I was talking about the previous post to my guitar teacher, and we got into a conversation that ultimately was about whether people, when left to their own devices, are fundamentally good or fundamentally bad. It was a revival of a theme I first ran across in Intro to Western Civilization the first year of college, basically Rousseau vs. Hobbes.
I was talking about dealing with troublemakers in online communities, and my guitar teacher knows a bit about this because he was manager of the forum for his band on their website for some years. I contended that it was possible that troublemakers could be reformed, from the equivalent of office hours where they could talk and be listened to. He contended that any online community would always have a destructive element, that any group left alone will deteriorate and start to post angry, stupid hateful posts. His examples were some of the things that have popped up since the earthquake in Japan, which I won't quote here because the points of view are so abominable but harked back to WW2 and various old grudges. I mentioned 4chan (content warning, caution before you click through) as an example, which does, yes, have some abominable content, but it hasn't been destroyed, and in fact has produced some valuable memes and content, at least for comedic value. Would it be because it's so big, because it doesn't have an archive? He still wasn't having it. Groups of people, when left by themselves in anarchy, end up being destructive haters.
Well, yes, actually I agreed with that. Which is why you need a manager of an online community, to set the tone and model the desired behavior and enforce guidelines. Aha! He thought he had me. So people can be made to behave online when there's someone in charge, when there is someone there to enforce rules. But that's not anarchy. No, I agreed, that's a benevolent dictatorship. I have always found myself in this kind of conversation defending paternalistic systems of rules. I guess I have an overall schoolmarmish perspective on controlling and leading groups of people. But if that person can take charge, then people can display their best selves, and the community won't necessarily succumb to haters and be destroyed.
Somewhere in there I made an analogy to derelict buildings. Sure, they get their windows broken and graffiti if no one is looking after them, but if someone is looking after them and goes and fixes the window and removes the graffiti, then the vandalism stops. Aha, he said again. So, that's not anarchy. No. But I glanced out the window at the main street of the town where I live, with some of the lowest crime rates in the entire country. No, it's not anarchy, but it works.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Dealing With Troublemakers
Last week when I was at South by Southwest Interactive, one morning I had got up late and only just made it to the first session of the day, so I hadn't had any breakfast. I was waiting in a longish line at the coffee shop at the Hyatt for a proper coffee and a bran muffin, so I took the opportunity to check my work email on my work iPhone, and since it took a while to load because the tens and thousands of internet hipsters were all flogging the SXSW wireless so heavily, I checked my home email in the iPhone in my other hand.
"Two phones!" I heard from behind me. I gestured with my left hand, "work", and right hand "home", and muttered a promise to converge them one day, but actually I think the person behind me had just used the observation to start a conversation. Turns out he was a journalist, scheduled for a panel the next day on something about mobile, I didn't actually catch what it was and didn't end up going. But like any talented journalist, by the time I was at the end of the line and paying the cashier, he had asked me enough through-provoking questions that we were having a really interesting conversation about the industry.
He got to it by asking what I did, what that entailed, what I did every day, and I mentioned our new social media policy which had only just launched earlier that week. He asked about the type of posts that we had to include in our moderation guidelines, which got us onto the topic of trolls and haters.
He then asked a really interesting question I'd never thought about before: Of the people who cause trouble in online communities, what percentage of them will come around and rein in their behavior if the community starts to react to them, and what percentage don't respond and you just have to ban them?
I hadn't ever thought about before, but thought back to incidents on forums that I've managed and participated in over the years, and "Actually, more of them don't change, and you just have to ban them." He was surprised at this, but I followed up and had one of those experiences where you find yourself having an insight just fall out of your mouth while you're speaking: "It's just like troublemakers in class when I was teaching. If shame was going to work on them, it already would have."
Again like a good journalist, he expressed amazement at this insight and said that all community managers should spend some time as teachers. We were all paid up at this point so we went our separate ways, but I kept thinking about the exchange. Because one difference between teaching and online community management is that for the troublemakers in class, the best way to manage them was something I learned from Professor Emeritus Hazel Barnes, who was still teaching at U. of Colorado - Boulder when I went there. I remember a departmental gathering where she was holding forth, dressed in her signature one-piece purple jumpsuit with stitched-on metal belt detail (she was well into her 70's at this point and clearly hadn't bought any new clothes in 20 years, because maybe when you hit a certain age, you think, why bother?), and she was sharing wisdom gained over a lifetime of teaching mouthy and opinionated Philosophy students. The best defense, she said, was to invite disruptive students in to office hours and just let them talk, until they were done. It might take hours, but they always had things to say and wanted to get them out. And once they did, she found they didn't take up class time in the same way. I did use this same technique to good effect during my lecturing days.
So reflecting on it made me think, we really don't do this with haters in online communities. We just ban them. And the social media best practices literature is full of examples when banned people just go off and start their own blog, and sometimes the problem escalates into a PR crisis (I went to several sessions on just this topic later in the conference).
But what if that's the wrong approach? What if the better way to deal with online haters is to invite them to some virtual version of office hours, and let them blather on and say what they have to say? Would that actually contain problem conversations more effectively? Would that opportunity to speak and be listened to neutralize online community troublemakers, in a way that banning does not? Who will be the community manager to test this, and get back to us? Because I'd love it if it were true, that haters could actually be reformed through openness and listening and generosity. Some won't ever reform, it's true, and that's why you have Campus Security. But I wonder if this technique that works with university teachers would work online as well?
"Two phones!" I heard from behind me. I gestured with my left hand, "work", and right hand "home", and muttered a promise to converge them one day, but actually I think the person behind me had just used the observation to start a conversation. Turns out he was a journalist, scheduled for a panel the next day on something about mobile, I didn't actually catch what it was and didn't end up going. But like any talented journalist, by the time I was at the end of the line and paying the cashier, he had asked me enough through-provoking questions that we were having a really interesting conversation about the industry.
He got to it by asking what I did, what that entailed, what I did every day, and I mentioned our new social media policy which had only just launched earlier that week. He asked about the type of posts that we had to include in our moderation guidelines, which got us onto the topic of trolls and haters.
He then asked a really interesting question I'd never thought about before: Of the people who cause trouble in online communities, what percentage of them will come around and rein in their behavior if the community starts to react to them, and what percentage don't respond and you just have to ban them?
I hadn't ever thought about before, but thought back to incidents on forums that I've managed and participated in over the years, and "Actually, more of them don't change, and you just have to ban them." He was surprised at this, but I followed up and had one of those experiences where you find yourself having an insight just fall out of your mouth while you're speaking: "It's just like troublemakers in class when I was teaching. If shame was going to work on them, it already would have."
Again like a good journalist, he expressed amazement at this insight and said that all community managers should spend some time as teachers. We were all paid up at this point so we went our separate ways, but I kept thinking about the exchange. Because one difference between teaching and online community management is that for the troublemakers in class, the best way to manage them was something I learned from Professor Emeritus Hazel Barnes, who was still teaching at U. of Colorado - Boulder when I went there. I remember a departmental gathering where she was holding forth, dressed in her signature one-piece purple jumpsuit with stitched-on metal belt detail (she was well into her 70's at this point and clearly hadn't bought any new clothes in 20 years, because maybe when you hit a certain age, you think, why bother?), and she was sharing wisdom gained over a lifetime of teaching mouthy and opinionated Philosophy students. The best defense, she said, was to invite disruptive students in to office hours and just let them talk, until they were done. It might take hours, but they always had things to say and wanted to get them out. And once they did, she found they didn't take up class time in the same way. I did use this same technique to good effect during my lecturing days.
So reflecting on it made me think, we really don't do this with haters in online communities. We just ban them. And the social media best practices literature is full of examples when banned people just go off and start their own blog, and sometimes the problem escalates into a PR crisis (I went to several sessions on just this topic later in the conference).
But what if that's the wrong approach? What if the better way to deal with online haters is to invite them to some virtual version of office hours, and let them blather on and say what they have to say? Would that actually contain problem conversations more effectively? Would that opportunity to speak and be listened to neutralize online community troublemakers, in a way that banning does not? Who will be the community manager to test this, and get back to us? Because I'd love it if it were true, that haters could actually be reformed through openness and listening and generosity. Some won't ever reform, it's true, and that's why you have Campus Security. But I wonder if this technique that works with university teachers would work online as well?
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