Hi, I was wondering what specifically people were planning to do during the
"Hate groups on the internet" unit listed on the WPUNJ course outline for
Jan 25 - Feb 1.  In addition to asking the students to explore such sites,
are there particular questions you would have them address, or structured
activities of some kind?

Some questions that occurred to me were:

   who is the intended audience for the site? (insiders, outsiders,
   recruits?)

   what techniques does it use to appeal to that audience? what can you
   surmise about why the audience takes part, what they get out of it?

   what's the purpose of the site? (what would count as "success"?)

Other suggestions for questions or activities?

Second, the owner of the Hatewatch site apparently took the site down just
one week ago (having essentially declared victory in the fight against hate
sites).  I did a bit of poking around online myself, and came up with the
following links that seemed promising:

news articles

   Who'll Watch the Haters Now?
   http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,41263-2,00.html

   Hate Sites Bad Recruiting Tools
   http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,36478,00.html

   Fear and loathing on the internet
   http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4020452,00.html

hate sites

   Westboro Baptist Church
   http://www.godhatesfags.com

   Storm Front
   http://www.stormfront.org

monitoring of hate sites

   Anti-defamation League
   http://www.adl.org/frames/front_internet.html

   The Hate Directory: Hate Groups on the Internet
   http://www.hatedirectory.com


Finally, I was also wondering about the Blackboard communication tools.
Most of my students have posted introductions, so what's next?  Are there
plans to establish additional discussion threads?  Should I be doing so
myself, with, perhaps questions like the ones about hate sites I mentioned
above?  And what about the "virtual classroom" - what are the plans for
that?

Thanks!

-- Hank