RK ARCHIVE - Thoughts on Community Blogs

Of course, living or participating in any form of community means that there will always be people who don't follow the rules, or who push the boundaries of community standards. The questions that the Daily Kos diarist raise about the community on that blog - "Does it exist? Does it care? Does it have standards?" - can be asked about this blog as well.
One constant challenge, of course, is the "troll," defined by Wikipedia as:

Trolling can be obvious or it can be much more murky. What is "inflammatory" or "off-topic" to one RK editor, for instance, might not be "inflammatory" or "off-topic" to another. Members of the community are likely to disagree on these things as well.

As RK moves ahead as a community blog, a major challenge will be in maintaining the balance between free expression and community standards. Personally, I wonder whether the community rating system that SoapBlox has provided us is sufficiently robust. I wonder whether RK editors should be stricter in banning people (so far, we've banned only about half a dozen people in two years). Or should we be even less strict than we've been?

I wonder how we avoid the dreaded "echo chamber" effect, in which a partisan political blog get pushed further and further to the extreme, with centrist, moderate, conservative, or other dissenting voices are pushed out. I wonder how we keep the discourse here focused on facts and away from personal attacks, innuendo and gossip. I wonder how we keep the discussion on RK lively without getting nasty. Obviously, these are challenges for all blogs, but I believe they're potentially even more tricky when you're dealing with a community blog like Daily Kos, the other SoapBlox blogs, or RK.

So what do you think? Is RK working as a "community" blog, or does it need changes? As always, your comments and suggestions are greatly welcome in this community. Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Comments

Personally... (Rob - 12/31/2006 10:20:34 AM)

I think it's working. There is very little "character assassination" here - though I can think of one example from yesterday off the top of my head. Indeed, I think the community here is (so far) small enough that things have been manageable. Will that hold true if/when the community grows? I don't know.

Re banning people, if someone is providing a dissenting view that is constructive - or, at least, not meant to be disruptive - to the community discussion, I'm happy with it. It's when someone is posting just to insult or disrupt or abuse others when I start getting an itchy trigger finger on the "ban" button.

But, so far, aside from commercial spammers and some obvious trolls from the heat of the campaign (people with user names like "Webb sucks" and even less constructive comments), I haven't banned anyone yet.

What GGD did (Eric - 12/31/2006 1:12:02 PM)

was to publish explicit photos designed to drive home his point. In that sense it is the same as showing dead children in a war zone.

But, as far as I can tell, GGD was also misusing the images. Graphic images of a beheading to justify Rep. Goode's anti-Islamic remarks has absolutely no meaning and is a blatant attempt at fear mongering and shock attacks.

On the other hand, photos of the horrors of war, used to demonstrate the horrors of war, are an appropriate use of imagery because they directly address and represent the point being made.

Both types of shock photos may have similar underlying purpose, but the second is not trying to lead readers to incorrect conclusions (all Muslims are evil) or justify bigotry.

The line on the second becomes very blurred when showing dead babies and Dubya - implying that Dubya kills babies. Is he responsible? Yes and No. As head of the U.S. he is overseeing the war effort, which unintentionally killed the babies, so he does have responsibility. But he doesn't kill the babies himself or have any interest in seeing babies die - they are unfortunate and unwanted collateral damage that he never wanted.

As always, the bottomline is that there is no single answer. I hope that everyone running a blog, or blog aggregator, takes both the literal object (be it a photo, video, or words) and the intent into account before making a decision on whether or not it has a valid place in the Virginia blogosphere. And in this sense, I completely agree with Waldo's banning of GGD for blatant misuse of graphic materal.

The use by either side of these images (Lowell - 12/31/2006 1:22:58 PM)

is obviously meant to pull strong emotional strings, to bludgeon people instead of persuade them, and (often) to wildly distort the truth of the situation. In the case of GGD, the outrageousness is almost beyond belief, using a terrorist propaganda photo of a beheading to make the point that all Muslims are bad people or something crazy like that. That's despicable. On the other side of the aisle, the most egregious recent examples I can recall were during the Hizbollah-Israel war in July-August 2006, when explicit images of horribly maimed Lebanese children were shown on left-wing blogs in order to whip people into an anti-Israel frenzy. Of course, no images were shown of Israeli casualties from Hezbollah rockets fired into Israeli cities and towns (let alone Israeli victims of suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists); why muddy the point by showing both sides when you want to bash one side using graphic, violent images? As far as I'm concerned, whether the left or the right does that, it's wrong.

BTW, today is the 2nd anniversary (Lowell - 12/31/2006 10:34:05 AM)

of the founding of RK, as well as the 1-year anniversary of the Draft James Webb movement's kickoff. Well, it's approximately the anniversaries, give or take a few days. Anyway, it's been quite a rollercoaster ride since Eric and I kicked off Raising Kaine around New Year's 2005 (Brian followed soon thereafter), with some signficant high points and some major low points. All in all, however, I'm glad that we started this blog, that we did our small part in helping to "raise Tim Kaine to the Governor's mansion," in helping to persuade James Webb to throw his hat in the ring for US Senate back when almost nobody believed he could beat George Allen, and in fighting hard to help Webb secure the Democratic nomination and to pull off a squeaker over George Allen.

Biggest disappointments of the past two years? Not being able to do a lot more to elect Democrats to the Virginia General Assembly and to the US Congress. My happiness about Tim Kaine and Jim Webb was counterbalanced to a large degree by my disappointment that we didn't win the Lt. Governor and Attorney General races last year. Other notable disappointments during 2005 included Greg Werkheiser's loss to Dave Albo and Bruce Roemmelt's defeat by "Sideshow" Bob Marshall. In 2006, I was REALLY bummed that Judy Feder didn't defeat Frank Wolf and that Phil Kellam didn't beat Thelma Drake. I thought both Feder and Kellam had a great chance of winning, but it didn't pan out. As far as Andy Hurst is concerned, he's a great guy who ran an excellent race with almost no money, but I never really thought could pull it off against an entrenched incumbent like Tom Davis (incorrectly perceived as a "moderate" because he only votes 90% of the time with Bush instead of 97% of the time - ha). But Andy gave it a good shot, and I'm proud of him for never backing down.

Speaking of never backing down, my Song of the Year for 2006 is Jim Webb's campaign theme, "I Won't Back Down," by Tom Petty. Great song, great match to the candidate, a man who never backs down on what he believes is right. Some might call that "stubborn" or whatever, I call it principled and courageous. I greatly look forward to what Jim Webb - and Tim Kaine, another man of principle who doesn't back down - will accomplish in 2007.

So glad your back Lowell! (drmontoya - 12/31/2006 11:08:54 AM)

I am so glad you worked on helping elect Tim Kaine & Jim Webb. With both of them, I couldn't be prouder to be a Virginian.

I was born in California, but in my heart I will always be a Virginian.

I was married here (Arlington), I just had my first child here (Fort Belvoir).

I will always love this Commonwealth!

'"echo chamber" (CommonSense - 12/31/2006 11:13:39 AM)

A good way to put it. I go everywhere/anywhere to read all that is out there as often as I can. I think it is imperative to know, however distasteful it often is to me personally. Given the content of diaries and comments, most here apparently agree and do the same.

Blogging in a vacuum is never a good thing. Not for 'us' nor for 'them'.

While we do tend to congregate with like-minded it is important to always know/see/read/digest all that is out there. Sometimes we can barely agree to disagree. Sometimes we can make a difference and change minds (or at least make them consider the alternatives). I don't expect to agree with everything posted here and would get bored if I did. Where is the fun in that?

I do find that digression to the point of diluting, obscuring, and almost negating the original thread occurs more often on some of the other blogs, which is one of the reasons I enjoy this one so much.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.... but certainly keep an eye on it.

P.S. Did I tell you how glad I am you are back?

An RK strength (Silver Fox - 12/31/2006 1:27:40 PM)

I do not in any way consider myself an experienced blogger and simply inject an accasional comment when I see an issue I feel strongly enough about to comment on. I scan Daily Kos sometimes but not daily or hourly because I don't want to sit in front of a computer that much. I'd rather be out working on tangible projects such as getting donations together to pack boxes to send to the soldiers in Iraq, but I do feel the need to make an observation. I was new to RK, found it during the Webb campaign, and for me the greatest value was learning about and in small ways being connected with people who cared deeply about the same issues I do. We might not always agree on the ways and tactics to try to fix perceived problems, but there was always a sense of shared community of interests and contacts. I know know much more about what is going on in the rest of my state instead of being insulated up here in NoVa because of RK. I am starting to make contacts with folks who live hours away from me (Hi, Kathy Gerber) and hope that we can work together in the 2007 election cycle to help each other bring about rational and productive government in Virginia's Senate and House of Delegates...and then on to the national elections in 2008. RK can help us to continue to build the state-wide community of like minded people who value civility and intelligent discourse as long as it, as a community blog, continues on as it has begun. We've got a good formula going, folks. Let's keep it up. Oh yes, and welcome back, Lowell.

RK is a terrific community (Kindler - 12/31/2006 2:04:20 PM)

...which is why I feel motivated to come here so often and contribute my two cents.

Re: banning people, I'm generally against it except when someone stoops to nasty personal attacks. Having a diversity of voices here is important -- it helps keep us on our toes.

Re: your summary of 2 years at RK, Lowell, you are too modest. Not to slight the contributions of many, many others, but would the U.S. Senate be in Democratic hands today without your efforts?

We do need to win more races further down the ticket, but we have created powerful momentum in Virginia to do just that -- and RK is a critical engine to keep that momentum going.

Thanks man, but despite what some people (Lowell - 12/31/2006 2:26:13 PM)

out there might think, I am NOT into taking credit for myself. Anyway, it's irrelevant; I know what I did the past two years and why I did it (hint: NOT for personal gain!), and I'm proud of the fact that I took my best shot at moving this state and this country in a Progressive (Teddy Roosevelt/RFK Progressive, in my case) direction. If nothing else, I believe that I demonstrated the importance of getting involved in our Democracy and in trying to make a difference. Thanks to everyone who worked their butts off this year (and last) in helping elect Tim Kaine and Jim Webb. Now, on to 2007 and gaining as many seats as possible in the General Assembly.

Avoiding the echo chamber (Vivian J. Paige - 12/31/2006 2:50:50 PM)

From my little corner of the world, one answer is to encourage intellectual honesty. I think we owe it to ourselves and the members of the community. If we are truly the big tent party, then dissent shouldn't be silenced.