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Please Die2: Raising Creative Jerks
from the Hostile-Environments dept.
Part Two
This issue of a hostile communications style, an assaultive online environment, transcends any particularly website or Net sub-culture, having its roots in the earliest days of the Net. Hostility tends to go hand-in-hand with online media - a fact of life, like noise near an airport. There's always been an angry streak in the subculture of geeks, hackers, nerds, teenagers and academics who patched together computers and computer networks and built the first bulletin boards, mailing lists and conferencing systems.
In fact, hostility is closely tied to computing communications, the Net and the Web, to many high-tech industries. There's not a great deal of mystery about the source: it's generated largely by young men, the branch of the species that has the highest testosterone levels.
Older people abandon websites like this with almost visceral disgust: "I'm a retired engineer," Jim wrote me several weeks ago, "and I would never post a message on your website. It's complicated and it's just too hostile. I don't have an appetite for that."
Perhaps more than any other single group, women report endemic problems posting on sites like this (check the Natalie Portman postings on almost any Thread), an extension of the trouble some have encountered working in computing and technology companies.
For the second time in four months, Juno Online Services is facing a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former employee, a Harvard-educated software engineer who claims she was pressured to date a company executive, was paid less than her male colleagues, and worked in an environment where sexism and locker-room behavior were rampant.
In recent years, countless numbers of women have complained about the techno-workplace and the probably-related problems they face participating in sites like this one.
While the Net and the Web were conceived and constructed by men -- who dominated the technical, defense, academic and engineering professions of the 1950's and 1960's -- that's starting to change. Industry surveys show that as many women as men are buying computers now, and women are working in almost every element of the computing industry. But it's unusual to see one posting on sites like this - a surprising reality given that half of the people online are now female. Men start most topics, dominate most conversations.
And identity - perhaps the single most elemental ingredient of community - is almost eroded when anonymous posters dominate all discussions. Women seeking community often turn to all-female mailing lists, conferences and websites, a sad evolution of a medium with so much promise to be free and open. At its geeky core, the Net still feels like a clubhouse - male, white, narrow.
E-mail is convenient, visceral and democratic, but it, along with anonymous public postings, can breed hostility and raise unresolved questions. There's little tradition of taking responsibility for one's words, which can be instantly hurled all over the world in seconds.
Yet this idea of taking responsibility, of being held accountable for what one says, is also closely linked to the quality and value of communication.
The nature of e-mail and posts has evolved tremendously in the past decade, according to scholars studying e-communities. "When e-mail took root in organizations in the late l970's and early 1980's two things occurred regularly and predictably," writes Mark Stefik of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in "Internet Dreams," published in 1996.
"One was that e-mail users spontaneously organized their own discussion groups on topics of interest: the second was a kind of organizational flattening as people developed e-mail cross-links that did not necessarily follow hierarchical lines of management."
The trend in e-mail, writes Stefik, has been towards greater connectivity, and e-mail has soared past company, university, and other boundaries. Now, says Stefik, the original rationale for e-mail has disappeared, and people largely use it for social purposes, not functionality.
And sadly, public posting areas haven't evolved much at all, apart from the fact that most websites forbid anonymity and restrict the nature of personal messages.
The evolution of e-mail and the growth of the Web has brought distinctive e-communities into increasing contact with outsiders. "From the perspective of veterans," writes Stefik, "hordes of new users have invaded their discussions over the past few years, using bad etiquette and asking dumb questions. The social problem is analogous to the problem of assimilation when natural disasters or wars lead to mass movements of people to new lands. When the rate of immigration exceeds a certain amount, the resulting chaos and need for adjustment in the host country can evoke resentment and backlash from the resident population."
In my own experience, Stefik's observations ring especially true. As a non-geek who usually (for a variety of work reasons) writes in Microsoft Word, some members of this community have been trying to drive me off the site ever since I arrived. Often, their attacks have little to do with what I think or write, mostly to do with the fact that I'm different, an outsider, a non-programmer who made different technology choices.
I've gotten plenty of praise and support too, but my own experience underscores the moral challenge facing people who run websites like this: people who attack others are celebrated. Only certain groups are really free; everybody else has the appearance of freedom but if their views diverge from the norm they are assaulted, harassed, driven off.
It's an inverted kind of tyranny in which the most hostile people are truly the freest. Most people who aren't paid columnists will go elsewhere.
As an e-community grows, so does the small group of people likely to send or post hostile or bizarre messages. The flamers are never required to take responsibility for any of the things they say, nor are there any consequences. They aren't embarrassed to be vicious or inaccurate, since they don't ever meet the people reading their messages. One might even argue they're rewarded for shutting down free speech.
Behavioral psychologists like Robert Coles and James Wilson describe the evolution of human behavior and conscience this way: the young are praised for good behavior, punished for bad. In this way, through a complex system of cues, rewards and signals, they learn to differentiate acceptable from unacceptable behavior. If you insult a kid down the block, he belts you. If you slug your sister, you get sent to your room. If you taunt your teacher, you stay after school.
But online, this process of learning how to behave is oddly inverted. You might be rewarded for being creative and technologically-skilled, but not for being civil or tolerant. Perhaps more significantly, you never suffer for being hostile. Frequently -- through your ability to post public messages, to attack others and disrupt conversations --- you are actually rewarded.
In the real world, people learn to hold or moderate speech. If you're smart, you don't yell at the cop who's pulled you over, and you resist the urge to tell your boss he's a jerk. Online, there is no moderating impulse. Some websites are actually installing "reply delay" software to force posters to mull their words for a minute or two.
In virtual communities, especially those that guarantee anonymity, there aren't even such mild social pressures as disapproving glances or cold stares. The targets can't simply walk away, although that's increasingly the goal of some moderated systems. Even though electronic communities have demonstrated many of the same traits as real-world communities, older, veteran or more experienced members have no tradition of coaching or mentoring their aberrant peers. The result is a curious new kind of sub-culture in which a small group can experience unbounded freedom and creativity, yet never have to develop empathetic or communal social skills. The results are on display every day: the Net is breeding some of the brightest jerks on the planet.
The result is that flaming and hostile environments become a political as well as technological question, especially for those who are assaulted or excluded. Hard-core geeks embrace as a political ideology the idea that all communications should be free. Yet hostility and cultural bigotry to outsiders and newcomers usually only ends when it becomes a consensus political issue - in this case, when website leaders, lurkers, veterans and other people with influence move to challenge hostility, and to curb non-productive and personal verbal abuse.
As e-communities evolve, so do their politics. Although it makes perfect sense that websites will find ways to preserve even the most raucous freedom, the preservation of hostile environments make no sense at all - technologically, politically or commercially.
Tomorrow: In hostile environments, how to talk about technology?
Mirror (Score:5)
So I tend to view the internet as not a solution or a problem, but like one of those fun house mirrors. It still shows you what was there all along, but sometimes in a really warped and twisted fashion. You never know until you look.
Same old Same old... (Score:3)
I remember back in 1988 with BBS's when it was pure geek culture the same thing was going on then. Flame wars burnned like wildfires around message boards over nothing -- no topical arguments, just pure "You suck" issues.
Nothing has changed for better or worse. The way I look at it, flames can be pretty funny if you take a step back and try not to get involved, and the less people that get involved, the less meaningless messages will fill up disscusion boards because flaming is realy just about the need for attention.. *sigh*
I remember one guy on this BBS actualy got a brick through his window as the result of flaming another guy on a board...But remaining annoymous was a little more difficult back then.
...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:4)
The first amendment (contrary to apparently popular belief) doesn't say a damn thing about intimidation, or your own willingness to speak. If you say something, and someone else says you're wrong (and maybe even mocks you for it), free speech has not been violated, it has in fact worked perfectly.
I'm sick and fscking tired of these Politically Correct morons wanting to use the first amendment to censor anyone who doesn't agree with them. "But they're *scaring* me!" or "That's *sooo* offensive." doesn't quite work as an argument. There are pre-existing legal guidelines for harassment, online or off.
Free speech means exactly that, it does *not* mean "nice speech." It does not mean speech that's been pre-approved by the standards of a snobby elite few seeking to control our methods of expression. And while I personally agree that well thought out, nicely articulated pieces are leagues more effective than a crude flame, I will defend to the death the right of the 14 year old 5cr1p7 k1dd13 to flame a newbie. They're 1's and 0's people. They don't hurt people.
Anthony
Is Slashdot racist? (Score:4)
I don't know about "narrow", though. Sure, I can shrink my browser down to 640x480 and have Slashdot fit sometimes, but what about when stupid ACs create a thread nested 25 deep? Then Slashdot becomes one of the broadest sites on the web. Site width is definitely a more complicated issue than color.
Speed is the issue (Score:4)
I've been in a company where we went from having no e-mail to having e-mail. There was a period where e-mail was flooded with knee jerk responses and offers for free kittens. After the learning curve, people got the idea, and e-mail because usefull, not just a buch of junk. I think the internet, given the huge number of people, will need a great deal of time for the signal to noise ratio to settle down. There will always be newbies and downright rotten people to mess things up, but there is hope for the newbies.
We were all newbies once. We got better.
Remember, this whole internet thing has been around for just a short time. It took many years for societies to develop. This internet society needs to have its growing pains also. Things will get better, but given the vast number of people involved, it is going to take a few decades for things to settle out.
--
Geek political correctness (Score:3)
Re:...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:3)
Yeah, and verbal abuse is just sound waves. They don't hurt people! Child porn and is just light reflected from a surface! It doesn't hurt people! Racist graffiti is just paint on a wall! etc, etc.
I don't think we can really go with this deconstructionalist approach. Sure, online postings are one step further removed from reality, but I don't this gives people a God-given right to spout any old guff and expect other people to have to read it.
Re:...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:4)
Bullshit. The first amendment is not designed to allow ACs to post on
You can blame moderators, meta moderators or rob for the karma of a given comment, but ultimately, you will be able to read that comment. And the poster of that comment can do so anonymously.
ALL Form, NO Content... (Score:3)
LINE 1: Online, hostile environments are driving almost every social group other than techno-savvy young white men away from coherent public discussion of technology.
Not true. The other social groups just don't discuss it on the online, hostile environments you describe. Take my non-technical friends: They discuss it down the pub. ...and yes, they do it coherently!
LINE 2: These men are invariably smart and skilled, but almost unable to communicate civilly or tolerate disagreement or difference.
On what EVIDENCE is this sweeping statement based? I would guess that it is your perception. You are not, by your own admission, qualified to do this.
I stopped reading after this!
Breeding communities of jerks (Score:5)
Uhh.. (Score:4)
I really don't like either this article or the previous one. I think that Jon is doing nothing more than writing paragraphs of drivel whining about being flamed by some AC. I know I can't wait to see part three. (I wonder what percentage of the people who see this comment actually read Jon's article in its entirety.)
Yes, I can filter him out, and no, I don't want to. The comments on his articles are usually a good read. Barring, of course, the 200 comment religious flamewar on his last -real- article. (Re: God hates fags, or does he?)
In part one, he took issue with some anonymous person asking him to "Please Die". Well, I'm not anonymous, and this may only be my opinion, but Jon... If this is the best you can do, -please- go away, find a corner, and curl up in it. If you choose to die at this time, press 1. If you choose to live, press 2. You must be using a true touch tone phone. Thank you for calling the talking yellow pages.
(Posted with my +1 for the hell of it.)
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On the Internet, no one knows... or do they? (Score:3)
The now famous cartoon about nobody knowing one is a dog holds also for age, and gender, and almost anything else one wishes not to reveal if one is careful.
Almost anything. There is a glaring exception that shines through every time. The exception is maturity
Maturity will show every time, as those lacking it simply haven't the control to required to fake it. A mature post or comment or action can come from a 13 year old girl, or 97 year old man. Both can hide gender or age if they so choose, by making the effort. Perhaps online discussion forums are revealing that maturity is a lot less common than many of us would like it be. Of course, the immature posts and comments tend to stand out, as out of place, so maybe they just get more notice, like a brat yelling his (or her) lungs out it only takes a one or maybe a few to make life miserable for those around them.
Slashdot is at least trying to deal with the 'brats' by moderation. It is an imperfect system, as shown by the need for meta-moderation, but is at least an attempt to deal with the problem. I've seen other web-board sites (gross oversimplifation of /. isn't it?) close rather than work at the problem. I prefer the /. take: acknowledg the problem and at least try to fix it.
Not all of us are white men! (Score:5)
LK
PS, why is it that I dread it every time I see Katz's name on a story?
Re:...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:3)
You've taken my arguments out of context. You're absoloutely right, in the way I was talking about "hurting people." *Looking at* (gasp) racist graffiti or (real gasp) child porn never actually *hurt* anyone. It may have scarred them emotionally, but I wasn't talking about that. Completely different use of the word "hurt."
I don't [think] this gives people a God-given right to spout any old guff and expect other people to have to read it.
But you don't *have* to read it! That's the beautiful part! You can browse at a 1, or a 2, or go read CNN, or Suck, or The Onion. God is dead, we are all completely free!
Anthony
We're all jerks, n'OK? (Score:3)
People have been commenting on the death of civility long before the Internet phenomenon (since the end of the Victorian age, at least). Each generation bemoans the brashness of the one that follows.
The phenomena Katz notes aren't restricted to online, and are hardly related to anonymity. Remember "Talk Radio?" "Trash TV?" People on Jerry Springer are hardly anonymous, but that probably makes them less rather than more civil. The fact is that some people are mean and/or crude, and always have been. Technology just widens our view so we see more of what's been there all along.
I think Katz is seeing differences where none exist. Bullies have always gotten the "reward" of hollow respect from their peers. Anonymity actually makes them easier, not harder, to ignore--they're just annoying noise, not some menancing presence threatening physical violence.
Katz obviously has some issues with various social behaviors, and some insights (and I would argue misconceptions) concerning them. But when he tries to show some technological connection, he rarely hits the mark. He still belongs here, since his stuff certainly qualifies as "news for nerds." But he should back off from these failed attempts at techno-hipness and focus on the more general issues in his in-group/out-group social commentary.
Re:...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:3)
ACs that post flamebait have every right to say what they do. And the consequence is that they get moderated down by the greater population.
Racists that spew forth garbage are villified by society. If said statements occur in the wrong place at the wrong time, they might cost you a job, a promising career, and friendship.
Have a little faith in the system - eventually we (as a whole population, not an internet community) will sort out our so-called online lives so that things that are acceptable online mirror acceptablility in real life.
*putting on asbestos suit*
This is where a moderation system such as slashdot's works well, and is ahead of its time. The simple fact is that there is accountability through a moderation system, and the system works well. Not perfect, but then again, it is early in development as well. But the greater good decides what comments are worth being bumped up. Just like real life. People who have something good to say are eventually heard by people who want good out of life, and those with nothing but garbage to contribute are marginalized by society.
Re:...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:3)
...unless they let them.
Yes, you can be hurt by words, but only if you let yourself be hurt. Unfortunately, our politically correct world teaches people to let themselves be hurt.
Our society trains us to take offense. Instead, it should train us to understand that what some idiotic 14-year-old without the guts to name himself things just does not mean squat.
If someone says "fuck you, you idjit, use emacs", have the self-confidence to ignore it. If you take offense, you've just given them what they want. Stop giving them what they want, and they'll stop.
Nitpicks (Score:3)
As a woman (yes, one of the few, the proud, the mighty), I have to corroborate Katz's note that I'm more likely to post to women-only or moderated groups and lists than to flame-fora.
That said, it's not because I can't flame; I once told a
Angry young men:
Who, if you could run a demographic study on repeat flamers, would constitute nearly the entirety of the flaming population. Remember that these guys are victims of the same schooling as the rest of us. Plus testosterone
Flaming is a relatively harmless outlet for their aggravation; I'd vastly prefer that they post flames than actively try to avenge themselves upon the wider society, don't you?
Katz may not have noticed that flamers aren't rewarded as well as they'd like to be; but I doubt that Jon is used to the phrase, "Welcome to my killfile, sucker!" On
I rather doubt that your garden-variety flamer finds being ignored "rewarding".
I'm surprised at the premise that flamers somehow "inhibit" free speech. While that may be true in fora where the signal-to-noise ratio makes finding useful material impossible (many news:alt.* groups, for instance), in subject-matter areas like moderated groups, mailing lists and weblogs, flamers have a tendency to be treated like spam -- deleted or skipped past without further ado. They may take up *physical* space on screen and HD, but if you don't click on them or read them, they can't possibly waste your time.
Which is why many flames seem harmless to their creators -- they know that the only people who could possibly be affected by their posts are precisely the audience they'd like to aggravate. It's going to be rather difficult to remediate bad behavior when the only people who notice or care are the ones the perpetrator already detests
Katz and Technology:
Well, I first read [about] JonKatz at Suck, and then read his work at Netizen. So I have *some* sense of history, which I suspect that many of his more virulent flamers lack.
Katz is not a Linux programmer. Neither am I (there being less $ interest in multimedia under the various Unices than under Windows or MacOS). He's a journalist and commentator *and* technophile -- while he may not be as technically adept as most of his
If you want to rag on him for occasionally leaving in weird artifact characters courtesy of MS Word for Windoze, well, I'm totally with you there
[postscript]
My website is out-of-date, and the drive where I edit it from is currently toast (Mac OS 4G multi-partition whose partition block bit the dust while I was playing CivII). So I am no longer in need of a personal slave, the one I obtained takes up all of my free time already.
Dear johnny boy... (Score:4)
While some of the 'slashdotters' will take all your words as a rant about personal (even though it's electronic and may have not been meant as a personal attack, it still is personal if the 'attackee' takes it personally) attacks against you, I can see that it is more of an anology to the net at large, and a clue into the minds of people (or at least I hope that is your intent, and I'm not looking too much into it)
As an admitted non-geek, you have undoubtedly faced many of the 'leet' linux dewds who feel you should turn around and never even look in their general directions - due to something as simple as some difficulty during installing linux or using a product made by microsoft. Heck, as a geek I myself have faced them and have been disgusted by their actions.
But on to my point (yes, there is one I wanted to say) - you seem to be embracing the mass media created stereotypes too much. I had the same problem with my ex-girlfriend. She didn't think I should get a pickup truck because 'only country folks' drive pickup trucks. You seem to be clumping geeks and computer lovers into a general description pulled out of magazines, news articles, and the jargon file. While that may fit some of 'us', maybe even a majority, it is by no means accurate depiction of the whole of us.
As for my thoughts on your recent article... I think that (as undoubtedly pointed out by others even though I formed this opinion even before reading the comments) that electronic communication represents the 'true' self opinion - not covered up by civil overtones and gracious words. People, even ones who seem kind and nice, are vicous animals. We are very aggressive at times, and a lot of us don't even recognize this aggressiveness. It manifests itselfs in the physical (as opposed to electronic-ie, the web) world in subtle ways, something as simple as looking at someone who offends you in some way, or talking louder than everyone else. Or bashing someone because they are not (admitidly) a geek yet they try to be part of our culture.
In the electronic world, this aggression is less hidden. There is no threat or fear of feasible physical violence to hold us back. No permanant reputation to stain. Even I have, usually only when very stressed or angry, attacked others in usenet. I am usually a mellow guy. Everyone thinks I am on drugs because of my mellowness. In the physical world, it takes a lot of effort to push me into anger. Only once have I ever physically hit someone, and I instantly hated myself for it. But, on the internet, I have struck out several times and have not regret it nearly as much.
Still, some of us are able to maintain some civility and make some usefullness out of it, instead of just attacking everything that comes into sight.
I don't think we are raising or training people to be vicous.
We already are.
We always have been.
Not about what we can do, but what we should do (Score:3)
Machiavelli said that a main strength of a republic is the virtue of its citizens, gained from having power and thus responsibility. The question isn't whether we want to take away peoples' power to say things, it's whether we, as individuals, want to start taking up some of our responsibility -- to exercise restraint and to encourage each other to do the same.
Assertion w/o evidence is his game (Score:3)
Katz asserts that the early days of the net were the breeding ground for a class of people who were inherently and overtly hostile to these non-white, non-male newcomers. Although the demographics of many of the early net users are generally white and generally male, this does not prove the point. For instance, I am both white and male and I am not hostile to people who are neither.
Katz asserts that a preexisting angry streak in the geek subculture has permeated the culture of the net, adding that he believes that is generated by the demographics of the net-- his angry young men. Again, Katz uses the proof by assertion method. As a young man I was hostile toward many things. In fact, my wife accuses me of being hostile to other drivers even today. However, somehow I was able to keep from adopting this hostility in written or spoken communication (well, there were a few instances, but beer was involved).
Katz asserts that harassment of a sexual nature is endemic in the technical workplace, and uses a complaint at Juno to back up his claim. However, he fails to note that sexual harassment claims are filed in every industry and that most of the truly notable cases are not in the technical industry. The number of women who function as CEOs and officers of technology companies stands in stark contrast to Katz' assertion that the technical workplace and cyberspace are replete with harassment.
One of the arguments that Katz returns to over and over again is that the difficulty that people have posting to or using /. is inherently a part of the hostility that is often seen on the site. Of course, it couldn't be that the site is difficult to use (it is, especially for newer web users) or that the content, generally of a more technical nature, is difficult for those not versed in both technology and open source issues to understand. These are significant barriers to participation for some. However, this is a good thing in that it helps (along with moderation) to keep the noise level down somewhat. When these people understand the content and the mechanism, they will be ready to join the discussion.
The assertion that there is some sort of "broad geek conspiracy" to keep women, non-whites, and other "undesirables" off of the net or in their own "content ghettos" is an example of the worst kind of hysteria, and deserves no place in a /. feature. While it IS appropriate to challenge the participants on /. to make /. and the web a better place, there is no reason for the type of mindless stereotyping of geeks that Katz has so proudly rejected in the past.
Katz tries to tie all of this together with some developmental psychology theory, using this to assert that the ability to "act" in a hostile manner online will lead to adults that are inherently hostile due to the fact that they never learned how to behave. Last time I checked, the same people who are online also exist in the offline world, where they shop, interact with others, go to restaurants, and engage in a variety of day-to-day activities that expose them to a different environment where they likely are less hostile than online. I also imagine that within each hostile poster's own community there is less of this hostility- I bet that they can get along.
Finally, the tendency of Katz to insert his own experiences as a validation of poorly-thought-out assertions is self-serving and insulting. Katz seems surprised that on one of the most pro-open source web sites on the net that the reaction to his use of Word was negative in some quarters. That Katz would be surprised by this is baffling. The use of these examples from his own experience gives a tone of self-justification and self-imposed martyrdom that makes the skin crawl as one reads it. The effect is to insult the reader, which makes me a little hostile.
Re:...defend to the death your right to say it (Score:4)
However, with freedom comes personal responsibility. At some point, one most grow up and be mature in their communications. We do need education out there that teaches these 14-year old 5crip7 k1dd13z that its NOT NICE to flame newbies.
No, no one should be silenced for any reason. Thats why Slashdot, for instance, allows you to turn all the moderation features off. OTOH, Slashdot has a moderation system. And that moderation system is a form of "social pressure" (to use Katz' own words) to be responsible for what you say.
So, if you can't be responsible enough to come up with intelligent, well-thought out comments, then the people who care about that sort of thing will ignore you.
I think though, that the Slashdot moderation system is sort of self-serving. Those who care enough to moderate are also likely to be the same sort of people with like mindsets. OTOH, I have been pleasantly surprised in the past when posts derrogatory towards Linux or open source have been moderated up, especially when the poster was intelligent and thoughtful.
No free speech does NOT mean nice speech. The purpose of the 1st Amendment is to protect offensive speech. But exercising your free speech means being responsible and at least have something intelligent to say if you're going to say something. Don't say crap like Katz is on crack, because that will get you nowhere. If you disagree with Jon Katz, or Rob Malda, or Linus Torvalds or RMS or ESR, or anyone, then say WHY you disagree, and bring up intelligent points to support your case. Don't just say Katz is a moron, if you really think he's a moron then PROVE IT, and people will respect you for it.
Abrasiveness, net-cops, spam, etc. (Score:3)
This plays off of something in the first article in this series rather well. You pointed out that there is a tendency to have a filtered view of the Internet. Each person has his own mental model of it. Those of us who do more than shop online, who actually participate in online communities, believe that the places we visit have residents in a sense and a community identity.
The instincts that lead us to protect a community from being changed beyond recognition are in direct conflict however with the Net's lack of place. Slashdot, is not closer nor farther away from comp.lang.c++ than it is from denask-l (I won't put the exact address here to keep it away from spammers). And all three of these are as easily accessible to people with the technology from anywhere.
There is a tendency to view all of the communities we encounter through the filters of our experience. Old-timers know what the community has been. Newbies believe it to be something different. The old-timers are there because it offers them something they want or need. They are going to resist losing that. And the newbies are seeking something. Where those conflict, there will be friction.
And the point I am driving toward is that this friction is good. We now have the ability to build communities around shared interests that completely transcend place. I have participated in one of these for years that doesn't even have a single fixed location on the net, the online community of Esperantists. You will find us in several newsgroups, mailing lists and web sites. Such communities must resist undermining the central defining characteristics of the community. To the extent that they can succeed in that, the Internet is no longer a homogenizing force. Instead, it allows small, widely dispersed groups to form communities. But to police community identity requires people who are willing to escalate to abrasiveness in order to exclude people who insist on using a forum in ways that will undermine its central purpose.
This resistance to seeing a community destroyed by off-topic use is perhaps the most persuasive argument against spam. Individual people or companies selling online may be able to argue that they are selling to the right groups. Unlike broadcast media, even if they are right, there is no authority, no owner, enforcing a ratio of on-topic content versus advertising. Self-regulation might be tolerated easily (advertising a web site with product information in a
Biology resorts to game theory in some cases to explain the balance achieved between the different strategies pursued by various members of a species. It applies here as well. A community composed entirely of abrasive, aggressive curmugdeons each tenaciously defending it against his own view of what the community should be is no more viable than a community with no one but an army. And yet both virtual and physical communities need their defenders. Such people must be unyielding on certain important points.
For the net to allow communities to form and survive at all will require a certain amount of conflict. It is unavoidable, and desirable. It is part of community identity.
Re:Mirror (Score:3)
I think the cause is the fact that you don't see or hear other humans, and that you can react instantly. I also thing that you can learn to control this - if you try. The flamers are people who don't try.
dufke
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it's not your technology, it's your narcissism (Score:3)
My main objection is this: In most Katz articles, the primary topic is Katz himself. Sometimes there's a secondary topic, but once you strip out all the self-congratulation, Katz says very little of substance about that topic. As Rogers Cadenhead said in this March 1999 essay [theobvious.com]:
So now, since Katz has been flamed, he's writing a three-part series about flaming. There have been other Slashdot discussions of this topic, e.g., Thoughts from the Furnace [slashdot.org]. What does Katz have to say on this topic that's both "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters"?--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."