{"id":18092,"date":"2016-11-17T15:38:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T20:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/?p=18092"},"modified":"2020-10-08T15:59:37","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T19:59:37","slug":"visualizing-poster-activity-usenet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/","title":{"rendered":"Visualizing Poster Activity on Usenet"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second in series of blog posts<\/a> by 2016-17 Winnemore Digital Dissertation Fellow Avery Dame on the progress of his dissertation, \u201cTalk Amongst Yourselves: Community Formation in Transgender Counterpublic Discourse Online<\/a>,\u201d which explores the affective and structural meanings assigned to \u201ccommunity\u201d in English-language transgender discourse online.<\/i><\/p>\n

One of the biggest challenges of working with Usenet Collections is their sheer size. For my five newsgroup collections, the average message count is between roughly 50,000 to 100,000 per collection. (To place that in context to recent news stories, presidential candidate HIllary Clinton\u2019s private email server held <\/span>62,320 total emails<\/span><\/a>.) Though it\u2019s not too sizable in storage terms (all five collections add up to about 1 GB total), it\u2019s definitely a lot of data for a close discourse analysis. Complicating the process further is that many of the messages held in these collections also aren\u2019t relevant to my specific research questions. That\u2019s also a lot of information to hold in a single location, particularly as an archive. Unlike the <\/span>anonymous \u201cgenerous donor\u201d<\/span><\/a> who initially collected all of the various newsgroup messages, I\u2019ll be making deliberate, intentional choices regarding what to include, how to present the messages, and what information should be indexed. Given this, I\u2019ve moved to using the term \u201ccollections\u201d to describe the data as it is now.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also been slowing my pace a bit in order to think carefully about what the archive might look like. Recently, I\u2019ve focused my energy on spending a lot of time with the data, in order to get a better sense of how it should be structured, the technical challenges I might face, and what ethical questions I should consider. Part of this process has been doing a lot of scraping, counting, and visualizing, in order to put my numbers in (some) perspective. Now, these aren\u2019t perfect tools, but I have been able to identify the active posters, cross-posting habits, and a rough network of posts using \u201ccisgender\u201d and variants of the term.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve put <\/span>all of these visualizations up on my site<\/span><\/a>, with some description about their significance and my collection methodology (with links to the modules on <\/span>GitHub<\/span><\/a>). From these exercises, I\u2019ve learned that these newsgroups were similar to non-transgender newsgroups in poster activity, with a small handful of highly active posters who make up a sizable chunk of the messages collected. Users primarily posted to one or two newsgroups at a time, and there are some interesting differences in both what’s recorded in the collections and how users cross-posted. There\u2019s not a lot of crossposting between the two newsgroups with \u201ctransgendered\u201d in the name, alt.transgendered (AltT) and soc.support.transgendered (SST), but there is a lot of cross-posting between SST and alt.support.srs (SRS). In contrast, the two major crossdressing groups, alt.fashion.crossdressing (AFCD) and alt.support.crossdressing (ASCD) have almost equal patterns of single newsgroup posting and cross-posting between themselves. These differences raise interesting questions I hope to address in a close analysis using the archive, once it\u2019s launched in the next few weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cisgender<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I also wanted to spend a little more time talking about <\/span>my initial network analysis<\/span><\/a>, because I think it\u2019s indicative of some of complexities of working with Usenet data. One of my key research questions is how Usenet facilitated the spread of the term \u201ccisgender.\u201d As far as I\u2019ve found, the term or its variants don\u2019t appear in movement publications during the 1990s. However, it eventually became ubiquitous in transgender discourse. How could that be, if it wasn\u2019t in active use in print publications? This takes me to the internet, the other major (recorded) hub of transgender discussion at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The term\u2019s origins are unclear, and its corresponding Wikipedia (the unofficial arbiter of its history) reflects this lack of clarity. The page <\/span>did at one point cite<\/span><\/a> two Usenet users, Carl Bujis posting in soc.support.transgendered in 1996 and Dana Leland Defosse, posting in alt.transgendered in 1994, as separately originating the term.1<\/sup> However, <\/span>the validity of these claims were challenged<\/span><\/a> as not being from \u201creliable sources\u201d and subsequently removed. Usenet connections are made elsewhere as well: In the official Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition, <\/span>the earliest use example cited is from Usenet<\/span><\/a>. For my research, I\u2019m not particularly interested in finding a definitive origin point, but I am curious about what might have facilitated the sudden increase in use.<\/span><\/p>\n

This leads me back to Usenet. <\/span>As I noted in my post contextualizing Usenet<\/span><\/a>, part of why spam was such an issue was how (relatively) easy it was to post and cross-post to multiple groups. This meant posts could spread widely and possibly be seen by a sizeable audience. Curious about how widespread the term was in the collected I collected information on all posts (identified by their unique Message ID) that used the term and its variants (cisgendered, cis-gender, cis-gendered, and cis), and the posts referenced in the \u201cReferences\u201d header (or previous posts in the conversation).2<\/sup> The References header is by no means a perfect tool, though.<\/span> According to <\/span>the documentation<\/span><\/a>, the References header in Usenet messages was supposed to \u201callow messages to be grouped into conversations by the user interface program.\u201d However, programs were required to include only \u201ca reasonable number of backwards references\u201d if the list got too long. Thus, not all of a conversation was recorded in the header. Furthermore, some messages weren\u2019t collected at the poster\u2019s request, so their trace exists in a unique Message ID with no data.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, <\/span>the network I built<\/span><\/a> (visualized using the OpenOrd layout) gives you an idea of the amount, activity level, and connections between posts. Each node is a unique posting. Nodes are sized and colored according to their degree of connection to other nodes, and labeled using their Message ID. Posts with just a Message ID and no extra information (original\/reply, year, etc.) were not held in any of the collections.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does this show? Firstly, that the term appeared frequently on Usenet in several venues: ASCD and SST. I\u2019ve specifically chosen appeared instead of \u201cused\u201d because Usenet posters often quoted each other using big chunks of one another\u2019s text. So, a term could appear in many posts, but only in quotes and not by the individual poster. So the term gains visibility even if it isn\u2019t adopted by others. Furthermore, big numbers don\u2019t always equal long threads (as far as the collections show). While several posts sparked a high level of conversation (large nodes), most were short threads or single responses. Lastly, activity is date-limited: The vast majority of post activity occurs between 1996-2006\u2014right around when social media platforms like Myspace and Facebook really begin to take off. Most surprising to me, however, was the high incidence of posts in crossdressing groups. What little literature that exists on trans Usenet focuses on AltT and SST as the \u201cbig two\u201d of Usenet, but AFCD and ASCD were active and influential in their own right. In ASCD in particular cisgender and variants appear the most, even though the group isn\u2019t mentioned in the print archives as a major hub of discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n

In multiple ways, then, making this network challenged either popular received knowledge about \u201ccisgender\u201d or my own assumptions about what trans Usenet looked like. The numbers can\u2019t tell the whole story, though. Understanding how these posts connect to each other requires a close discourse analysis of individual posts and the connections I\u2019ve visualized here. Otherwise, it\u2019s just a bunch of nodes on a graph: attractive to look at, but not meaningful in any particular way. Instead, this kind of project requires meeting big data with a fine-grained attention for detail that attempts to get at the content of discussions, in order to give those \u201cbig data\u201d numbers meaning and context.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1<\/sup> My data collection actually raises questions about the received narrative for who \u201cfirst\u201d uses \u201ccisgender.\u201d In 1994, 5 months after Defosse posts, another user posts in the same newsgroup about \u201ccis-gendered, narrow-minded people,\u201d with no clarification as to what the term means.<\/p>\n

2<\/sup> Prior to collecting my data, I also checked each message\u2019s content against an automatically generated list of possible common misspellings. However, this process produced no hits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second in series of blog posts by 2016-17 Winnemore Digital Dissertation Fellow Avery Dame on the progress of his dissertation, \u201cTalk Amongst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71,77],"tags":[341,196],"yoast_head":"\nVisualizing Poster Activity on Usenet – Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Visualizing Poster Activity on Usenet – Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the second in series of blog posts by 2016-17 Winnemore Digital Dissertation Fellow Avery Dame on the progress of his dissertation, \u201cTalk Amongst […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/UMD.MITH\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-17T20:38:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-08T19:59:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/CisNet-980x648.png\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/\",\"name\":\"Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/CisNet-980x648.png\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/\",\"name\":\"Visualizing Poster Activity on Usenet – Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-11-17T20:38:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-08T19:59:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/bdf2761b3033df5885f8599ff263c521\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/visualizing-poster-activity-usenet\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/bdf2761b3033df5885f8599ff263c521\",\"name\":\"Avery Dame\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1c4cfc140bdaca00a24c585b5841aebe?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Avery Dame\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adame\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21052,"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18092\/revisions\/21052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mith.umd.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}