Online communities are here to stay—for which I’m profoundly grateful because I’ve made some wonderful friends, as a result. If it weren’t for online communities, after all, I’d never have found all of you. So while I don’t want to be all “gee-whiz! Teh interweb is sooo cool!” I honestly do marvel at the way we can reach each other, and converse; my own world has broadened and expanded beyond anything I could have imagined, as a result of this technology. The way online communities function is a particular interest of mine, now more than ever before.

I’ve blogged for a few years, and generally try to stay out of the various kerfuffles that crop up in the blogosphere now and again—but there’s a very optimistic and helpful IT blog I regularly read, Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users, and last week, Ms. Sierra wrote: “As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs . . .”

The story has continued, and there’s apparently been some resolution between the involved parties.

What I want to talk about are these key bits from the Kathy Sierra/Chris Locke joint statement posted April 2nd.

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KS: “We’ve become so desensitized to vile comments on the net that many people can’t comprehend why I would feel threatened. But if we dismiss every cruel, vile, sexually threatening comment as simply the work of an anonymous troll, we will no longer be able to recognize a real threat. Are we willing to stake our mother/sister/daughter’s life on a sexually and physically threatening photo or comment, simply because it appeared on the internet and therefore must be harmless?

“That said, Chris and I are in complete agreement that it would be tragic if this incident were used as a weapon by those who would limit free and open exchange. My desire is for much more open debate on this issue, not legislated limits.”

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CL: “. . . This issue should be explored and discussed, not swept under the rug, not rationalized away. At the same time, we need to look closely and carefully at the implications for free speech. The First Amendment allows and protects language that many find noxious. But there are forces in the world at present — not least in the US — that would leap at any opportunity to limit speech or even abolish certain forms of it. Crucial as is the current debate about hate speech directed at women, it would be tragic if this incident were used as a weapon by those who would limit free and open exchange.”

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I very much believe that the way we all think about shaping the culture and standards of our individual online communities (as administrators, certainly, but even more so as users) we contribute to the overall social culture of the internet–because internet communities are composed of flesh and blood people, like any other community. The end result of improving the culture of our individual online communities is that we build good habits, and improve our offline world.

To effectively accomplish this, though, communities simply must learn from and adapt to the sometimes problematic nature of anonymous and instantaneous communication. It’s still a bit like the wild, wild west on the web, in many places. The problem of where free speech ends and censorship begins will be an ongoing discussion for years. At least, I very much hope so. The idea needs and deserves to be discussed continuously by people who deal with words and ideas on a regular basis.

Our individual communities must have agreed-upon standards so that the resulting gestalt of the internet will gradually begin to reflect that more individualized culture of responsibility. It seems rather overwhelming, if you look at any statistics at all about how fast new blogs, email lists, and message boards are popping up.

The balance between anonymity, free speech, community standards, and the open exchange of ideas can sometimes be both tricky and delicate; but this is terribly important stuff. If those of us who traffic in words and ideas don’t involve ourselves in the discussion, someone else most assuredly will be making decisions on our behalf.

We do all have our trolls. I’ve written here about this issue with regard to my own blog, before. There’s something that happens to people, sometimes, when they feel safely anonymous and very angry at the same time—they go right off into the stratosphere, foaming at the mouth. There are also people with access to the web who are simply unbalanced.

So how do we find a balance? I mostly think sane and good people have to speak up, when things get acrimonious in a comment string. I think we have to self-police. Also, it means that we must take responsibility for our own words wherever we are on the web. And stop excusing those who don’t or won’t. I think, when someone says something that’s clearly horrible and inflammatory, we stuff ’em in a box. Embarrass them. Shame them into either adhering to community standards, otherwise exile them by deletion and/or blocking.

And when someone says something actually egregious and illegal, we cannot dismiss it with, “Well, it’s the internet. People talk trash. It doesn’t mean anything.” Because words do have meaning.

It means we must continue to write hard. Write true. And write on. We are shaping our communities, by doing so, and shaping our world—and you all have my profound thank-you for being the people you are, and shaping this community into such a very remarkable and wonderful place.

best,

Mac