Lately there have been a lot of talk about the issues within various communities. It might be the shit storm over in Reddit land, it might be the drama in WP World. It doesn’t actually matter for the purposes of this post.
Poisoned Well
As my friend Helen asked recently:
Do you ever feel like the entire internet has been taken over by trolls because I feel like I’m drinking from a poisoned well right now.
I do.
All the time. Always have. People have always used the internet as a way to let out what they’re feeling without filtering it through their humanity first. They hide behind anonymity, or the simple shield that they can’t see the faces of the people they bully and humiliate. They see it as ‘just good fun’ or ‘just letting things out.’
My friends know I feel that way too. But I always ask them “Can I be unfiltered? I need a rant.”
The Internet Is Broken
What we’re facing is the endemic brokenness of communities as a whole and their sewage spewage.
As my friend JJJ remarked (specifically about a subject but it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this post):
… I’m waiting for a “things are broken” post …
J-trip, I know I’m not the person you’re asking for the post from but, yes, things are broken. Things are badly broken. Things have always been broken. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia. Things are broken because we, as humans, are broken. The online communities we tout as being fundamental to the growth of software development and that bind us together, closer, as humans, is broken because humans suck.
What’s broken isn’t PHP or Reddit or WordPress.
What’s broken is us.
And we remain broken because we don’t fix things.
Let’s Fix It
Fixing isn’t easy though.
Unlike your ‘in person’ community, an online one is incredibly diverse.
At the same time, we need to stop giving it a free pass simply because it’s online. Treat it with the care and love you would treat the people who come together to shoot arrows or sew or watch a baseball game. This is a community and we need to treat it like that.
Remember that what we do in public, and yes the Internet is totally public, reflects on who we are because it is who we are. Behave with integrity and honesty and be yourself. If that self reveals itself to be a bad person who does mean things and doesn’t care about the outcomes, then deal with the outcomes.
Stop pretending that there are no repercussions just because you’re online. Stop thinking that you can get away with being mean just because it makes you feel better. Start caring about people as people, online and offline.
And then there’s the hard thing. Stop letting people get away with it. We all fear the cry of censorship, but there will come a time when we have to stop killing ourselves. It’s our choice to keep the hatemongers among us, and it’s our choice to tell them to change or leave.
Make the right choice.
Comments
4 responses to “OpEd: Community, Community, Community”
Yes. Thanks for writing this. It’s well stated and needed.
I’m actually less concerned about recent WPDrama than I am about the broader trend you are describing online.
The internet as a whole, especially in places like blog comments, forums, or quick-interaction social platforms, can be a hard, tough, judgmental place where people react to each other in ways they’d never do in person. It’s sad, even scary. And there’s a certain hopelessness about changing it, because it’s the cumulative and overwhelming result of so many individual actions.
I’d love to see a “Movement for Civility Online” in which people agree to abide by a certain ethos in their online interactions – keep it positive, constructive, and kind even (perhaps especially) when you disagree with others’ ideas or actions. Basically strive to reclaim the internet, both from the deliberately trollish, and perhaps from our own selves in our lesser moments.
Kudos to you for putting this out there.
@Erick Danzer: Really this isn’t about the WP Drama as much as everything else out there. It’s as much about Reddit allowing itself to be a place for hatemongering and vileness, instead of stepping up and moderating.
It’s about use letting the wrongness persist because the negative attention makes us feel popular.
We can’t expect our communities to change if we aren’t willing to change.
I (personally) think the a big part of the problem is the low bar of commenting.
Look at stackoverflow/stackexchange, you pretty much need to earn everything.
Including the right to moderate others.
Anonymity isn’t a problem there.
The fact that you need to earn features teaches users not to act like jerks.
This also opens up more tools to use against jerks. In a normal comment system the only tools the community has are replies which creates a loop of flamewars.
I know that this is a bit more complicated for comments where a lot more opinions (and emotions) get into play. And even if every website online would use such a system then there is still the problem with personal blogs that you can’t “moderate”.
The main point is that it’s strange to join a club and getting the same rights as other members of that club
@Janw Oostendorp: Anonymity makes it easier for someone to be an asshole.
No. That’s where I disagree. We choose not to moderate personal blogs. We actively decide to let things go. And that’s where we fail.