In terms of things that (may) make newbies nervous– I have found this sentence confusing: “There are no spectators at a THATCamp; everyone participates.” Mostly, the confusion arises out of a lack of an operationalized definition for “participates.” Asking questions and being engaged in others’ presentations is participation in my (limited) experience. But if one only has experience with academic conferences, one might think that everyone who attends has to prepare a paper. That is, I might say that I went to MLA this year but did not participate, and I think that would be correct for an MLA definition of participation, but not for a THATCamp, as I was here, tweeting, asking questions, and having conversations. So, I think that definition would be really useful!

I think the idea that it is non-hierarchical is mostly untrue. THATCamp does not follow traditional academic hierarchies, that is, a grad student is just as likely to ab accepted/listened to/ respected as a tenured prof. However, there are some pretty clear hierarchies about experience in DH. That experience for reasons having to do with tenure and promotion, the history of DH, and other reasons, doesn’t always (or even often!) map onto traditional academic hierarchy categories, but that doesn’t make it not a hierarchy. It does serve to make the hierarchies that are operating invisible, though, and I think it would be great to find ways to make them visible–whether it’s in order to reify them or to undermine them remains to be seen.

So those are some initial thoughts about clarifying what THATCamp is, or might be.