Speech in online communities

I've been a sporadic user of forums since the '90s, so often I've seen a good forum ruined by a small group of, for example, obsessive ranters, leading to the demise of the forum as it lost its raison d'etre. You can skip the post of the odd habitual abuser, but some gain a following. The forum then needs to be severely moderated or disbanded.

(If you are still out there, American Buddha, yes, I'm thinking of you.)

Overall, I like the permissive attitude of the Economist, which allows very angry and extreme voices their right to speak. In contrast, I loathe the travel site, 'Lonely Planet', which has removed posts of mine for calling certain Asian or African cities 'dumps' or 'complete eyesores.' Predictably enough, they have no problems with me calling certain Australian or American cities bland, unattractive bores. Apparently, candour is on the nose with the righteous 'Lonely Planet' moderators only when it pertains to non-Western people. The end result is that almost no one uses it's travel forums now.

Why do we presume that our conversational inhibitions face to face are a necesaary good? Psychoanalyzsts have long argued that repression is one of the reasons for our unhappiness. Maybe if we ranted and raved and blew off steam, we would be healthier in the long run.

I recall one particularly hostile debate on this forum about gay rights in Africa. This article pitted gay-rights voices against Africans accusing them of quasi-imperialist meedling. It was very 'noisy' but very productive. The conversation was anything but polite but its frankness about all sorts of taboo subjects helped me to clarify my views. As a gay man, I could easily object to being called a freak, a mutant and a moral disgrace, as I was. But then I was free to call my opponents hypocrites, bigots and scoundrels. Overall, I found it a refreshing exchange.

This discussion operates on the same questions as any other form of governance. Number one. Is the dictator/moderator competent? Number two. Do the majority of commentators believe the moderator is competent? Number three. Will the moderator obtain sufficient job satisfaction to endure constant criticism? Four. Why does the moderator enjoy constant criticism, and is this an indication of a lack of competence?

Regular rider, that makes sense if a blog (or other public forum) is analogous to a shopping mall. But what if it's more like a members-only club, or even a personal residence?

Although forums are the private property of their operator, this test can be carried too far. I am thinking of rules around what is allowed in a shopping mall, for instance: technically private property but the visitors to that mall retain most of their rights to speech and assembly, and rightly so.

I believe this problem will mostly be solved with (more!) technology; look at the discussion mechanisms on http://stackoverflow.com/ for an example. Also, companies are appearing that take over the discussion feature on blogs (e.g., http://www.disqus.com); that speeds up the spread of better technology.

The other solution is to very actively manage your community, cultivating frequent contributors, and writing posts that reflect and recycle contributor input. This is only cost-effective if the blog itself is part of the business: a source of leads, or vendor contacts, or investment opportunities. The blog run by Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist, at http://www.avc.com is the best example of this that I know of.

RDover, I remember when it died, the day that AOL connected its members to the Internet. Except for the highly technical, I haven't bothered with newsgroups since.

@bampbs
Oh, I just have my standard response "Where did you leave your responsibility behind?" for those typical American assertions.

@Myopia Rocks
Maybe we should ask the Economist to add another line to the "reason for reporting" called "Idiotic or non-human", on the ground that we suspect the particular poster is actually a machine rather than human.

There is a significant difference between the economics of speech and the economics of online forums.

Speech imposes external costs. Generally only one person can speak at a time. Any one speaker excludes others from speaking at the same time and thereby imposes a cost on them. That is why parliaments, for example, limit speaking time.

Contributions to online forums impose far lower external costs. Any number of contributors may contribute simultaneously. Readers may select which comments they wish to read. Several "threads" of conversation are often proceeding in together, sometimes in parallel, sometimes intersecting.

The only external cost is the need to scroll through comments one would prefer to ignore. Even that could in theory be overcome with an "ignore user" feature which would omit identified commenters from a particular user's scroll, or place their comments at the end.

Some user may prefer censorship because they do not like to read comments that repeatedly challenge their most deeply held prejudices.

Netiquette seems to have gone the same way that politeness and good manners have. I recall the early days of Usenet where for each forum there was usually a FAQ that covered relevant essentials including Code of conduct and rules for discussions.

A more recent and amusing forum required for the registration that you correctly type out a set of text, including punctuation and capitalization as a basic screener and reminder of how to conduct oneself. It was done with humor, but made a point also. The moderators also had the power to block your account access on a rolling scale (1hr suspension for a minor infringement through to full ban).

A fine example of this just happened to me yesterday while riding the subway. The gentleman exclaimed, "2nd Amendment! I have my rights to free speech and they can't take them away!"

Collective eye rolling ensued.

The only time economist.com censored me was when I asked a fellow commenter whether he/she was a fool, or just a troll.

Proudest day of my online life.... which isn't saying much, but still.

Perhaps "idiot speech" should join "hate speech" and sedition in the hallowed halls of "1st Amendment Provisos?"

The right to free speech in America prevents government action to limit speech -- it is not a legal right in private forums.

"Conversations need rules. This is something we instinctively understand when we're not online."

These rules are not instinctively known but are learned and the learning is helped by negative reactions, whether audible or visible, coming from those with whom one is conversing. In the extreme case, no-one will talk with you any more if you don't learn them! (Of course, fear of this outcome may lead to excessive shyness.)

All this social media stuff is so new that the rules are ill-defined and the mechanisms that might encourage adoption of the rules are unrefined.

Talking from a position of not having done any research (and therefore well qualified as a commenter?) it seems that most media websites are fixated on positives so there is a 'Recommend' link below but no 'Don't bother reading this' option. 'Down-voting' a comment can be useful: saving other people's time if comments are filtered based on vote; sending a message to the author (although egos bruise more easily online).

I look forward to trying Ms White and other's solutions to the problem.

The characteristic American assertion, "I've got my rights !" is typically free from its necessary companion, "I've got my responsibilities !"