Comments on the internet is certainly no substitute for one-on-one communication. H J and I have made amends, apologising to one another for flaring up in the comment thread. In looking back during the aftermath, a couple of things become clearer. Yay for hindsight!
It seems to me that the most grief in such exchanges is created by newcomers and passers-by that drop in out of the blue and blurt out a comment, or an entire manifesto for that matter. In particular, I’m referring to comments like those by “Turn or Burn” and “Food for analysis” in a recent post. The regulars on this blog are typically much more thoughtful in their responses, and naturally have a much better idea of what this blog is all about. They respect its “raison d’être”.
The newcomers, on the other hand, don’t keep in line, and understandably so: they typically drop in via a Google search, see a couple of thoughts that resonates with some of their thoughts. Spotting an opportunity to have their own rants heard, anonymously, they jump on the soapbox and provide us with a monologue. Then they’re off on their merry way again.
In the meantime, the rest of our “little community” here have to deal with being stereotyped together with these passers-by. Rather more importantly, curious silent-types exploring the outskirts of our little gathering, eavesdropping for a while to hear what it is about, often not used to how Internet gatherings work, sees this guy shouting inanities from a soapbox. Not being around for long, they can’t be expected to distinguish between regulars that are thoughtful and curious and really compassionately care, and those weird ones uttering inanities.
Inanity: The property of being inane, of lacking material of interest or satisfaction, emptiness
An example of a perceived inanity to a passer-by? “Turn or Burn” ended with this gem:
SHOFAR!!!
sHO Good
We exorcise
more demon
4 ur $$$
The problem is that the regulars, the thoughtful types, turn their heads to look at these soapboxers, grin and smile at them and enjoy the brief entertainment, then return to their thoughtful discussions. Why care more than that? The soapboxers will leave soon anyway. Or they might eventually integrate and take part in thoughtful discussion themselves. “Whatever”. “Meh”. So no-one bothers to explain to them that they’re not being helpful, that that’s not what we do around here.
Due to soapboxer, curious silent-type turns around and walks away again, while curious silent-type is actually exactly the kind of person we would like to openly welcome into the discussion. Thankfully every now and then there’s a non-silent-type on the outskirts that gets riled up due to soapboxer, and hurls back some criticism.
What are we regulars to do? Criticise non-silent-type for not bothering to first understand what we are about? Whip out a cluebat and attempt to quickly beat an understanding of internet culture into non-silent-type? So that we can continue being our own introverted little group of intellectuals making no real difference in the world?
Or do we thoughtfully approach the situation and realise that it points out we’re just being another congregation closed to curious outsiders?
Stellenbosch Gemeente uses Van Gogh’s church-with-no-doors as an illustration for what churches often are: groups of people focused on their own inward plight, but making no difference out there in the world. (And I’m sure many others use the same painting to share the same idea: there is much cross-pollination happening due to global cooperation, seminars, get-togethers, etc.)
My dream is that the community represented by this little blog could also be one with open doors, where people don’t get excluded due to us not noticing we’ve got no doors, or that those doors we do have are barred by a couple of soapboxers looking for limelight.
And that might mean we need to address those blocking the doors, even if we don’t mind them personally…
As much as I prefer finding social solutions to social problems, social inertia is often huge. On the internet, if we’re that open to random passers-by, looking for “social solutions” would mean dealing with internet-wide social inertia. An absolutely impossible task.
So what else can be done? Less openness, i.e. censorship, is one option. The other is to relocate or direct those soapboxers into places where they don’t seem representative of our community. In short: I think if we could clearly mark the comments of our regulars, and so de-emphasize the ranting of the soapboxers, maybe even collapse them into a short abstract with one of those “more V” links as you see in e.g. Facebook, it could go a long way to obtaining more social cohesiveness.
Impact on anonymity: regulars are able to remain technically anonymous, but still build an identity and a reputation. That goes a long way to improving social interactions. The passers-by have the opportunity to abuse anonymity, using it to bear absolutely no responsibility or consequences whatsoever for their words, which leaves the rest of the community with no effective way to shun them. 
If there weren’t good reasons to maintain the option of anonymity, I’d even suggest not allowing anonymous comments.
If there’s a technical solution to the problem, let’s try to find it?
Examples of comments that are really useless:
Rants about Shofar and money/finances. This really is a bore. Most people that touch on this topic sound like a broken record player, and are contributing nothing new, nothing of value, they’re just playing an absolutely boringly stereotypical role.
The other would be comments that speculatively attack people. Or ideally even any comments that attack people. In “Food for analysis”‘ case, he speculated about Fred May’s sex life, and pulled in ideas and concepts that he surely intended to offend. I’m all for calling it slander, especially if it isn’t about something specific and factual, backed by evidence. As fun as it may be to the soapboxer and to whomever to speculate, slander is counter to what this blog is about. In the examples mentioned, “Food for analysis” speculated about Fred May’s sex life (in particular, speculations about date of marriage and date of birth of his first-born).
As much fun as can be had speculating whether Buddha might have been gay (referring to a conversation between a Buddhist friend and I), there is an entire world of difference between such private and humoured speculation, and the kind of comment “Food for analysis” wrote. And I really do wish we could somehow avoid having any kind of personal attack on this blog. I really think it shouldn’t be necessary, there is more than enough other interesting things to discuss.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Linda // Nov 10, 2008 at 5:04 am
I meant to leave my comment on this post instead of the other one… oops!
*[comment moved by editor in response to the above request]*
As a (I hate to use this phrase but it’s true) “born-again” Christian, I want to say this to you:
I’ve been reading your posts off and on for some time, and I want to say that I admire your efforts to look at the world from all angles. You are one of the most unbiased people I know. You try to look at every new fact or idea presented to you with a fresh lens, uninfluenced by what you knew previously. I commend you for that. I love how you’re always in your exploratory mode, as I am also (other than the fact that I now know that I am fully alive). That is not to say that there’s anything wrong with those who feel they have the answers they are looking for. Hurray for them.
I strongly feel that the accusations made against you in the previous post in question were completely unfounded… I don’t care if they were made by the Pope or Paul the Apostle himself…
I don’t know that there is any need for any kind of censoring or monitoring of the comments in the future. Let them say what they will… Truth always speaks for itself, I say. I think the way you handled yourself clearly shows who is more level-headed and open-minded.
That’s just how it looks from my perspective, for whatever it’s worth…
2 Hugo // Nov 10, 2008 at 5:17 am
Should I try to move it over?
…
I just did. Hope that’s fine.
3 Hugo // Nov 10, 2008 at 5:49 am
Thanks Linda. Much appreciated!
For what it’s worth, observe Linda’s defence of my writing here. Irrespective of whether complements are valid or not, or criticisms are valid or not, you will see a similar kind of response to personal attacks on any other leader from their fans or followers.
So with regards to the kind of comments that are utterly useless, mentioned in the last section of the post above: if you want to directly attack/criticise anyone, especially a charismatic and much loved leader, you better have your facts straight and irrefutable. Otherwise such attacks only serve to polarise and reinforce “us and them”. If someone thinks too highly of themselves and suffers from some degree or amount of a Messiah complex, it serves to bolster their ego and gives them even more confidence. That’s the very last thing they need.
No, I’m not pointing fingers at Fred, I’m really talking about myself here, talking out of personal experience in my “crazy days”. Consider Wikipedia’s definition:
Think about that for a moment, especially in the context of my role here on my blog. And then, if you like, you can also think of the Shofarian dynamic between Fred and his attendees. And also think of Obama and his fanclub. Such thoughts and thinking can be positively frightening at times, but the dynamic needs to be understood.
I certainly thank the commenters and friends that hit me hard during the days I was toying with the most absurd ideas, back in the days when I was wrapping up my thesis. Keep up the criticism. To my face, not behind my back. Thanks.
4 Linda // Nov 10, 2008 at 6:40 am
Haha. okay. I didn’t realize that I was being biased. I don’t know if I consider myself a fan or a follower, but I do consider myself a friend who likes the way (but not necessarily what) you think. hmm… see? Your last comment is an illustration of what I was talking about.
5 Hugo // Nov 10, 2008 at 7:05 am
Linda, nope: I do not think you are being biased. I really appreciate your comment, and I’m glad some people see what I do that way. I see it the same way.
Sorry that I used your comment as an example, hope it didn’t offend or that it wasn’t too misleading, but the example is that those in Shofar that love listening to Fred will also defend him. (And they will think they are not biased.) The only thing my comment intended to talk about, is the human response. It didn’t mean to say anything about concepts such as bias or accuracy/factuality or things like that.
That said, I consider us mutual friends, and I really and sincerely appreciate your words of support. I very much appreciate the way you think about things and how open you are to look into other people’s ways of seeing things. I love what you’re doing on your blog. And I’m extremely happy to have you as a friend and a reader of my blog… a follower only in the sense of following my blog, a fan only as much as I’m a fan of you as well, then all is good!
And always prepared to disagree!
Recap also: the bulk of the above comment was meant more from the perspective of the person with the complex, than from their “followers”. Somewhere in the past, I even made a call for followers, *cringe*, and am glad the kind of response I got was “What? Are you nuts? You sound like you’re starting another cult or something!” *grin*. Certainly I still continue hoping I can provide some positive ideas about how we can facilitate cross-chasm communication, and that some people will follow those ideas… but that’s all.
6 saneman // Nov 28, 2008 at 4:34 pm
maybe its the language, maybe we leave the romantic, ambiguous language for story telling and rather use clear and easy to understand points when debating?
might help cut to the chase and remove a lot of the “fluff” that can be easily taken out of context.
7 Hugo // Nov 28, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Maybe. I’ll keep the suggestion in mind, thanks.
Maybe we can also be clearer about the purpose of any debate. I’m often not that interested in “debate” (in the traditional sense of the word
), which probably also complicates matters.
If we have some idea of where we’re trying to go with a discussion though, that would certainly help. I’d suggest our problem was we were arguing about different things. We weren’t playing by the same rules, weren’t pivoting about the same objective.
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