184 LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET
expressing a desire to speak or yield the floor (e.g. handraising, or
sayingdonewhen finished). Players themselves devise co-operative
conventions. They tend not to introduce multiple topics within a
single message (unlike e-mails). Because they know that the size
of a message is entirely determined by the player (interruptions
not being possible and feedback not visible until a message is sent:
p. 30), they often break their message down into shorter utterances,
such as
Langman finds the situation bizarre.
Langman has never seen anything like it.
Langman believes Doc should apologize immediately.
etc.or
Langman says, ‘The situation is bizarre.’
Langman says, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Langman says, ‘Doc should apologize immediately.’There is always a risk that another player will insert a message in
between these items, of course. Further conventions therefore may
be used to signal to others that a longer message is forthcoming,
and a player wishes to hold the floor, such as introducing a remark
withwell.If Langman had started
Langman says, ‘Well.. .’everyone would know that a monologue was in his mind. Another
example of a discourse convention is the ‘losing’ routine Cherny
encountered in ElseMOO.^18 This arises when two players both re-
spond to a particular point in the same way. P’s response arrives
on screen while Q is still typing hers. Q sees that her response is
no longer needed, so she does not bother to finish it off, terminat-
ing it with ‘loses’. She sends the message to the group nonetheless,
perhaps automatically, perhaps to let others know that she was
(^18) Cherny (1999: 98ff.).