On 1/30/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> wrote:
on 1/30/07 8:24 PM, George Herbert at
george.herbert(a)gmail.com wrote:
To amplify something from my earlier comment, no
forum which is a
complete anarchy on the Internet survives. This is true of other
forms of machine-mediated discussion such as IM, IRC, Usenet, BBSes,
email, etc.
There has to be a social contract, preferably explicit, but implicit
if not otherwise.
People tend to both be more aggressive in online discussions and to
take offense more easily; the lack of visual and audio clues in both
directions of a conversation is something which humans adapt in odd
ways to. The moderating influence of nonverbal communications falls
right away.
This is in no way local to Wikipedia; it's generic to online
text-based communications. Combining immediacy with text-only format
causes the problems.
George,
First, "civility" is a highly subjective thing.
To some extent, yes. But can be subject to widely held common agreement.
And, regardless of the setting, is being able to speak
the words you want to
speak really anarchy?
If we are face to face, and I don't like what you are saying, I have the
right to leave. If it's written, I have the right to tear it up.
That to me is civil.
You always have the right to stop reading a Wikipedia talk page, email, or such.
The problem is that those forums constitute the only mechanisms by
which nearly all decision-making happens in Wikipedia. You can't go
"I'm going to go over to that room there, with these other people, and
stop listening to the guy shouting into the megaphone". There's only
one "room" per topic (or, a small set, of meta-topic rooms plus the
right one). If someone's abusing others, their only options short of
some form of community imposed censorship are to stop participating.
Every forum I have seen people try to build online, without exception,
has failed and fallen apart if there wasn't a mechanism by which
abusive contributors could be exiled. There have also been a fair
number of places where tin-pot dictators stifle discussion - there's
no doubt that there's a continuum from undercontrol to overcontrol.
Wikipedia is operating comfortably in the middle ground, which is in
my experience and opinion the only place that an online community can
survive.
There have been various academic studies on the topic of interpersonal
communications and community standards online; I don't have convenient
citations, but it's out there. They have observed the same thing.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com