Call Two Notes

Present:

Koan Nancy Denise Dennis Elana Robert Grace Lisa Debra Bill


 * What sorts of indicators can we give to our readers about our engagement expectations? See Lisa's delicious tag blog_policies. Concern about too much rules? We already have rules, and making them explicit makes it nicer for the reader. That makes it more transparent. In terms of community formation, there are almost always rules about who is in/out but they are often unwritten. Like going into a shop without price tag. We assume we can't afford it. A lot of people assume they are not "us" that they are "them." Them is part of the community formation process. Feel like an outsider because they don't know how it works. They want to know how to be polite. What kind of action is offensive so they don't do it unintentionally. That's one of the aspects of community formation that could use some help. Move to a new place. Someone helps you learn the ropes. You remember/grateful to that member for making the rules explicit so you could participate if you wanted to.


 * Saying what your rules are doesn't hold people back, but they feel less inhibited. If they want to play nicely. Without putting people's backs up.


 * People can choose not to play by the rules. Hamarabi's code - get your hand wacked off but it was a major advance. The law was not the corrupt whim of a corrupt leader. Bloggers appear to act as they have rules for thee and not for me. From behaviour people intuit rules. Why did you delete that comment and not this one. Why did you do this here and that there. Gives people a way to evaluate self consistency and help the blogger get out from being lazy.


 * Read the preamble to the proposed constitution for Iraq. They talk about the historical significance of the place they live in as the first recording of law. Amazing to read... historical connections.


 * What is the difference between setting out rules that I hold myself accountable to and what I'd hold others accountable to?


 * Different and not true for bloggers vs commentors. We are sherrif of our own space. A promise about


 * My rules are no personal attacks and no ___ behaviors. I hold myself and others accountable. Take a step forward. People can restrict me further in their environment. Or less. But I hold myself to my standards other places as well. I restrict myself.


 * Most people don't make the distinction of applying their comment policies to themselves. They are harsher on their blog posts than the comments on those posts.


 * Been thinking and blogging about the use of profanity in blogging. Made a decision not to use in mine, but will allow others to comment using profanity. Recognize I may be on a generational divide. Struggled with this. I don't want to use profanity, but will allow it in a comment


 * What are our self policies? Around the circle


 * Koan: Encourage people to comment and have not had to delete other than spam. Have not had to edit (and can't) . Hold myself to a higher standard than what I hold others to. Maybe that's a good thing to do. Not to be "better" but maybe there are things we allow others that we won't allow ourselves.


 * Nancy: I try to hold myself to a civil standard.


 * Denise: I'm probably only going to delete spam and let people do what they want. But I'm not at the point, not risking any flame wars on my blog. It would be unlikely that anyone would post a personal attack at this point. If they did, I'd probably let it go. I like trolls. But I would not engage them in the same fashion. That speaks for itself. It ought to stay there. If they want to show the world thats what they want to say, then ok.


 * Dennis: I'm inline with something Nancy said. I don't hold commentors to the same approach I practice myself. I've been known to flame and troll on newsgroups, don't think I have on blogs, but have been argumentative. I hope none was taking as name calling and personal. I've challenged others. I like the principle of hold myself to and never responding at anything other than that level. Which might mean shut up if I can't maintain my level of civility. Want to train myself and pull personal reactions out of things as a commitment to civil discourse. Have deleted someone who was talking to someone else because of a mention of something they found in a search. They attached their harassment of another person as a comment. Deleted it. Goal would be to set aside so others can find why I deleted.


 * (Elana gracefully recaps for Deb who just joined). Have deleted a comment from someone who called me fugly. Wondered why chosen for fugly award, but email was dead so deleted it based on that. Would have left it up if it was someone who would have had a discussion about me getting the fugly award.


 * Robert: Echo what others said. Ideal is to hold a professional decorum in blogging and commenting. Haven't had to delete comments. I would probably not delete with regard to profanity, only flames that make reading unweildy.


 * Grace: My blog is pretty much the wild west. Profanity, pictures of bruises of behind, in the style of unabashed mommy blog. But have very high standards on attacking my commentors. People from other side of ideological aisel. Have received and published hate email. When I get one, each person who comments to a hate email I publish I donate a dollar to charity. I've been using the negativity for charity and amusement. However, I was really intrigued about Jimmy B's guidlines. I stick to those as well. People are entitled to opinion, back it up with facts, no personal attacks.


 * How do you know when something becomes a personal attack? It is fairly obvious. When someone is called a name.

or "support the troops." This blogs comments will be held to the bloggers pledge of civil discoruse.
 * Pledge buttons -- how memes get whipped around blogs. A band that reads "make poverty history


 * Lisa: When I did a study and collected examples of blog policies, almost all are about comments, and basically three types: free speach zone/anything goes; the discourse zone - free but no personal attacks, attack ideas not people; the living room doctrine - blog a personal extension of my lving space. If you say something threatening, I'll delete it. I'm in the third category. People say that's censorship. No, anyone can get their own blog and point to my blog. I pay for my server. Not under obligation to host others' bile. I'm not required to provide that forum. They can push that rock uphill themselves. For political or controversial topics, the discourse zone one is probably the most popular and with reason. It provides space to talk about controversial things. For me, my blog, I need to preserve some safe space for me to talk about things that are personal or scaryt o me. If I didn't preserve my living room, I would not feel my blog would be safe it would change what I write. My blog helps me to understand what I'm on about. If I have silly thinking, to expose and think about it. In that same vein, a lot of the blogosphere celebrates and enjoys free wheeling ranting. The first thing in my policy is kindness. For where I wanted to go with my blog, my problem was posting angry. That wasn't getting me anywhere as a person. That's not what I needed to learn. Some look at my policy and say " I could never adopt that." Fine. Some have more problems with not expressing their anger and should let it out more. How commenters interact with the free speach on the bloggers side.


 * Debra: My policy, a cyber arts-walking the dog blog, I don't get anything very aggressive so have not had to decide about nastiness or obscene. I suspect I would keep the comments up. Believe in 1st amendment, unless they were so vicious they make me cry. I insist I stay civil when I comment on others blogs.


 * Bill: I haven't had to worry about it as much as well. Debra summed up how I might behave. I'm not certain how I'll behave until I have to confront it. My behavior surprises me sometimes. I am trying to understand what it means to be civil in a crowded world.

Summary of this round: making expectations about how we interact might be useful and perhaps a preventive measure. A fascinating exercise to go through. You'll find out surprising things that you didn't know that you thought


 * When you go on someone's blog, do you look for someone's policy? I created my blogging ethics guide, but not a comment guide. DO you see that out? I like the idea of a civil discourse icon. Do you seek that out?


 * I started writing a FAQ file. Theres a link to the top right of my navigation bar. Probably out to refer to it in the subtitle so its the first thing that people see. Who is the blogger, what about, so someone browsing gets a quick heads up. "My blogger "policy strikes me as the place to put that.


 * I like David Weinbergers one liner at the top of the comment form. I've placed links for privacy, status and contact me. I'm looking to use the "safe space" symbol. Thinking about that. Great place is comment form.


 * That assumes the blogger has control of that part of their platform. I don't have that control. One of the reasons I"m writing my own. Amy Gahran has put that in in the last few days, the obligations of the commentor. Not sure how legally enforceable.


 * I don't have anything!


 * If we put it up, will anyone read it or make a difference? You get a ton of warnings and EULAs when you download software. Nobody reads them. But when you have to apply them, better than retroactively trying to create a policy to react to a situation. It's just awful. There's other kinds of things. Like how do you handle corrections (in your posts). Do you amend a post or post a new, corrected version. Lots of aspects you can do. The one thing about the badge, related to a lot of previous efforts for blog ettiquite and ethics. A lot have been controversion. Some feel it is a restriction of their freedom. If you use the word "ethics" or "etiquette:" people may feel they are being called unethical or having no etiquette if they don't have one or subscribe to one.

"Never mind the bollox, here's the wonder chicken" post response to Rebecca's Blood's post on ethics. On why there should not be widespread policies. No one should be required to have a weblog policy. I have one and it helps my blog, interesting thing to do. Feel the vast majority of bloggers will never have one.


 * Do you seek out and read other blogger's policy?


 * I do because I collect them! Wrotea a long essay about it. When I see one, I tag it. When I drop into someone's blog I never read them, nor have I had someone apply their policy to me.


 * New blogger - there are no links on typepad or bloggers to give hints about how to do this. I'm feeling some us/them now with references to Rebecca Blood or Weinberger. I'm a personal blogger, without any sense that there are people putting out these ideas. A sense of frustration that people like Winer and at that level of visibility don't drop down to talk to personal bloggers. That's where a lot of the discours eand action is. There are so many bloggers coming on talking about their kids, blogs, day at work and have no idea what's going on out there.


 * Hey Scoble posted a comment on my blog about his kid. But I totally udnerstand what Grace is saying. An us/them feeling that is hard to get past.


 * I'd like to hear more about that. I don't feel that. I want to understand it. I look at blogging like learning a sport. When you are new you might take lessons, hit the ball around. Some will go to competitions. You opt to where you want to be. Is that us/them or choice?


 * When people play tennis they have a choice, like the Williams who did not have access to the country club, but a wall. You get into this realm of blogging and all of a sudden you go to this link and find this world of people proposing policy and ethics and you go WHOA. Made me feel rather naieve. Over that now. I'm participating now what I feel is a high level venue. This one.


 * How did I get to know about Dave Winer and Rebecca Blood in the first place. I had a blog for three years, throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean. I met Dave in person, at a series of open weekly meetings. After a while I suddendly knew a whole lot more about the blogoshere itself. Eating the apple in Eden. I suddenly became aware of the A list. Maybe the thing that changed me, I might have been the same, unless I had met people in person. Blog meet ups.


 * BlogHer realy turned me around very much. I volunteered for Blohger. My responsibility was book table. They gave me a list of books. I said, what about writing; personal testemony. Anne Lamotte. That is the difference about are we writing to practice our writing or are we looking at the blogoshhere. I don't want to know about the infrastructure. Like my fridge. I want to just to keep things cold, don't care how.


 * We are told to read blogs. Outside the arena we want to write. Read a tech, or news, or politics, or irreverant. Get a feel for how people do things. A list or one with one subscriber. That was the way I got a handle on it. I met bloggers at work. Blogher a year.


 * Persistent feeling of outsiderness. Insecurity. Blogging is the medium for insecure people, like a Woody Allen movie.


 * I didn't know where to find blogs, hadn't heard of an aggregator if I hadn't gone to those meetings. If typepad and blogger added links to the loging page. But it would reinforce the A list. And then people would complain.


 * The Typepad folks could do, they publish highlighted weblogs and they circulate it on their opening page.


 * Tomorrow is blog day.


 * re in/out -- I'm not even there. All I've wanted is to have my blog respected as being a strong blog. I'm fascinated about in/out. SOunds like high school, being popular and not popular. I did walk to a different drum.


 * Running out of time. Lets plan another one of these.


 * One more round the clock.... Parting comments -- free form


 * Koan: Although I wasn't on the first call, the path related to an incidence I was part of. I was confused by Nancy's anoymizing of those notes. Will put those up on the wiki. Those who've read my blogs, there's a community I speak as a member of. The one group of people who don't comment on my blog are transgendered. They send email. Not comfortable putting their thoughts out there. Would like to get the Us members involved. Can't get them to comment. Denise will wiki ideas, TransgendereD - when there is no "us".


 * Nancy: It went too fast.


 * Denise: Elana's comment on having blog respected could have started another hour. Want to know more. That part of us/them may be about not knowing/feeling you have respect. What are the indicators of respect.


 * Dennis: Last 30 seconds too rich to let go. Must do this again. Noticing, one of the things I learned in 1983 1993. I had a recurring conversation with myself that I was left out and excluded and realized I was the author of that comment. Now I catch myself at it. When I first went to meetups and geek dinners. I would catch myself at it. The angle has to do with the theraputic nature of blogging and stepping into a community that one has not known or organized ones' life to not be aware of. How people move between blogoshere/F2F /and other forms which we are doing here.


 * Elana: I've gotten a lot to think about today. Feel I monomoplized conversation, not my intent. Being part of this conversation, makes me feel professional. I like that. I like having this kind of thinking. Thanks. Lead to a lot of good stuff.


 * Grace: I'm a real, true stay at home mom. I'm transcending my sweatpants. As far, I didn't mean to sound so whiney about us/them. I guess whiny is in the air of my household. Very intriguing. I really wish Jay Allen was here. Going to try and push him to come here. His daddy/parenting blog is hugely popular. Mentioned in NYTimes. He gets easily 8,000 hits today. I think he has a lot to say about all that. As far as this conversation. It's going in so many directions. I lot of sub, branches. My concern is how are we going to manage these convesration. One big thing and let things organically evolve. Throw out more thoughts on the wiki.


 * Lisa: Wow, this was great. Never participated in a call managed this way. Fantastic and interesting. The next thing I'm going to do is think about geography. Where bloggers I know are. See if there is blogger meetups. The local blogger meetup I go to is poorly publicized. Hard to find readers in your area. Want others to feel welcome to come.


 * There is this thing that maps people if their feeds are geocoded. feedmap.com or feedmap.net Meetup.org also does blogger meetups.


 * Bill: Time went by in a flash. Too overwhelmed with the richness of the conversation. Trying to take notes and run around the clock here. The one piece that came up earlier, insider and outsider. Something really profound, at least in our culture here, the individual nature of our culture in the US, for me exacerbates feelings of insdiderness/outsider. We get taught A, B, C list.


 * We're also a community -forming species. It's the dark side of community forming. We'll have a human community the minute the aliens invade.


 * Bill: Came out in Stowe Boyd's posting this week, trying to make sure there are meetings for advanced folks as he's tired of novices. Difficult to find mentoring relationships. IT would be wonderful if we could be togehter without having to be a boring chess match for the master. There has got to be a way to do this. To see how that might happen. For me the us/them is being 60 years old tomorrow.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILL!!

We need to figure out how to manage these callS. THe organic nature is fun, but we may also want a more structured approach for some stuff.


 * Debra: Sorry to appear mid-call (car problems times 2) and disappear quietly before it ended (battery died). Will be better next time.  Thanks for notes.