HillaryClinton.com’s rules for commenters [Tags: politics hillary_clinton ]

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Partners in Health is going live with an HIV website that “allows visitors to share insights about the manual and experiences in the field, to ask questions of each other, to answer others’ concerns, and to foster a community of care.” The editor-in-chief, Joia Mukerhjee, says: “This on-line manual is distinctly a work in progress. We intend to keep it that way. ”

Excellent.

(Needless disclosure: My cousin-in-law is an engineer on this project.) [Tags: science health_care publishing knowledge science everything_is_miscellaneous ]

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We’ve all got a real problem. On some sites comments are so nasty that they are driving people off the Web. Even if the comments on your own site are always respectful and sweet-natured, the verbal violence on other sites is your problem. Our problem. It’s not as bad as some in the media portray it, but when Kathy Sierra gets over a thousand messages, mainly from women, saying they’ve been stalked or bullied, it’s an issue we can’t ignore.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution. A Blogger Code of Conduct goes down the wrong path. Codes only can play a role if they’re plural. Very plural.

Lisa Stone puts it all well when she explains why a “one-stop-shopping” code can’t work for all:

Images that are appropriate for a blog devoted to the war in Iraq would never work on a parenting site, for example. They shouldn’t have to play by the same rules. And we all know how I feel about the First Amendment. :)

So, here’s a longer way around to the same point. (More of Lisa here.)

The first and least debatable Blogger Code of Conduct is the body of law that sets limits on what we can say in public. Death threats, libel, and giving away state secrets are all out. But when we try to get more specific than “No death threats! No nuclear secrets!” what do we really all agree about? A Code of Swimming Pool Conduct that says “Swim safely!” is of little use. The only code worth posting poolside says things like “No diving. No swimming without a buddy. ” But what’s the equivalent for blogging, that is, for talking together in public? A single code of conduct would need to drive down into specifics about which bloggers disagree.

Further, no single code could cover all the different ways we want to talk. Conversation shapes itself to its topic, venue, goal and personal relationships. For example, if I’m arguing with a like-minded friend about politics, my social group’s norm allows me to be more interruptive and use more curse words than if I’m talking with an acquaintance from the other side of the fence. Our norms tell us exactly how much bad language we can use with our family, at work, at the sports stadium, and when meeting our future in-laws for the first time. We know how loud we can talk whether it’s sermon time at the synagogue or South of the Border Night at the bar. There is no possibility of coming up with a single code of conduct because there are too many circumstances in which we conduct ourselves. We are left, ultimately, with our judgment.

Behind the drive for a single code of conduct is often the idea that there is one particular type of conversation at the pinnacle of all conversations: The rational discourse in which two people who disagree work toward the truth. Civility is important there. I’m thrilled to be at an institution — the Berkman Center — where those sorts of conversations happen every day. But those are not the only sorts of conversations we should, could, would, will or do have. Some conversations should be raucous. Some should get people red in the face. Some should have us leaving muttering under our breath. Polite, respectful civil conversations are not the only ones worth having because conversation is about much more than the mutual discovery of truth. Conversation is how we’re social, and thus is as rich, ambiguous, implicit, and multipurpose as we ourselves are. Yes, as Tim O’Reilly says, “Free speech is enhanced by civility.” Definitely. We need more civility. But free speech is also enhanced by healthy doses of incivility. In our drive to limit harmful speech, we need to be careful to preserve risky speech.

Of course, that’s assuming a particular model of civility. If, instead, by “civil” one means only that the conversation should be respectful, then I agree that many more conversations need to be civil. But: (a) Respect is not always the highest value of a conversation. (b) What constitutes disrespectful or injurious speech depends upon the target, the speaker and the context (again, ruling out posts that cross the boundaries of the law and our shared sense of decency). (c) A code of conduct that says that, for example, we should be “respectful” will founder on the details of implementation since there are so many norms about what constitutes respectful discourse — sitting in a quiet room with our hands on the table and our heads cocked attentively being only one scenario. Without the implementation details, the code is as useful as the “Swim safely” poster at the pool.

But then we come back to the problem: People violated – threatened, bullied and stalked – by thugs wielding keyboards. When those comments cross the legal boundaries, there may be legal recourse, although usually that’s not practical. It is a problem with no easy or short-term solution. When the comments are posted on the victim’s own site, there are tools for dealing with them, although none works perfectly. A blogger can moderate the comments, perhaps add a reputation system, or even forbid anonymity. A code of conduct is one more tool in the box. Such a code makes explicit the rules already implicitly governing a comment space. As we come across blogs more and more randomly, it often doesn’t hurt to be told that a site won’t tolerate bad language or wants commenters to stay on topic, if those are the local norms. Bloggers can of course state that already — there’s an infinite supply of sentences — and many do, but coming up with standard ways of expressing the rules would encourage their expression.(That’s what I was suggesting 1.5 wks ago, and it’s what I like in Tim’s idea.) Transparency generally is good.Posting rules of the pool that make explicit the existing implicit norms can be a worthwhile tool…although pasting a long list of precise rules can indeed inhibit free swim.

As for encouraging civility: Absolutely. I like civility. Truly. I encourage it on this blog’s comment pages, and I even try to model it on occasion. But I also like a good fart and a high five now and then.

[Tags: blogs civility kathy_sierra bullying cyberbullying convesation free_speech lisa_stone tim_oreilly everything_is_miscellaneous berkman]

Heather Havenstein of ComputerWorld interviews Lisa Stone on this very topic…

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Suzanne Callahan has a terrific op-ed in the Chronicle of Philanthropy about the difficulty of setting up an evaluative framework for some types of non-profit projects. [Tags: nonprofits np suzanne_callahan accountability accountabalism ]

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I’ve googled around but can’t find a way of putting a date divider between posts using WordPress. That is, I’d like to put in a divider demarking one day’s posts from anothers, as I do on this blog using MovableType . I’d also like to do it at EverythingIsMiscellaneous.com, which uses WordPress. (I posted about it in the support forum here.) Is there really no baked-in way to do that? [Tags: wordpress]

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Gay couples can now purchase the “Fairy Tale Wedding” package at Disneyland and on Disney cruise ships, according to an article by the AP (blogged here.)

Then they can go home to anywhere except Massachusetts and discover it was all just a beautiful dream with talking woodland creatures.

On the other hand, our new Senate President in MA supports repealing the law that prevents out-of-state (excepion: RI) gay couples from being married here. That 1913 law, intially intended to prevent interracial marriages, says that you can’t get married here if the marriage would not be recognized in your own state.

The repeal of that law would make Massachusetts more magical than Disneyland! [Tags: gay gay_marriage disneyland massachusetts]

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You know the charities that let you “adopt a child,” but not in the Brangelina way? For just a few dollars a month, you can feed a kid and get her school books, etc., and every month you get a photo and a letter? Based on nothing but cynicism, I never trusted those ads, but you can’t deny their effectiveness.

In the p2p world of the Web (where p2p = people-to-people and not necessarily peer-to-peer), we can be in direct contact with people we are in a position to help, without the sense that there is a major organization filtering — and possibly professionally ghostwriting — the communications. Here are two organizations that take different approaches…

Kiva.org lets you make a loan to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world. It is a loan, not a gift. The recipients are charged interest by the local microfinance institution through which the loans are vetted and managed. Kiva’s FAQ says that so far its payback rate is 100% and that the general payback rate worldwide for micro-loans is 97%.

Unfortunately, Kiva is not yet posting what interest rates their microfinance partners are charging. You’d think that Kiva, which claims to vette their partners thoroughly, would have this basic information.

DonorsChoose also lets you decide which project you want to fund, confining itself to US projects requested by teachers — it was started by teachers who were digging into their own pockets to provide what their kids need. The group doesn’t hand out cash to teachers. Instead, it pays the vendors directly for what the project requires. This removes any questions about whether the money is making it into the projects, but it does require DonorsChoose to maintain a staff to manage the fulfillment process. Donors can opt to include the 15-25% fullfilment costs in their donation.

DonorsChoose has started a “Blogger Challenge.” You pick a project to support and then post a form on your site, inviting your readers to contribute. For example, here’s the Joho Challenge:

This particular challenge is raising money for read-along tapes for a 4th grade class where about half the kids are learning English. (More here.)

I really like the idea of P2P philanthropy. It gets us past the abstractions. But, I also have concerns. Our sympathies aren’t always the best guide: We may do more good by building a prosaic community water filtering system than by giving a loan to the family with doe-eyed child…or by buying read-along tapes for an American 4th grade class. We have trouble responding sympathetically at the level of systems. So, my family will continue to give every month to Oxfam. Also.

Fortunately, there are many ways to give. Unfortunately, there are so many needs. [Tags: charity philanthropy ]

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If you get this error message from the ever-delightful Microsoft Windows:

The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\Windows\System32\Hhctrl.ocx occupied an address range reserved for Windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DLL

…try this page for a solution. It seems to be caused by two security updates that have “conflicting base addresses” for User32.dll. (Does this imply that XP loads DLL’s into hardcoded memory addresses, rather than dynamically loading them into the available memory? I would have thought that modern computers can handle dynamic addressing, or whatever it’s called, but I’m just a humanities major.) It seems from the download page that the conflict may also cause the Realtek HD Audio Control Panel not to work.

Yeah, yeah. Get a Mac. At this point, I’d rather get a Linux. In fact, I installed Ubuntu on a spare drive for my Thinkpad, and it all works great — I’ve got my wife and mother-in-law, both newbies, using Ubuntu — except I can’t find a presentation package that does what I need :( [Tags: windows xp dlls errors get_a_mac hhctrl.ocx]

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Here’s the announcement of an evening of thoughtful thought thoughtfully presented by at The New School on April 13:

danah boyd will argue four points. 1) Networked publics are changing the way public life is organized. 2) Our understandings of public/private are being radically altered 3) Participation in public life is critical to the functioning of democracy. 4) We have destroyed youths’ access to unmediated public life. Why are we now destroying their access to mediated public life? What consequences does this have for democracy?

Trebor Scholz will present the paradox of affective immaterial labor. Content generated by networked publics was the main reason for the fact that the top ten sites on the World Wide Web accounted for most Internet traffic last year. Community is the commodity, worth billions. The very few get even richer building on the backs of the immaterial labor of very very many. Net publics comment, tag, rank, forward, read, subscribe, re-post, link, moderate, remix, share, collaborate, favorite, write. They flirt, work, play, chat, gossip, discuss, learn and by doing so they gain much: the pleasure of creation, knowledge, micro-fame, a “home,” friendships, and dates. They share their life experiences and archive their memories while context-providing businesses get value from their attention, time, and uploaded content. Scholz will argue against this naturalized “factory without walls” and will demand for net publics to control their own contributions.

Ethan Zuckerman will present his work on issues of media and the developing world, especially citizen media, and the technical, legal, speech, and digital divide issues that go alongside it. Starting out with a critique of cyberutopianism, Zuckerman will address citizen media and activism in developing nations, their potential for democratic change, the ways that governments (and sometimes corporations) are pushing back on their ability to democratize.

Friday, April 13, 2007, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor
New York City
Admission: $8, free for all students, New School faculty, staff, and alumni with valid ID

I wish I could be there. [Tags: danah_boyd trebor_scholz ethan_zuckerman sociology economics media ]

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Ethanz’s got a great post about how the Tunisians beat the Obamanaics to the punch, remixing the Apple 1984 commercial for their own political ends three years ago. You can see the Tunisian version here, but you don’t want to miss Ethan’s contextualizing of it. [Tags: ethan_zuckerman remix copyright obama tunisia ]

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