I'm a little late in responding here, but I think this is an interesting question. Our recent discussions in class have had a lot to do with, not only open access and collaboration, but also how the digital humanities might make our work more interesting to those outside our discipline. I certainly agree that DH is pulling a lot of scholarly work out of the private, exclusive academic sphere into a more public sphere, and so I think that tacking "public" onto the "digital humanities" would be appropriate in a lot of ways.

However, if there is a "public digital humanities," then doesn't there have to be a "private digital humanities" as well? What would that consist of? Would "private digital humanities" default to the traditional humanities? And if so, does this reduce DH to a methodology (simply a more public way of treating the humanities) rather than a discipline of its own?

I agree that the use of problem spaces in games like "Over the Top" offers a really useful alternative to the assigned readings and textbook discussions that we usually get in elementary school as well as high school. I think that these games teach a more personal history than what we usually get in school. "Over the Top," for instance, encourages the student/player to think of how the individual soldier was affected by the war, while also providing the more general textbook information that we are accustomed to seeing in a classroom. I think that this individualized presentation of war does provide some understanding of the morality of war, although I agree that this isn't necessarily the goal of the game, as it encourages students to remember that soldiers were actual people and gives insight into their day to day routines; something that I think is often looked over in an attempt to teach broader concepts.

While these games are overall quite useful, there are a few issues which often come up in their presentation. I think you're right, Christina, when you say that the amount of narrative and information provided in the game might make it less enjoyable for the average player. The game seems to try to make up for this in part through silly moments in the animation, for instance when player's "friend" twirls his finger beside his head and calls another soldier crazy, or they make fun of french cheese. These moments are seemingly meant to make the game more entertaining, and to highlight the "game," or the fun of the game, over the informative potential of the historical simulation. To me, this is very problematic. The game doesn't have to teach the morality of war to be useful, but shouldn't it at least take it seriously?

I think some really interesting ideas have been raised here, and I certainly agree that it would be a worthwhile experiment to try implementing a word limit on our blog posts. It would, as you all have said, make it easier for us, as busy students, to engage with each other in an online discussion as concise, straight-to-the-point posts are much more user friendly. (I say this quite confidently after having spent quite a bit of time trying to catch up on everything I've missed in this discussion!) Beyond that, though, this experiment could help us address a few issues that frequently come up in our class discussions. We have talked about Twitter quite a bit, and how useful the 140 character limit can be in training people to clearly and efficiently communicate what they have to say; limiting our writing in this way could have the pedagogical benefit of refining our abilities to communicate through writing. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that we go so far as to limit our posts to 140 characters-- I simply wanted to highlight that a lot of our class discussion regarding Twitter backs up the arguments posted here.
We have also acknowledged a few times now in class, that humanities students frequently struggle to talk about their own work in a concise, accurate and interesting way. I think that experience with short, online posts like those that Chris and Alessandro have described, would really help to alleviate this struggle. Not only would we, as humanities students, gain experience expressing ourselves with concision and clarity, but also in learning how to present our work. In such a short piece of writing that is open to the public, a student must present their ideas in such a way that is both brief and intriguing or no one will read it (and we cycle back to the problem of audience which Sample addresses). This is a skill that would be extremely beneficial to us outside of the online discussion as well. Clearly I could use some practice in brevity, because this is all to say that I think that this experiment could not only produce more fruitful online discussion, but also have positive pedagogical effects outside of the blog.

I would also like to address the idea that our audience (particularly as undergrads) is limited to our peers. I am conflicted with this idea, because I can't help but agree, however I think that this attitude is a big problem. Why shouldn't people want to read those papers? Undergrads have good ideas that are worth sharing. These ideas, and the ways that they are expressed, could probably use some polishing, but that's true of everyone. I wonder if the idea that our undergrad papers would hold little interest for those outside of our classmates is simply a product of the system. Typically, our papers are intended for a very limited audience of one, and as a result we fail to see the value of our own work. This is why Mark Sample feels the need to "instill in [his] students the sense that what they think and what they say and what they write matters-to [him]; to them; to their classmates; and, through open access blogs and wikis, to the world." The current essay-writing system of evaluation has not instilled this sense of value in us as students, and so we fail to see why people outside of our limited peer group would be interested in our work--what a sad position to be in! Then, as we continue on in our educations we extend this way of thinking--why should anyone outside of our field want to read or grad work? Perhaps the only reason that we think our potential audience is limited, is that it has been; if we remove these limitations through the open, online posting of our work, maybe our way of thinking would change with our audience.

I was thinking about Christina's question regarding whether or not Manovich would be able to make the same argument (that new media excludes narrative) if he were to use the iPod instead of the out-dated CD-ROM as an example, and I think that he would be able to. Not because I agree with his argument, or because I think that the iPod exists entirely outside of narrative, but because his intention is to look for databases (at least in the chapter we read). I think it is certainly possible to regard an iPod exclusively as a storage unit for, or a collection of audio files and that Manovich would subscribe to this view because it works for him. However, I am not accusing Manovich of any shady business. I don't think he is attempting to manipulate his data or his reader, because we do the same thing he does; where Manovich is looking for database, we are looking for narrative (as we are trained to do). I can easily pick up someone's iPod and interpret its contents, organization, album art and most recently played songs to concoct the story of his or her life. While I know that I could do this, and frankly that I probably would, I am not entirely convinced that it isn't a silly thing to do.

Following this line of thought, I tried to think in terms of databases rather than narratives. In class, we talked about DVDs that are released with paratext (deleted scenes, interviews with the director and actors, commentary, etc.) as an example of media which functions as both a database and narrative. In my attempt to look for the database, I considered the novel. What do we make of novels which are published alongside interviews with the author, reviews of the novel, alternate endings, and sneak previews of the author's coming works? The novel is clearly a narrative, but can we consider this publication to be a form of database as well? Does it function the same way as the DVD we discussed in class?

Many of the articles we have read so far in class suggest the Digital Humanities to be rooted in English departments. Matt Kirschenbaum, for example, highlights how the traditional values and practices of English scholars produce an academic environment which is well-suited to the needs of the Digital Humanities and digital humanists. He discusses how text, which is obviously the primary subject of study in English departments, is an easily manipulated form of data, and is therefore a good place for digital humanists to start. He also mentions the long established connection between computers and composition. At this point, I fail to understand the particular association between that these qualities and English as a discipline. Obviously text and composition are essential components of studying English, but they are not exclusive to the discipline; these qualities are major parts of the humanities in general. Kirschenbaum proceeds to provide more specific examples which are more clearly unique to the study of English literature. He references the movement in the 1980s in English departments concerning editorial theory and method and the following "widespread means to implement electronic archives and editions," as well as the contemporary growth of electronic literature and hypertext. He further discusses the tendency of English departments specifically to be open to various kinds of digital media due to the advent of cultural studies as a discipline. Finally, Kirschenbaum cites the immense popularity of e-readers and e-book devices as well as "large-scale text digitization projects." From my perspective as an English student, these last four examples seem to be much more discipline-specific; however, I wonder if other disciplines can relate these qualities to their own fields.

As we have discussed in class and through blog posts, the Digital Humanities are collaborative and interdisciplinary by nature, and we are lucky in our class to have representatives from multiple disciplines. So I wonder how you all, from your various academic backgrounds, react to Kirschenbaum's explanation for the strong association between DH and English. We discussed these issues in class, and I believe we all agreed that DH does not exclusively belong to English departments, but rather to all of the humanities and social sciences. I am not asking whether or not English has a particular claim over DH, but rather, more specifically, about Kirschenbaum's six qualities which make English departments a welcoming home for DH. Are they really exclusive to English? Can other disciplines relate these six qualities to their own field, or perhaps think of parallel examples?