Glossary of Terms

A glossary is an alphabetized collection of specialized terms with their meanings to help the general reader to understand new or uncommon vocabulary and specialized terms. I wrote this Glossary of Terms for reference when discussing the traditional arts of democratic discussion form.

Anti-Community - a random and open set of individuals collected for an undetermined purpose; a collection of individuals who elect people out of rather than into the group, while allowing immunity to the owner; a community that is owned as private property with it's primary purpose of promoting the owner.

Average Personal Meridian (APM) - the sum of all personal meridians in a group divided by the total number of members.

Central Negative - the opposition side of the community; those who oppose the designated leader; often referred to as "Trolling", sometimes called "Borderline Personalty Disorder".

Closed Circuit - a circuit that can be measured by a whole number; a complete selection of individuals.

Collection of Individuals - an incomplete quantity of posters gathered on an open circuit and posting randomly; an Anti-Community.

Community (or Group) - an organization of people via intermitent meetings with a unity of purpose. (The interests of the individuals support the purposes of the community and the community is there for the development of the individual)

Conscious Day - the full range of the wakened day, not including the unconscious part of the 24 hour day.

Democratic Organization - an order that is accomplished through traditional democratic systems.

Designated Leader - a person formally charged with the official responsibility to lead or organize.

Discussion - a temporal and ordinal organization of people and speech used for the processing of information.

eDemocracy - a temporal group using ordinal discussion forms deliberates through the process of an online action, such online actions include the election of it's membership and officers; a constitutionally formed online community; an online community that practices ordinal form.

Fabricated Consensus - agreement brought about through IP checks, blocks and bans; a so-called "moderated community".

Forum - an organized presentation of various different temporal and ordinal discussion forms. A forum is a process of discussions.

Gripe's Law - the power of the central negative is equal to the power of the designated leader; a kind of ying and yang that governs the whole web; when the designated leaders eliminate the central negative, the community levels off and may decline but further growth is halted.

group - a number of individuals considered as a unit, people interacting in temporal/ordinal form, basic unit of the community.

Guest - an interested prospect who has no rights nor responsibilities.

Local/Global Web Community - A local/global web community is one that extends through the length of one longitude or of a narrow area between two longitudes. The closer the two longitudes are to eachother, the more local the community. It is also global in a limited sense, since it may span a multitude of diverse nations, languages and cultures. The wider the latitude, the less local the community becomes. The local/global model has the distinct advantage of offering the most possibilities for scheduling meetings.

Measured Discourse - a discussion that is measured in whole and part. (see Rational Form)

Member - a poster that has been qualified for and elected to the purpose of the community and sharing equal rights and responsibilities with other members.

Membership - a qualified and elected body; the membership may be in training to become qualified.

Mode of Discussion - all of the posters compose in the same mode; the three classic modes are:

1. Expository - the building up of logical and rhetorical dialogue; the natural extension of this mode is in ordinal forms.
2. Narrative - telling a story; chats and blogs are likely to be in this mode.
3. Dramatic (or Demonstrative) - role playing or acting; the forum is used as a theatrical stage.

Mudsucker - a poster who harasses trolls as a supposed defense to forum standards.

Open Circuit - a circuit that can not be measured by a whole number; a collection of individuals.

Opposite Longitude - extension of a longitude beyond either pole.

Ordinal Form - according to a limited sequence (ABC ABC)

People Overload - Too many people to have to deal with.

Personal Meridian - the center of a personal time zone range when a person is awake; example: if the range of my online day is @000 to @600, I am online for a total range of 600 and my meridian occurs at @300 (Swatch); half of a conscious day.

Rational Form - an organization of form based upon a whole number and it's relative quantities; equality, majority and minority; equality is the primary ratio in rational discussion; secondary ratios are simple majority and supermajority (2/3, 3/4...).

Random Form - without ordinal or temporal limits.

Temporal Form - according to time limits (begin - end), usually expressed numerically.

Time Meridian - the center of a given real time

Time Zone Residency (Resident Time Zone) - every Internet user resides in a limited time zone and is subject to that time as much as a geographical limitation; a user may visit another time zone only by being absent from the zone of residency; a person may change their residency by leaving their current residency.

Time Zone Tour (Touring the Time Zones) - leaving your resident time zone to visit another separate time zone. Posting outside of your normal biological time.

Troll - a change in the mode of discussion; a derogatory term for a poster; a poster who leads a collection of individuals through a dramatic sequence.

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