Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    I, for one, enjoy the anonymity of the system. I can say what I feel
    and don't have to present an image to a group. I have never been in a
    group of DECcies other than in my facility. Oh wait. I have gone to
    Canobie Lake on the outings for 6 years now. However, I don't socialize
    there. I go to take my kids who enjoy amusement parks and mostly just
    stay with them. I don't live with them and beyond work, I'm lucky to
    attend one social function a year. Usually a funeral. 
    
    As for what everyone else looks like, I don't much care. You're all a
    fascinating grpup of people and I enjoy the conversation that goes on
    in here so very much. This is probably my only outlet socially and that
    is why I like it so.
    
    Phil

	I assume that all women are beautiful and that all men are average
	looking. I assume that everyone reading is at least as smart or
	smarter then I (unless and until they prove otherwise :-)). Colour
	never occurs to me. I don't consciously consider the gender of the
	other Noters. If I know it it seldom matters anyway.

	I have no idea if I Note the way I look because I really don't
	know either how I or my Notes look to other people. More then one
	person who has met me told me they expected someone "more intense".
	I don't know if that's because I seem less intense in person then
	I am or if I seem more intense in Notes then I really am. Others
	have told me I was taller or shorter then they expected. Several
	people who didn't like me from Notes say they do in person. I'm
	at a lose to explain that.

	There is not much if anything that I wouldn't say in front of a
	whole group of people face to face that I would say in Notes. I
	might actually say more in face to face then in Notes though. Notes
	includes a written record that conversation doesn't for one thing.
	Also in conversation it's easier to tell when someone is not "getting"
	what you are saying and then correct it.

			Alfred

	PS: As too what I really look like, US employees received a picture
	of me in the mail the other month. (It was wrapped up inside
	DECWORLD magazine. :-) ) I'm listed in COOKIE::WHOAREYOU topic 37
	and if you are using DECWINDOWS Notes 37.3 has my picture in it.

I guess I don't feel much anonymity here in =wn=.  In my mind, when I write,
I am writing to and for the relatively small group of *active* =wn=ers - I
know that there are hundreds of mostly or totally read-onlies who read what
I write, and I have to remember that when I write, but beyond a little bit
a caution, I envision myself involved in personal conversation with maybe
30 or 40 other people.  And I have met most of the 30 or 40 people!  So I know
what they look like, and they know what I look like.

Also, most of the "regulars" have given quite a bit of personal information
about themselves, so I have built up sort of "models" for most of them, which
includes what they look like.  So I feel I am speaking to a number of people
that are real, 3-dimensional (or maybe 2.5) people that I actually envision
while I write, so it doesn't feel very anonymous.

Most people say they are not surprised by the way I look, that it matches the
way I sound.  But then, I have also described myself physically in this notes
file, so it isn't surprising they aren't surprised.

I am r-o in some other notes files, and know very few people in them, and
very few know me, and in those I do feel a sense of anonymity. I don't enjoy
it much, I don't have nearly as much fun reading those conferences as the
ones I feel more "personal" about.

D!

    
    since meeting folk last fall (thanks nancy!) i no longer feel quite
    as fly-on-the-wall anonymous as i used to. mostly that means i've made
    dear friends who are more real than electronic ghosts. and i do tend
    to feel, like D!, that i'm communicating with the 'known' noters rather
    than the anonymous ones.
    
    on the other hand, possibly because i don't know many =wnoters= well,
    i still tend to have fanciful images of them. after a long noting
    session i feel kind of 'fantasy-drunk', often followed by an equally
    intense emotional hangover.
    
    (as for appearance, my impression was that most folk found me to be
    'younger' looking than my notes; but then, i don't quite look my age
    anyway ;^)
    

�    What do noters think say to you when they meet you?
    
    Beats me, they always move to the other side of the room.  (: >,)
    
    I don't think much about visual anonymity.  Most of the stuff I wrote
    pre-DEC hit specialized audiences (little-magazine readers, college
    audiences, SF fandom) which included some people I already knew and a
    large number of people I might meet in the future - much like the
    Noting community. 
    
    And yeah, in similar discussions, I think I would come across pretty
    much the same way in person as in Notes.  My conversational style
    adapts easily to the listen-mull-monologue cycle we practice here.
    
    It depends somewhat on the conference.  The steam-of-unconciousness
    loon that I do in RADIO_RADIO (and to a lesser extent in JOYOFLEX) is
    close to what I'm like in a good mood among friends. 
    
    My staider, more boring, =wn= voice talks about things that are
    important to me, but in person the earnestness would either lead to
    more awkward silences and clumsy misunderstandings (if I'm
    uncomfortable), or to more goofball enthusiasm (if I'm not).  This more
    formal essay style isn't one I particularly like, and it doesn't
    translate well to conversation.
    
    But, with certain spectacular exceptions (the verbose noter who
    believes that all male feminists have been neutered, for example), I
    think most readers draw fairly accurate conclusions...
    
    Ray

    Personally, I never give visual anonymity much thought... until
    I meet someone who doesn't look like I'd expected them to, or they
    mention something about their appearance that doesn't "match".  It's
    particularly amusing when I'm *way off* (like the one noter I thought
    would have a German accent, short curly hair, and a reserved manner...)

    I especially like hearing what people expected *me* to look like.
    I wrote some stuff in college in a semi-anonymous forum somewhat 
    similar to notes, and almost nobody I met said I looked like they'd
    expected based on what I wrote (and my pen-name, which was a bit, uh,
    distinctive).  One woman said she'd expected me to be short and 
    slightly overweight, with very short dark hair and deelyboppers.

    So much for the deelyboppers.

	Sharon

    I don't really care for the anonymity at all.  I think SOME people
    would NEVER say to your face, some of the things they say in the
    "anonymity of their terminals". 
    
    And I can't say that I have any preconceived notion as to a person's
    looks, I'd much rather read the content of their note and then
    preconceive why they wrote what they did!  #;-)
    
    -Dotti.
    How do you expect me to look?

    I like being able to get a picture in my mind of how people look. 
    Because what I really think I am picturing is who they are and what
    they are not how they look.
    
    I may be naive, but I think that people write what they feel in these
    notes, I don't think they are trying to "pull anyone's leg", so to
    speak.
    
    I would love to meet all the =wn='s, but chances are not too many of
    you will be out this way to Chicago, so for now, I like picturing
    you all for who you are and what you are--not how you look.
    
    Jackie
    
    :-)

    re: Dottie,
    
    According to your little "what-ever-you-call-it-name" you must be tall,
    dark, and very cool (in an unflustered way).
    
    Am I right?
    
    Kate

    re:  Kate...
    
    Nope, I'm not that tall...5'5", my"personal name" comes from a Roy
    Orbison song that I like, but I am cool, though not dark, actually I'm
    a blonde!!
    
    -Dotti.

    Anonymity is a two-way street. It allows some people to blow off
    in a way they wouldn't in face-to-face conversation (I can imagine
    that some Notes conversations, if done face-to-face, would result
    in homicide). On the other hand, the advantage of it is two-fold.
    One, you can often get someone's *true* feelings about something
    where they may feel more circumspect in person. Two, some people
    are introverted in person and extroverted in Notes. The latter
    describes me somewhat. I have no qualms whatsoever about pontificating
    in Notes, whereas i'm generally pretty quiet in person.
    
    David Bowie has said somewhere that the reason he used the Ziggy
    Stardust persona in the early stage of his career was because he
    had bad stage fright, and the thought of going out there and performing
    in front of thousands terrified him. By making himself up as Ziggy,
    it wasn't *him* that was out there, but somebody else. I think that
    Notes acts in a similar way for many of us.
    
    --- jerry

    The visual anonymity has revealed a prejudice of mine that I was only
    partially aware of:  
    
    Visual anonymity hides the *age* of the noter, and I find that the age
    frequently makes a *huge* difference, in fact, almost as much
    difference as gender!  Sometimes, comments that someone makes infuriate
    me until I find out the noter is such-and-such an age.  Then (here
    comes the prejudice) I may discount much of what is said, depending on
    the age...
    
    Nancy

    Nancy -
    
    I agree with you, and I find it fascinating as personal history.
    When I see my own attitudes of 15 years ago reflected back at me,
    and realize that I *have* changed (even though on a daily basis
    I'm not aware of being any different), well.......
    
    Aliso

    
    sometimes i pigeonhole noters as being a certain age with no
    basis in reality outside of what the person wrote.  and then
    when that individual mentions real age, i slap my head and
    say something like "No way dude!"
    
    outside of age, i can't make a picture of a person from notes.
    i can start to form an image from the telephone, but notes on
    the computer remain electrons dancing on the screen until i
    meet flesh and blood, and even then my short term memory is so
    poor that a week/month/season later i could not tell you what
    so-and-so looks like.
    

    I find that people can't tell over the tube that I spend the
    day in an electric wheelchair.  With my headset, keyboard and
    motorized wheels, I'm well on my way to becoming Robo-DEC!
    
    Richard