We are giving up on our request to get you to discuss how we as teachers can facilitate the construction of cultures in distance education. Having seen where you are wearing the path, we are trying to get back in the lead by proposing that we look directly at how we are creating culture for this form of distance "education." In this context, we all are the learners. We have refused to deal with the "teacher's" assignment because we insist on dealing first with the culture in which we communicate about this assignment.
Is it possible that, if we give deliberate attention to helping students develop and learn the appropriate culture, they will be able to give full attention to the content they are supposed to deal with in that culture? For instance, Lloyd (aka moderator) has shared with us his vision of providing an environment for "casual scholarship." This is his deliberate attempt to contribute to the development of this culture. His style of moderation as well as his words leave this environment open for all of us to contribute to development of the culture and the content we are discussing.
A classroom example of how the teacher can help to create culture so students can get on with the content: Lauren has her class in instructional design work on individual design projects but come together during every class session (weekly) to share what they are doing, ask their group for help, and receive their input. The culture being created is, "We ought to give and receive constructive criticism; design is not an individual endeavor." The culture becomes more well defined when she does this over a long period of time; people coming into the class know that this will be expected of them. Yes, this is an aspect of culture that is imposed by the teacher. But unless the students accept this as a cultural standard, there will always be a struggle about whether this group of students is going to be forced to work together.
A culture consists of consensus of what ought to be done or how things ought to be done--rules to govern conduct. There is mutual understanding about the meaning of words used in the culture. (For instance, does IT stand for instructional technology or information technology?)
The culture of listservs indicates that we should keep this message short and that it should be focused on one topic. Thus, we are sending this message as something complete in itself. But there are some other things we want to comment on, just on the basis of what has already been said. And, you probably will keep on creating culture in the meantime. ;-)