier, in which she gave contact details for a conference. She has identified a mistake in this information, and now sends a new telephone number with the comment:
Apologies for the wrong dialling code.
This repair occurs in the adjacent message and is apparently self-initiated, but it is possible that it was initiated by a private message from another participant.
In DX39 the sender self-repairs to correct a rather thoughtless and insensitive remark made in DX38. In DX38 he envisioned a technological future in which dyslexics would have equality of opportunity and as a result would outshine their peers, adding that only poets and blind people would be unable to cope. Sixty-six minutes later in adjacent message DX39, he makes a repair:
>Blind people might find it a bit tough also.<
Before you respond to my insensitive remark above, blind people will obviously be increasingly empowered by technology in the future. If there are any visually blind members amongst this group, I apologise.
In the above examples, the sender overtly signals the repair. In HR23 there is a rare instance of a sender making an unannounced repair. In HR21 the sender responds to an offer of a bibliography from another participant. However, the other participant had specifically said that the bibliography was in printed form and that anyone requesting it should send him their postal address, which the sender of HR21 omits. In HR23, she simply quotes her previous message and adds the address without any reference to the omission. (This takes place only two messages later, but after a time delay of two days).
Although the above repairs all appear to be self-initiated, it is not possible to be certain that this is the case: it is conceivable that in some of these instances another person could have sent a private communication to initiate the repair.
The example below, however, is a clear example of self-initiated repair by the original speaker, following a turn by the second speaker which the original speaker perceives as a misunderstanding: WD27 original message, talking about student writers:
for them, writing is not -- has never been -- an important way to communicate anything. It's mostly a way of laying yourself open to humiliation.
WD32 interpretation:
It is not fair to equate correction with humiliation.
WD33 clarification by original speaker:
BLOCKQUOTE>I didn't equate correction with humiliation, my students have.
Another self-initiated self-repair to counter a misunderstanding is found in PP13:
I wasn't intending to write any more about the issue, but a couple of the more recent emails appear to be working on the assumption that I in some way endorse CRAMS (which I do not)...
As Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks (1977) have shown, there is a marked preference for self-repair, and Hutchby and Wooffitt offer an explanation:
Explicit other-repair in this manner can be a sensitive issue: to correct another person is to draw attention to and topicalize an error or 'lapse in performance' on their part. This could be interpreted as a slight, a 'put-down' or might even be cited as evidence of deliberate rudeness, which in turn may undermine the harmony or accord of the exchange. (Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.68))
So when another speaker wishes to initiate a repair in conversation, this often takes the form of a prompt to the original speaker which leads to self-repair, rather than an other-produced correction. A prompt of this type is known as a "next-turn repair initiator (NTRI)" (Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.62)). The element that is being repaired can itself be the first or second part of a pair, and is followed by a repair pair, of the form (prompt + repair). In the data, NTRIs mostly take the form of requests for clarification or for correction, for example, FT2:
Best of luck, Jo, on your educational adventure! When you say "leaving Christianity" do you mean for other religions (i.e. Judaism, Hinduism, Krishna, others) or leaving all realigions? [sic] I, too am curious about this phenomenon and would be interested in what you find and/or your research.
Here the sender seeks clarification of an element from a previous message (FT1) and subsequently receives it (in FT3), i.e. the trouble source and repair sequence take place in three adjacent messages. This NTRI is a request for clarification which shows the sender's interest in the topic and is expressed in a non-threatening manner.
Here the sender seeks clarification of an element from a previous message (FT1) and subsequently receives it (in FT3), i.e. the trouble source and repair sequence take place in three adjacent messages. This NTRI is a request for clarification which shows the sender's interest in the topic and is expressed in a non-threatening manner.
Another repair sequence, of the conventional "Do you mean" type, takes place in FT34 and FT40. The trouble source is located in FT31 where the original sender mentioned work by "Carol Myer". In FT34 there is an NTRI which is a request for clarification:
Hey, thanks for the help. Do you mean Carol Meyers?
This is mitigated somewhat by the thanks at the start of the message, and receives a response realising the repair in FT40:
Yes, I heard her speak a few years ago...
Another NTRI asking about the meaning of a trouble source is found in WD29. Message WD28 mentions a "script moderator", and the sender of WD29 asks:
What's a script moderator?
The repair is carried out four and a half hours later in WD34 where the writer offers a synonym and an explanation of the term:
A script moderator is sometimes called a 'second marker'. It's someone who does a quality assurance check on your work by looking at ramdom [sic] samples of essays you have marked...
There are three occurrences in our data of a report of an incorrect URL with subsequent correction. (URLs often include complicated sequences of letters, numbers and symbols, and are prone to typing errors.) Each of these are realised by repair pairs, with the trouble source (the incorrect URL) identified by an NTRI which is followed by a repair carried out by the original speaker. For example in WD46 (NTRI) the speaker makes an unmitigated report of the problem:
Roy, when I tried this URL, I got a 404 - File Not Found error.
This is repaired by the original speaker in WD47:
Thanks for the feedback, Marcy, and apologies to listmembers.
The correct URL is as follows:
http://www.mantex.demon.co.uk/index.htm
[because it's a framed site]
Look under BOOKS on the homepage
There are two similar cases, NTRI in FT29 with a correction in FT30, and NTRI in FT57 with a correction in FT58 (all three NTRIs are followed by the repair in the adjacent turn).
Another NTRI relating to the medium of the interaction is produced in HR42 by list owner:
Can I just remind people not to send anything but plain text messages to the list.
I know this can be tedious with all the new mail clients which send messages in HTML and handle attachments pretty seamlessly but please remember, not every one uses these and so such messages can be unreadable to some members of the list.
Thanks
This relates to previous message, HR41, which had been sent in HTML format. This NTRI is mitigated by explanation and thanks, and by addressing it to "people" rather than the individual participant whose error it was. Repair is carried out in HR44 where sender sends his message again, this time in plain text format.
WD7 also includes something which looks like an NTRI, closely resembling the example given by Sacks et al (1974, p.723) "Who me?":
Me? I couldn't refrain from using the red pen, me!
This question is imitating conversation, as if the participant had been selected as next speaker and wanted to check that she was the one being addressed. But she has not been selected in this way, and if she was really unsure there would have been no need for her to ask a question - if she genuinely wanted to find out whether she had been selected, she could simply re-read the previous message. Moreover, she does not wait for a response as she would if this were a genuine question in spoken conversation. The fact that she does not wait for a response, and that in fact no repair is provided, support the interpretation that this does not function as an NTRI. The writer is achieving a colloquial effect. She is also repeating the word "me", the discussion item from the previous message.
Self-initiated other repair, in which the speaker prompts the listener(s) to do a repair, is rare in the email data. There is one example, in HR14, where the writer signals with a question mark that she is unsure about the word she is using and thus makes a self-initiated prompt for other-repair:
Hi, my name is Regina and for my dissertation I'm working on the subject how it could be possible to improve the image of health food retail.
My thesis contents that it could be very helpful to use the realisations of gelatology(?), especially for the three fields:
1.communication with customers
2.communication with the staff
3.public relations.
Three subsequent messages address this prompt directly. HR16 responds confirming that the original writer has used the word incorrectly, but does not provide a repair:
Gelatology? Would that be the study of how fruit desserts come together when cooled? I'm a professor of gerontology, and our department sometimes gets mail for the department of gynecology, or even genealogy, but I've yet to see much on gelatology.
The repair is provided in HR17:
The word is gelotology- the study of humor
and elaborated in HR19:
For those interested, gelotology comes from the Classical Greek word for laughter, gelos. The e is an eta, not an epsilon, so the etymologically correct pronunciation is with "gee" in the first syllable, not the vowel in "jell". So far as I know, this word was suggested many years ago by Edith Trager Johnson...
The above sequence is remarkable in that four participants collaborate to produce the correct word.
Other-initiated other-repair identifies and repairs a trouble source "in the form of an explicit correction" (Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.63)). It is therefore potentially more face-threatening than other types of repair.
Message WD57 from Mark has more than one trouble source:
The "academic writing is not reader directed" argument is based on a falacious [sic] assumption that out there there is a "general reader" who needs to be apeased [sic] each time I produce text. I don't think he or she exists, but even if they did I wouldn't give them my stuff to read.
This paragraph receives two other-initiated other-repairs in the adjacent message WD58, from Russ:
This isn't the assumption I was making. I don't think that reader exists, either. But I do think the choice of the word "appeased" is significant. Whatever reader I'm imagining, I don't think of what I'm doing as "appeasing" her . . . unless she happens to be a blind reviewer for an academic journal, maybe.
First, Russ corrects a view Mark attributes to those who, like Russ, oppose Mark in this argument ("This isn't the assumption I was making"). However, this is not a self-repair because Russ has made only one previous contribution to this thread, WD56, which is a very brief agreement with a previous message, WD55. Russ is therefore doing an other-initiated other-repair on Mark's stereotype of his opponents' positions. Second, Russ corrects the spelling of the word "appeased". He puts this in quotation marks, as it is a word used in WD57, but with the spelling corrected. He does not explicitly mention the error, but he reinforces his repair by using the form "appeasing" in the next sentence, also in quotation marks, and also spelt correctly. This resembles the example provided by Hutchby and Wooffitt in which a caller to a British Airways information service mispronounces Bordeaux, and the agent simply corrects the pronunciation in the next turn:
C: could you give me an ETA please on BA three six five from bordecks? (0.4)
A: three six five from bordoh? (.) yeah (Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.68))
Elements which appear to be repair initiations, both self- and other-, can be used for purposes other than repair, as we find in an extended flaming sequence in Business Ethics. Unmitigated other-initiated repair can appear hostile, and perhaps it is not surprising that the long flaming exchange in Business Ethics has several examples of this. These include a request for clarification in BE30 which is almost certainly ironic. David L asks:
Tim, did I miss something?
Although Tim responds in the adjacent message, BE31, he does not carry out a repair, confirming that he too did not interpret this as a genuine NTRI requesting clarification.
In BE40 there is a prototypical NTRI "Huh?" as in the example from ten Have (1999, p.116) above:
Huh? Jon makes a comment worthy of a 13-year old and I'm to feel shame? And this from somebody who collects far more tax money (as a professor and a businessman) than I do? Please help me to understand.
Although the "Huh?" is followed by the plea, "Please help me to understand", it is again not a genuine NTRI and it receives no repair, indeed no response.
There are also apparent self-initiated self-repairs in which the original speaker says the second speaker has misinterpreted something. Thus in the original message, BE6, Jon gives an assessment of Tim's website:
With all due respect about your intentions, Timothy, your website mentioned below reads like a compendium of some of the worst cliches of the myths of the 'socially responsible' business fiasco. It seems you have a difficult time distinguishing between social MARKETING and corporate social responsibility.
I would hope that this list is more sophisticated than just a place for New Age corporate bashing. Frankly, the two citations you give are of that genre...
In BE7, Tim refers to this as a "vitriolic response", but Jon treats this as a misinterpretation, and carries out an apparent self-initiated self-repair in BE9:
That's funny. My words were rather measured…
However, BE6 was clearly rather "vitriolic", so Jon is doing something other than repair here - perhaps suggesting that in fact he was being more restrained than he might have been, and thus emphasising his attack.
Similarly, in BE21 John comes into the fray with comments such as:
I have been following Tim's rather inconsiderate and intemperate exchange with Jon and David, and had decided that there was more emotion than fact in Tim's posts...
It is sad that some academics have bought into the shallow and largely unfounded perspective that Tim and other business-bashers continue to broadcast to anyone who is niave [sic] enough to listen...
Jon and David, I applaud your position and persistence, but I suspect that Tim isn't listening.
In BE23 Tim describes the content of John's message as "emotional attacks", but John frames this as a misunderstanding in an apparent self-initiated self-repair in the following turn, BE24:
Tim, if I were to attack you "emotionally" I would certainly use words other than "inconsiderate" and "intemperate."
There are suggestions from one participant that another participant has not been reading the contributions (contrast the genuine repair on this theme in Section 5.1.1 above). In BE23 Timothy writes:
Jeez Professor, at least I can be reasonably sure that Jon actually READS my posts! Why not take a look through them again and reconsider your emotional attacks....
Similarly in BE33 David says:
Tim, read the rest of that message.
These are apparently NTRIs prompting the other speaker to repair a turn-taking error and attend to the content of previous turns. However, in the context of flaming they do not seem to be genuine NTRIs, and this is confirmed by the fact that no repair actually takes place.
Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.66) demonstrate the importance of carrying out a repair "in close proximity to the trouble source" and cite an example where failure to repair a misunderstanding led to disagreement followed by serious hostility. In general, despite the "disrupted turn adjacency" (Herring (1999, p.3), italics in the original) the email repairs do occur very close to the trouble source - a surprising number actually occur in the adjacent turn, which is difficult to achieve in an email discussion.
While trouble sources in spoken conversation are commonly items such as interruptions and simultaneous speech, and attempts to produce an appropriate lexical item or construction, in the email discussion data by far the most common sources of trouble are turns which a participant perceives to be inappropriate in tone or content, especially messages which are excessively hostile, or messages whose content is considered not relevant to the list. However, as Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.59) note, the repair system can be used to deal with a range of trouble sources, and "repair operations may be motivated by interactional and interpersonal considerations" (Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998, p.60)) as well as error correction. In spoken conversation, instances of inappropriate tone or content can be handled like any other repair (e.g. self-initiated self-repair as in the repair of a swear word, or bigoted statement, etc.; or other-initiated self-repair as in the hypothetical, "You can't say things like that in here" - "Oops, sorry, [rewording]"). Alternatively, instances of inappropriate tone or content can be handled outside the turn-taking system (e.g. the offended party walks out, slaps the speaker's face, etc.).
In email discussions there are several courses of action open to a participant who finds a message inappropriate in some way. Again, they can be handled either inside or outside the turn-taking system, though the options available outside the turn-taking system are different from those available to co-present participants.
The Guidelines on the JISCmail web site give explicit directions about how to deal with inappropriate messages:
2.4 If someone sends a message that seems to be in questionable taste or of dubious relevance to the list, please do NOT send a complaint or comment to the whole list. Contact the list owner instead.
And if junk mail or hate mail should ever be sent to the list, don't reply and don't send a message to the list. Contact the list owner or the JISCmail helpline, and that person will be removed. (JISCmail 2001)
In some cases participants may indeed contact the list owner about inappropriate messages, but we cannot know this because such contact with the list owner would be sent privately.
Two other strategies are readily available, but yet not apparent to the observer. Probably the most common is for participants simply to delete the offending message. Participants can choose to delete the message they are currently reading; alternatively, because the subject headings and senders' names are displayed on the contents of the mailbox they can delete without reading messages on a particular topic or from a particular participant. We cannot observe this happening, but there is a reference to it in PP3 where, in response to a previous complaint the speaker suggests:
Try using the delete key on my mails next time prior to opening them.
A more drastic response is to leave the discussion altogether and unsubscribe from the mailing list. This is done by sending a message directly to the software, with the result that if a participant carries out this operation correctly the other participants will not be aware that it has happened. Thus although unsubscribing is the virtual equivalent to walking away from a spoken discussion, it has less impact on the remaining participants than similar action in a face-to-face discussion We hear of participants leaving the list only when they mistakenly send their leaving message to participants rather than to the software, or when they choose to send a final message to the list. This last method is occasionally used by dissatisfied participants to express their objections and make the other participants aware that they are leaving, for example after the long and hostile flaming sequence in Business Ethics, there is in BE39 a complaint followed by:
I, for one, have no desire to be a party to the on-going useless debate. I therefore wish to UNSUBSCRIBE from this list. Thank you.
There is also a reference to this strategy when after an argument one participant sarcastically suggests to another in BE18:
This is a voluntary group, please feel free to quit the discussion at any time...
When they encounter an inappropriate message, participants may not wish to leave the list, but may instead wish to make their objections known in order to try to modify an unsatisfactory discussion and bring about a repair. Initiating a repair is in keeping with the interactional nature and local management of email discussions, and so the JISCmail Guidelines on this matter are frequently ignored and there are numerous instances of repair initiations relating to inappropriate tone or content in the data.
The following example illustrates an objection to content. HR47 is a response to a petition for women's rights in Afghanistan which was sent to the Humour Research list. Here the participant roundly condemns the content of a message which was entirely unrelated to the purpose of the list:
Political notices of any kind are absolutely inappropriate on this list.
This gets no response in the data, but the offending message was a one-off message (a petition) and not the start of a debate. The sender of the offending message sends no more messages, but it is likely that this would have been the case in any event, so it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of this repair.
An irrelevant message on the Probation Practice list, PP30 Invest small - Reap LARGE, received no response at all in the data, and may therefore have been dealt with as the Guidelines suggest.
The two offending messages above are clearly irrelevant to the purpose of the lists as set out on the web site. On other occasions, a participant might object to a message where the content does seem to be relevant, but seems to be in some way inadequate, as in BE9:
This is such knee-jerk gibberish that it is a challenge to respond.
Particularly frequent are complaints about messages whose content is in some way relevant to the list, but whose tone is not, in the opinion of the complainant, quite appropriate. A plentiful source of comments about the tone of messages is the flaming exchange in the Business Ethics list. Here there are complaints, both from participants engaged in the flaming who object to the tone of remarks from other participants in the flaming, and from participants not engaged in the flaming who attempt to initiate a repair. The following two complaints come from the flamers themselves:
BE26:
Seriously, I'm all for ending the personal attacks (and the patronizing comments like that one) and calmly debating the issues, as I've said from the beginning....
BE36:
Now Jon, that's immature and uncalled for. Is that what you call "calm and reasoned" debate? If you're unwilling or unable to respond to my specific points, I'd be happy to conclude our discussion. Let me know.
It is possible for a speaker to refuse NTRIs or other-repair, although no studies have been found which discuss this. In conversation it could take the form of, for example, the second speaker questioning the first speaker's word or usage and the first speaker affirming that their choice was correct. There are refusals to repair in the Business Ethics flaming sequence, as in the three exchanges below. The first two are made by the flaming participants. An NTRI occurs in BE14:
Let's get beyond the cheap sarcasm, OK?
This is followed by a response in BE18 which is a refusal to repair:
There is nothing cheap about my sarcasm.
Another NTRI is found in BE20:
You mentioned in one of your silly posts...
The response in BE22 is a refusal to repair together with a counter attack:
I hate to see our debate deteriorate even further. However, you're continuing to put absurd words in my mouth ("corporations are evil", "the Body Shop is my hero") and continuing the ad hominem attacks you apparently deplore ("mindless", "silly"). From my perspective, I've agreed with you on several points and tried to be as open-minded and even-keeled as possible. I prefer "debate" rather than "trading attacks back and forth". I can only ignore your overreactions and try to reply as best I can to your unprovoked personal attacks.
Instead of calling me "stupid", why not provide information to counter the avalanche of evidence implicating Shell in kickbacks to the corrupt Nigerian government? ...
I really expect better of an "Emmy award-winning journalist", and I hope we can continue our debate in a more calm and reasoned manner.
In BE27 a participant who has not been involved in the flaming objects to the tone of preceding messages and refers to the purpose of the list in an attempt to put an end to the series of abusive messages:
In any forum which purports to examine the nature of ethics applied to business surely there is no room for personal vituperation.
This participant goes on to recommend what he sees as a more appropriate form of contribution:
bandying expletives serves no useful purope [sic] except to indicate smallmindedness and pique. Lets hear sensible debate leavened with humour.
It seems likely that this is a genuine attempt to bring about a repair, but it is unsuccessful. The response to this message (BE29) makes reference to the nature of the list and refuses to repair, calling on the right to freedom of speech:
Some good thoughts. However, one might ask who determines the rules of debate in a free & open forum such as this? You, I, someone in the UK who provides the server?
Also, I am reminded of an ole' saying that goes something like this: I may not agree with what you say (or how you say it) however, I will defend to the death your right to say it (or how you say it). I might add: and I am just as free to stop listening anytime I find it disagreeable. Perhaps I have been around too long but I find this to be a rather rough and tumble world (especially in the academic area) and am used to worse---just don't use them cuss words (see I am trying to set a rule).
There is a fine distinction between the (unsuccessful) NTRI found in BE27 above, where the participant objects to the tone of the discussion in an attempt to bring about a repair, and dissatisfaction which takes the form of a complaint, as in BE39, below, from another participant who is alienated by the flaming sequence:
When I first subscribed to this list, I did so with the impression that I would be learning something about business and ethics and the like. Instead, this seems to be a list for immature, vitriolic, sarcastic diatribes and snipes between a few people who purport to be academics!
The writer of BE39 then demonstrates that this is not an attempt to bring about a repair by requesting an unsubscribe from the list. The above are individual comments about tone or content. Such comments can themselves provoke responses and this can very easily lead to discussion about the purpose of the list itself (see Section 5.3 below). In a context where participants are ready to discuss both the appropriateness of individual messages and the purpose of the list, it is not surprising that some participants are sensitive to the reactions that their own contributions might generate, for example, the writer of WD27 anticipates a critical response:
I'm going to be told I'm being rude here
and the writer of BE9 expects other list members to grow "weary" of the personal exchange.
The awareness of other participants' reactions and the knowledge that these can become quite heated might deter some list members from contributing, and there is evidence in the data that this is happening. Two participants from Probation Practice, discussing why people lurk rather than participate, express the anxiety they themselves feel about the reception of their messages. The first is found in PP26:
I can only speak for myself - I'm a bit nervous about making a fool of myself by saying something/stating an opinion which will be read by lots of people I don't know and who might respond with dismissive comments.
The second is a response to PP26 in PP28:
I agree about being nervous about people openly disagreeing with something I may say... I think that's only natural especially when some people are far from polite when expressing their opinions, which I believe is a nasty side effect of mailing lists, i.e. you can say anything without having to "face" your 'opponent'.
The final method of dealing with inappropriate tone or content is for the list owner to take action. Although messages can be vetted by the list owner before distribution, all of the data in this study are from unmoderated lists, and are therefore not subject to screening. List owners on unmoderated lists have two courses of action available. Firstly, they can, like other participants, state their view on the tone or content of messages, as in the following message, BE43, from the list owner of Business Ethics after a long and vitriolic exchange between a small number of participants. This is a similar NTRI to HR44 above:
May I ask please to use this list for the purposes mentioned in its web-site? Several members have left the list because of the personal content of some personal messages that should have been privately exchanged by the members, if they were at to be communicated.
May I ask the members to think of the relevance of their messages to this list before they share them with other members?
At issue is the long flaming exchange which has taken place on the Business Ethics list. However, in BE41, six days before BE43 was sent, Timothy, one of the main perpetrators of the flaming, called for an end to it. For the six days preceding the list owner's message there had been no further messages in the flaming exchange. Previously, there had been several messages a day, and the whole exchange lasted for only eight days. Therefore, it is unlikely that the list owner's message had any part in ending the exchange. It was not sent close to the source of the trouble, and by the time it was sent, it had become irrelevant.
Secondly, list owners can remove offending participants from the list. This action would be taken as a last resort, and would not be apparent to other participants unless specific mention of it was made by the list owner. There is no mention of this happening in the data.
From the above, it is clear that there are several options available to participants in email discussions who believe that the tone or content of a message is inappropriate. The process is, however, somewhat cumbersome. It is difficult to make a light objection early in the process, both because the objection has to take place in writing and because each email message usually takes the discourse further than a turn in face-to-face conversation (see Harrison (1998, p.12) for a discussion of how the accumulation of primary acts within individual turns in email discourse can lead to flaming).
Comments about the tone and content of messages may occur in one-off comments like those discussed above. However, an individual comment about the inappropriate tone or content of a message may in itself spark a whole metadiscussion about what is appropriate, and this may extend into a metadiscussion about the purpose of the list itself. An extended example of a metadiscussion is found in Probation Practice, Topic T2. The metadiscussion begins like a conventional repair with a specific trouble source in a single utterance, PP1 from Mark, which is followed by an NTRI in PP2 from Stephen. The NTRI is an extended objection to the previous message (much longer than would be normal in spoken conversation). It is followed by a refusal to repair in PP3, and this in turn is followed by a discussion among several list members about whether the list should confine itself to "scholarly" discussion, as Stephen argues in PP2.
Stephen's initial objection in PP2 to the "quality" of Mark's message leads to a metadiscussion, setting up two interlinked threads, the original topic, T1, and the topic about the appropriateness of that topic, T2. Some messages deal with just T1, some with just T2, and some with both. The only fully developed metadiscussion in our data is this sequence from Probation Practice, but it has been recognised elsewhere as a phenomenon in relation to email discussions: Kolb (1996, p.17-18) describes a metadiscussion on an email discussion list about the topics on the list, also a "meta-metadiscussion (about the rules for deciding the topics)" and a "meta-meta-metadiscussion (about the process for deciding the rules about deciding the topics to discuss)." The Probation Practice sequence begins when Stephen objects to the tone and content of Mark's messages, an objection which is sparked off by Mark's message in PP1. Stephen supports his argument by referring to the list information on the web site:
I am writing about the quality of the contributions posted to this list by one of its members (Mark [lastname]) which I feel are starting to get get beyond a joke. Let me start my email with a statement (taken from the masthead of the probation-practice web page) of the purposes of this list.
"This list is dedicated to the exploration of the role of the probation service within the criminal justice system. It acts as a forum for the exchange of ideas, research, training and practice developments and will function as a network for those academics working in the field of probation practice." ...
Whilst criticism of and reflection upon the workings of institutions such as the HO is to be encouraged (or at least not discouraged), it has to be fair, well reasoned and 'scholarly' in nature. Most of what I have read lately from Mark appears to fall far short of this...
Stephen objects to Mark's message, which he sees as unsubstantiated "gossip". This leads to a flurry of support for Mark, for example, in PP7:
I don't think I agree with Stephen [lastname]'s view about the appropriate form of contributions to the list. There is a place for reasoned argument (although I am not sanguine that it has much effect - decisions don't often seem to be taken or changed on the basis of reason ) and I wouldn't support personal abuse of other list members. But is there really anything wrong with using the list to sound off a bit about probation issues sometimes?
One participant uses the original citation from the web site to back up his support for Mark in PP9:
I appreciate Stephen [lastname]'s view, but if our list is "dedicated to the exploration of the role of the probation service within the criminal justice system", while acting "as a forum for the exchange of ideas, research, training and practice development", then Mark [lastname] is doing a lot to stimulate this process. Plus, his disarmingly frank dissection of events, notably devoid of spin, has certainly made me laugh.
This reference to the list information on the web site is unusual but shows that at least some of the participants are aware of the material on the site. Comments on the purpose of the list range from an account of how one participant uses the discussion in PP14:
the forum so far has been useful to keep me in touch with what is going on... The forum is also useful for checking out information...
to a firm endorsement of Mark's message in PP10:
Mark [lastname]'s email on CRAMS was forwarded to me by a colleague and has led me to join the probation practice mail-list. I believe his forthright comments are entirely appropriate...
while other participants are eager to shape the discussion in ways that seem appropriate to them e.g. PP12:
...In the meantime I would hope that this forum will continue be used 'mindfully' as a place where not only measured comment about empirical research but also critical discussion of the future of the probation service and its current crises can be debated. Criticism after all is central to 'the growth of knowledge' and debate without a degree of exaggerated comment is very dull indeed!
Participants who want to raise the academic standards of the discussion can be found in, for example, PP7 where the participant comments on the absence of academic debates on Probation Practice, and in PP13 below where the participant is seeking a higher standard of discussion:
I simply feel that a discussion group such as this (to which anyone in the world can potentially gain access) should try to maintain the highest of scholarly debates (which in my opinion does not include discussing "versions" of work or making public proncements [sic] about legal disputes between other parties).
In contrast, other participants, like the writer of PP14, do not want academic discussion of this type:
I would be very disappointed if the contributers [sic] to the forum were not forthright and practical in their comments as Mark [lastname] has been. I do not want the forum to 'maintain the highest level of scholarly debate' as this would be difficult for me to relate to my work and would probably inhibit the free flow of opinions and ideas that can be the substance of intelligent debate about practice developments.
Some participants are aware that there is advice about netiquette on the web-site, for example in PP15 the list owner refers to the recent discussion and comments:
I would not want to encourage flaming but have always taken the view that we ought to be able to conduct ourselves without the need for me to moderate... For those wishing to see the National Standards on this matter Etiquette Rules are on the mailbase web-site.
Although this metadiscussion began with a specific trouble source in a single utterance (PP1), this metadiscussion does not conform to the neat and immediate forms of repair discussed in CA publications. Metadiscussions are facilitated by email in that the written medium is enabling participants to review what has been said, and to reflect on and discuss it.
