Post by wayseer on Dec 7, 2007 22:32:58 GMT
I waited and waited for this book to arrive anticipating to be enlightened on the phenomena of the use of the electronic forum and what it might mean for Freemasonry. That I am dissappointed is perhaps an understatement. This book had the potential to offer so much - in the end, it delivers very little.
The authors, a collaborative effort here, have sub-titled their monograph 'Freemasons and E-Masonry Toward a New Paradigm' - a bold statement which their tome struggles to identify let alone articulate in anything but the most basic form.
Josh Heller is an American and the IT expert here and it was he who founded the Masonic Light Group electronic forum. Gerald Reilly comes from the other side of the ditch and is a writer. Both have been 'E-Masons' for over seven years and obviously have expertise in the running of a web forum and it is here where the authors are on more solid ground.
My greatest concern is that there is really very little in the way of 'facts'. Here was the perfect opportunity for the authors to really go to town - their own forum, their own collective skills, sole access to the statistics and an open market crying out for just such a reference book. In all, just one chapter, is devoted to the 'figures' - and then undertaken in a very unconvincing manner. For sure, the authors acknowledge their lack of expertise in the field of statistics, a minefield for most I suspect. But why did'nt they approach the nearest university and the Sociology Department where they would have uncovered some budding Honours student willing to undertake the number cruching necessary to make sense of the loads of information available. That the authors did not detracts considerable from their grand vision which they proclaim.
Their book has more to do with their own philosophy - which is interesting - but has nothing to do with E-Masonry - I think. And it is here that the book creates a conundrum - are the views of the authors informed by their association with the e-forum, or are their view their own, independent of the stats? It's murky waters - waters that could have been profitably explored - just how, and to what extent, is own personally philisophy inform by the electronic forum - by engaging with the electronic format?
Unfortunately we don't find out - well, not from this publication.
The authors, a collaborative effort here, have sub-titled their monograph 'Freemasons and E-Masonry Toward a New Paradigm' - a bold statement which their tome struggles to identify let alone articulate in anything but the most basic form.
Josh Heller is an American and the IT expert here and it was he who founded the Masonic Light Group electronic forum. Gerald Reilly comes from the other side of the ditch and is a writer. Both have been 'E-Masons' for over seven years and obviously have expertise in the running of a web forum and it is here where the authors are on more solid ground.
My greatest concern is that there is really very little in the way of 'facts'. Here was the perfect opportunity for the authors to really go to town - their own forum, their own collective skills, sole access to the statistics and an open market crying out for just such a reference book. In all, just one chapter, is devoted to the 'figures' - and then undertaken in a very unconvincing manner. For sure, the authors acknowledge their lack of expertise in the field of statistics, a minefield for most I suspect. But why did'nt they approach the nearest university and the Sociology Department where they would have uncovered some budding Honours student willing to undertake the number cruching necessary to make sense of the loads of information available. That the authors did not detracts considerable from their grand vision which they proclaim.
Their book has more to do with their own philosophy - which is interesting - but has nothing to do with E-Masonry - I think. And it is here that the book creates a conundrum - are the views of the authors informed by their association with the e-forum, or are their view their own, independent of the stats? It's murky waters - waters that could have been profitably explored - just how, and to what extent, is own personally philisophy inform by the electronic forum - by engaging with the electronic format?
Unfortunately we don't find out - well, not from this publication.