Visualizing Conversations

danah boyd

 

Based on a deep conversation between my me and my best friend, i diagrammed this image, representing the back and forth nature of the conversation, as we branched into each path and then returned and as we had a few interruptions. With equal strength and equal participation, the image looks like things are fairly even.

In particular, i was thinking that each statement by a participant swings the conversation in a direction, sometimes followed by the other person, but often partially swung back..

 

 

These two images are derived from thinking about the types of conversations present in soc.support.transgendered, following one thread within the conversation entitled"Poll: Sexual Orientation"

In addition to these two images, i marked up some of the important characteristics of the conversation:

Gloria2995
- doesn't get along with Monica
- participates in Atlanta Gender Explorations, Kindred Spirits NG
- used to "perform" het male, now Ids as het female
- ids as feminine, looking for a male, masculine counterpart
- has 2 children
- called bisexual by Monica

Monica F Helms
- has ongoing petty fights with Gloria; they used to date; says that Gloria says that their relationship never existed
- believes that there is a range from het to homo with everything in between being bi

Gwendolyn Ann Smith
- Community Host, Trans Gazebo; Board Member, GEA; Columnist, Bay Area Reporter; Webmistress, SCCatl; Webmistress, Gender.org
- ids as BI for simplicity, mostly attracted to female-bodied folk
- was raped by a man
- in LTR with a woman
- (makes cracks in her responses)

Diane Wilson
- attracted to women
- one of her fav movies: The Opposite of Sex
- http://www.firelily.com/goddess/

Bernadette
- was a married and monogamous male; still married to the same woman; still monogamous
- wife ids as straight and has a problem with transition
- in preop now; 1 year till postop
- has no sexual attraction to men

Renee
- attracted to hetero men
- still preop; on hormones
- younger than 30
- wants to adopt a child

Morgane
- started with no sexual desire, ended up BI but feels that's limiting; attracted to trans
- got kinky post transition
- refers to Boston women

Nicole Hamilton
- was a het male, doesn't know what she is now, attracted to het women
- in Boston area

dustgrl
- used to just date boys, recently dated girls (pointer to Johauna's website and pictures); now things she's BI
- never liked sex
- http://www.lightdreams.com/6

Heather Donahue
- attracted to boys all life; never thought she was gay; 15 years ago decided that she was BI; not sure any more
- had sex with 2 women, 1 that she is married to; had sex 10 times in her life

Tek / Theoni
- http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Foothills/7462

Stephe Thayer
- http://www.geocities.com/stephe_k
The important thing that i was trying to convey with this imagery is that the start of the conversation sets up the scope, the landscape of the conversation. Each participant, in theory, joins in the conversation, contributing based on their response to someone else's comments (the outline of a response is the color of that which they are responding to). Their level of contribution varies (the thickness of the arrow). Sometimes, in the case of Monica, a post is intended to destroy the conversation. Other times, as in the case of Gloria, a message is posted with little meaning, or as a way of knocking on the previous poster. This behavior sets up a feeling of interaction

The image on the right represents a similar conversation in comp.lang.c++ in a thread entitled "Summing hte elements of the columns of an array." There is no notable information about the individual participants.

Note that the beginner of the conversation also ended it by saying thanks, implying no more information was necessary or wanted.

In this thread, everyone had positive participation, and added quite a bit of information, including code...

With the same formation, this is a drawing of alt.fan.britney-spears in a thread entitled "Britney is nasty" This conversation was a lot of bashing.

The following has been derived about the individuals based on that conversation:

Osama Bin James
- mhm26x7 -- ARSCC-TOR(wdne) SP2; Cohort Cabal Member #6.9 (TINCC) , <8F2E9947Bthefezmeister@24.12.106.199>; http://www.petitmorte.net
- partially through decides to defend Britney

bucksbeat
- (can't spell - your vs you're)
- (implies male)
- thinks Britney is the bomb

Icebreaker
- married to a man for 35 years
- 5 children. 3 girls, 2 boys
- thinks Britney is a whore

Stanley Rosenthal
- http://stansqncrs.8m.com/

FreedomNad
In addition, i made the following sketch randomly thinking about conversations back and forth. I was trying to figure out how paths follow, how color can be thought of over time, how to think about branching elements of a conversation, etc... thinking about paths in general over time.