Apologies for this meta diary, but needs must. MYDD has many old friends and former posters who dare not write here any more. One of them has written an Open Letter to Jerome. Hold back the flames and the insults just for one moment and open your minds. Listen to what the letter says.  

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This diary is being posted to highlight a very simple concept on which I just commented in another diary.

It's one thing to criticize the lack of moderation here. It's another thing to undermine the serious intent of the folks that are STILL putting forth good diaries here despite the lack of moderation, and then seeing folks acting like kids who then magnify the matter (of a lack of full-time moderation here) by pushing spam diaries to the Rec List.

It costs money to moderate a site, 24/7; frequently it costs money to moderate a site even on a part-time basis, for that matter. This site is not producing any significant profits as it is; at least that's what I've gathered reading between the lines of Jerome's comments regarding that reality.

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Crossposted from the Moose

Don't usually crosspost here but seeing that a "polite" diary comparing Obama to Hitler is on the Rec.List ...

... I thought I'd share this with those that don't visit us at the Motley Moose.

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

- Henry Kissinger

Why are people so nasty on blogs?

Why aren't some people able to have a discussion about the merits of a candidate, or strengths and weaknesses of a specific strategy without

getting personal or mean about it?

Are the stakes really so low in some parts of the blogosphere, that people feel the need to be nasty about everything?

Short answer.

Yes.

For many people, flaming and hostility are the only reasons to get online.

These are folks who suffer from a chronic case of assholicism.

Trolls.

troll    
One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers. He will spark of such an argument via the use of ad hominem attacks (i.e. 'you're nothing but a fanboy' is a popular phrase) with no substance or relevence to back them up as well as straw man arguments, which he uses to simply avoid addressing the essence of the issue.

It's much easier to criticise and inflame than it is to be creative and stimulating.

This is as true for the blogosphere as it is for the real world.

Not all trolls are loud, obnoxious and obvious though.

One of my favorites subset of trolls is one that does not fit this specific criteria.

The "polite" troll. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

These are usually the ones railing against opression and all about their right to spew whatever nonsense they are peddling that day.

They usually offer up blisteringly polite, well written 'snake under the rose' posts that are perfectly within the bounds of decency, but create unrest

and dissatisfaction with cutting accuracy.

Disruptive people, who keep themselves just at the edge of acceptable behavior.

They can drive away the sane people just as much as the loud and obnoxious obvious trolls.

These are the posters all too often cry innocence and hide behind the very worthy excuse of  open discussion, but are frequently just trying to stir up

trouble.

Those are usually the ones accusing trusted and long time users of promoting censorship and trollish behavior.

I'm pretty sure some of those will turn up in the comments.

They are predictable like that.

Blogs have to walk a fine line though.

- Heavy handed mods find themselves with a dead community, because people do not want to be dictated to.

- Mods that exercise too little input also find themselves with a cobweb, because trolls come in and run people off.

This last point is the one in which I'll expand in this diary.

I came across this very interesting article.

Which tries to apply the Broken Window theory to the blogosphere.

The book is based on an article titled "Broken Windows" by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, which appeared in the March 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.[2] The title comes from the following example:

"Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars."

A successful strategy for preventing vandalism, say the book's authors, is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage. Clean up the sidewalk every day, and the tendency is for litter not to accumulate (or for the rate of littering to be much less). Problems do not escalate and thus respectable residents do not flee a neighborhood.

The theory thus makes two major claims: that further petty crime and low-level anti-social behavior will be deterred, and that major crime will, as a result, be prevented. Criticism of the theory has tended to focus only on the latter claim.

Original in The Atlantic (1982).

This was in the news again because of a recent article in The Economist in which the theory is proved correct in an experimenal setting.

A PLACE that is covered in graffiti and festooned with rubbish makes people feel uneasy. And with good reason, according to a group of researchers in the Netherlands. Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen deliberately created such settings as a part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter and low-level lawbreaking could change the way people behave. They found that they could, by a lot: doubling the number who are prepared to litter and steal.

How does this theory apply to blogs you ask?

Kottke says a bit like so :

Much of the tone of discourse online is governed by the level of moderation and to what extent people are encouraged to "own" their words. When forums, message boards, and blog comment threads with more than a handful of participants are unmoderated, bad behavior follows. The appearance of one troll encourages others. Undeleted hateful or ad hominem comments are an indication that that sort of thing is allowable behavior and encourages more of the same. Those commenters who are normally respectable participants are emboldened by the uptick in bad behavior and misbehave themselves. More likely, they're discouraged from helping with the community moderation process of keeping their peers in line with social pressure. Or they stop visiting the site altogether.

Hmmm...

Unchecked comment spam signals that the owner/moderator of the forum or blog isn't paying attention, stimulating further improper conduct. Anonymity provides commenters with immunity from being associated with their speech and actions, making the whole situation worse...how does the community punish or police someone they don't know? Very quickly, the situation is out of control and your message board is the online equivalent of South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s, inhabited by roving gangs armed with hate speech, fueled by the need for attention, making things difficult for those who wish to carry on useful conversations.

I wonder if we could test this theory out.

Maybe track a blog and see how things develop over time.

Heh.

Other than the quasiracist South LA dig I agree with the author 100%.

I get a more Medieval vibe from it though.

Kind of Braveheart meets The Warriors meets 9/11 truthers thing.

We all know what the end result of a poorly moderated blog is.

But few people know their is a Law in monetary economics that can be applied to this phenomena as well.

Gresham's Law

Gresham's law says that any circulating currency consisting of both "good" and "bad" money (both forms required to be accepted at equal value under legal tender law) quickly becomes dominated by the "bad" money. This is because people spending money will hand over the "bad" coins rather than the "good" ones, keeping the "good" ones for themselves.

Gresham's Law of trolls:

Trolls are willing to use a forum with a lot of thoughtful people in it, but thoughtful people aren't willing to use a forum with a lot of trolls in it.

Which means that once trolling takes hold, it tends to become the dominant culture.

Let's not let that happen here peeps.

What do you say MyDD?

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Cross Posted on Motley Moose

It's out. On popular request I'm letting you all know that my a version of my 'Journal of the Flame Wars' has now been published in Prospect Magazine .

As with all such articles, they get cut for length, subbed and simplified, and this is even more true in a British publication where the Netroots has to be explained as Blogosphere 101. There are a lot of things - a history of snark, mentions of other bloggers that have been cut because of length and complexity.

Sorry guys. I tried to mention a lot of you. But the editors found it confusing. It really needs a longer piece to get the whole story. Maybe I should write a book

I hope you enjoy despite this. In the fierce urgency of defeating McCain Palin, I don't want to reignite any unnecessary and ancient flame wars, so the only two issues I want to comment on are these...

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Crossposted fromMY LEFT WING

His first comment:

How can Obama juggle being president and a Black Man?

Intersted (sic) in hearing comments on this issue!

I mean really how can a black man handle being president?

We all know that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for a mom to be VP...right?

A My Left Wing regular responds:

what do you think
the problems would be that need juggling? What is it about being a Black man that you think conflicts with being president? Is there some job or policy about which Obama will have to say, "You know, Joe, I'm a Black man, so i can't do this one.  You'll have to take it?"

Give us a guideline by outline the problem as you see it for us.  Please.

To which I respond, with my usual irrepressible aplomb:

That giant swinging cock will get in the way, of course.

Everybody knows that.

And the possibly syphilitic troll comes back, using those tactics they probably teach in Seminars for Conservatives Who Blog:

Giant swinging cock

Well it might be more pleasing to the interns!! But see that's a positive...this thread is here to explore the negatives of being a black man and trying to juggle responsibilities.

Could it that black men are inferior to the rest of the population? You know similarly to being a women and having children...women can't multitask and juggle responsibility like a white man can..as this has been pointed out so very well in the media since Sara Palin has come on the scene.

Now... here's my response to THAT...

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