Hari's Corner

Jeremy recently added a social network feature to the LinuxQuestions.org forums and I must say that I find it got me thinking about the phenomenon of online communities and social networks in general. I must say that when I first started my online forum journey with LinuxQuestions.org a couple of years ago I had no clue as to what an online community meant. Today, I am still confused and fascinated by it, although in a different way - namely what it takes to build one.

There are plenty of forums, mailing lists and groups out there, but very few of them actually succeed in building healthy, long-lasting and self-sustaining communities. People do join up to seek and share knowledge and interests, but very few of them stick on to become part of a community over the long haul. Take me for instance. I have joined plenty of internet boards since LQ.org, but I guess I hardly post at one or two of them nowadays. It's not as though I forgot their URL or something like that (I have most of them bookmarked) but it's just that I don't participate any longer. One reason is obviously lack of time, but I don't think lack of time can explain it all, especially considering that many people seem to find the time to stay connected with several online communities through their busy lives.

So why join a community and be a part of it? The answers are not easy. Giving and seeking help is only one reason for the existence of internet communities and there are so many non-technical communities that exist for entirely different reasons. But if a successful community administrator could ever universalize the reason why people flock to his particular forum in such large numbers, he could probably become rich by selling the formula. The truth is, ideas differ and reasons differ. In trying to find out one single reason why online communities thrive and survive, people often generalize to the extent of sounding unrealistic.

My own understanding is that a social network is built by like-minded people with similar levels of intelligence and emotional development, but not necessarily similar interests. Confusing? Not really. Having observed so many online communities I don't believe that similar interests or fields of knowledge can create sustainable social networks. Sure, these forums bring together people sharing similar interests, but then you rarely get a successful community built just out of that one factor. More than a common interest, what binds together people are mindsets, emotions and levels of intelligence. For instance, two people who are highly interested in Linux might be entirely different as far as their emotional wavelengths and maturity are concerned and their intelligence levels might conflict as well. Believe me, the online world does not hide such distinctions, although it's relatively harder to detect people's mindsets using their written words. Within a period of time, you do get to subconsciously "sense" people for what they really are and you gradually form your own set by identifying those who match your profile the best. Thus a social network is born. To really build a community, you need several such social networks within which there are enough number of individuals to sustain them. Sure, the common interest factor (namely the community's main focus) might still bring together people, but most of them won't form a social network unless they find enough individuals who identify with their own intelligence level and emotional seeking. I am a great believer in the theory that however much you hide behind a mask, you can never really hide your true self from the world. This goes for real-life interactions as well as interactions on the internet. However knowledgeable you might be, if you cannot find people who match your wavelength of thought and emotions, you will find it hard to live within an online community. Even where the pull of knowledge or shared interests is relatively strong, you still need emotional involvement to participate over a long period of time. Maybe that's why bloggers tend to form very powerful social networks with other people who don't necessarily blog about similar things or share similar fields of knowledge. While the network might be very informal, they tend to be quite strong and long-lasting. In fact, the very informality of such a network might be its biggest asset.

In essence, I think the online world is just a mirror of our society. Maybe not a perfect mirror, but it is just another medium - far more open and limitless perhaps - but a medium nonetheless. Even in a very large online community, you might hardly find four or five people who actually identify with you and build a genuine relationship over time. The medium might be open, but people's minds aren't going to change just because the medium is different. You cannot ever pull together ten people and tell them to be part of your community. They will either become part of a network within or stay out of it. It's hard to reason why. There's no logic or rationality behind it, but only a strange chemistry which cannot be dissected or understood except by social scientists or psychologists. To the layman I guess it makes sense: no friendship ever happened in life just because two individuals wanted to become friends for a reason. Business relationships are different, but they don't last long either. Online communities are no different and online social networks are just a reflection of that fact.

The 2005 edition of the LinuxQuestions.org members' choice awards is here! It's always interesting to find out what the most popular Linux and Open Source applications and distros are.

Here are some of my votes this year:

• Distribution of the year: Debian
• Web development editor of the year: Quanta
• Text editor of the year: Kate
• Web browser of the year: FireFox
• Office suite of the year: OpenOffice.org
• Desktop Environment of the year: KDE
• Graphics App of the year: GIMP
• Open Source game of the year: Frozen Bubble

Obvious choices, eh? I thought so too.

Anyway, one of the biggest issues I have with the LQ members' choice awards is that the categorization sometimes leaves unrelated apps inside the same poll. Take for instance, Audio Multimedia application of the year. K3b has been included in this category with other miscellaneous audio players as well as authoring tools and miscellaneous media utilities. To me, this definitely makes some of the polls skewed. I will be casting my votes in the other categories after careful consideration.

In this category for the top 50 Linux apps, I have a few good recommendations. Feel free to discuss and debate this selection. Here goes:

Abiword A very good cross-platform and lightweight word processor and a good option for those who don't prefer OpenOffice.org writer. I don't use it much, but it's definitely good for writing short and simple documents.

teTeX A complete TeX distribution for UNIX systems. It's a great package used for typesetting and publishing beautiful documents using LaTeX and teTeX provides most of the basic components of a working LaTeX system.

LyX LyX is a WYSIWYM document processor which uses LaTeX as the back-end to produce great looking documents. If you don't want to type in commands in LaTeX, but want to publish documents using LaTeX, use LyX. It's easy to learn and use.

Scribus Scribus is an open source desktop publishing system along the lines of PageMaker. Uses a point and click interface, it's useful for designing documents like brochures, posters and newsletters.

Ghostscript Actually Ghostscript is a Postscript and PDF interpreter. It is a must-have if you intend viewing or publishing PostScript or PDF documents on Linux. It comes under two licenses, AFPL and GPL. Also includes the previewer Ghostview.

More suggestions and nominations are welcome as always and will be considered for the final list in this category.

I've made a few minor enhancements on this blog. First of all, as I mentioned before, I've cleaned up the XHTML and CSS to render properly with Internet Explorer. I've also added a contact form in case you wish to send me a message in private. The third minor enhancement is the browser identification plugin which will show the browser and the OS from which every comment is posted. I found this plugin first on J_K9 @ Linux and then on Ray's blog and so I decided to add it here as well, since it's always interesting to note which browsers are commonly used by your website visitors.

As part of my efforts at compiling the top 50 Linux apps, I have decided to list down some of my own recommendations in each category for debate and discussions before picking the final list. The first category is basic productivity. So here are some of my own recommendations for the top 5 applications in Linux under this category. Note that I may add or remove some applications later on, but this is my basic list in this category:

KWrite A simple, yet powerful text editor for KDE. I rate this highly because it does the job and it is not too memory intensive and yet has enough features to keep most of us happy!

OpenOffice.org A great suite of Office applications for the Linux desktop. I consider this a very adequate rival of Microsoft Office, especially considering that OO.org is free.

Kontact I haven't really used Kontact, but it does look like a very good Personal Information Manager for KDE. Quite similar to Microsoft Outlook.

Gnumeric Gnumeric is a lightweight spreadsheet application suitable for users who prefer GTK/Gnome applications.

Gnucash Gnucash is a personal finance manager (accounting program) for Linux. I don't think there are too many accounting suites for Linux so I guess this deserves a place in the category.

So what do you think of my list? If you can think of any other applications that fall under this category, please post your recommendations here. I'll definitely consider more for the final list!

Update: Suggested additions: Evolution

I have been amused at the way the media has been reacting in a frenzy, crucifying the pitch curators and ground staff at Lahore and Faisalabad, after the first two matches of the Test series between India and Pakistan ended in draws. Most of these criticisms are driven by the comments of the cricket pundits and expert commentators on air who, quite frankly, had too much free time to talk and hence spouted a lot of hot air on the subject. One would imagine that the curators had committed some unpardonable crime for which the minimum punishment should be hanging. Then there is also a section of the Indian media which believes that Pakistani batsmen actually feared the Indian seam attack and hence requested flat pitches to be prepared! From their words, you would quite easily believe that Pakistan wanted a draw at these two venues to enable them to take on India at their stronghold Karachi! Now Inzy might not be the most attacking captain, but I don't think even he would have left the series to be decided in the final match, especially considering the strength of the Pakistani bowling attack on paper as compared to the Indian attack.

So while I don't believe that the pitches at Lahore and Faisalabad were deliberately prepared to suit batsmen, I had the definite impression that the Pakistanis had a gameplan to defeat the Indians on flat pitches before the series started. It was a gamble, but they were hoping to win the toss (which they did twice), post a huge total (which they also achieved in both games) and then hope that the Indian batting would crumble under the pressure of runs, if nothing else. Even on flat tracks, teams have crumbled in the past batting last and India have often found themselves in such situations overseas and lost matches. Pakistan clearly wanted such a situation. While flat pitches ideally suited their gameplan I don't think they imagined that the Indian batsmen would respond in such a fantastic manner. I also got the impression that they expected the pace of Shoaib and the spin of Danish Kaneria to work in spite of the state of the pitches. But the strong response of the Indian batting unnerved them. Lahore probably dented their confidence after the 400 run partnership between Dravid and Sehwag and to be honest, I don't think India could have saved the Faisalabad test without that strong performance in the first game. So at Faisalabad, Pakistan never really expected India to crumble and it was always a question of hoping that something dramatic would happen in the last couple of days. It was not the pitch itself but the Pakistani mindset which killed the contest in the end. Inzamam's opinion about the state of the game on the second day clearly said it all. They weren't really expecting a victory. And all said and done, the Indian batting was truly outstanding in both the games. Maybe we aren't crediting them enough for the draws. Fair enough, Lahore was marred by bad weather conditions, but surely the Faisalabad Test was not a foregone conclusion on day 3 in the second session of play when India were in a precarious position at 280 odd for 5 before Dhoni and Pathan cut loose and spoilt Pakistani dreams of a victory.

So I think that Pakistan's idea was good at least on paper. Prepare good batting tracks and put up a huge first innings score by nullifying the Indian bowling. Then unleash Shoaib Akthar and company on the Indian line-up and knock them over in no time. What they didn't realize was that: (a) this Indian team is much stronger mentally thanks to their victory over Pakistan in the previous tour and (b) the balls used in this series really weren't ideally suited for reverse swing which is really their fast bowlers' weapon of choice. Kookaburra balls, being slightly lighter and having a much less pronounced seam than the English Dukes or the Indian SG balls, weren't going to assist any of the pacers in that regard. To top it off, Shoaib himself isn't growing any younger and the strain of bowling on dead wickets for long periods of time finally got to him. The beamer he bowled at Dhoni (thankfully off-line) was a vicious delivery that could have easily sent the batsman to hospital and his lack of apology clearly showed that it was intentional. Age has caught up with him and I don't believe that he can hope to bowl over 150 kph consistently if he wants to stay in International cricket for a few more years. It's a question of whether he reconciles himself to this fact.

I think Geoffrey Boycott said it best on Ten Sports when questioned about the match in Faisalabad. He said that the game wasn't a boring draw (far from it), but it wasn't satisfactory since we couldn't get a result out of it. That was the key word: not satisfactory. So I don't agree that the pitch killed the contest. I think it was a combination of strong Indian batting and a negative attitude on the part of Pakistan which effectively reduced the match to a no-contest. If anything, the pitches in the series so far have been quite sporting in the sense that both teams got similar conditions all through the match. Now Karachi might be a different story. We'll just have to wait and watch!

Picture courtesy: rediff.com