Blog Wars and Blog Cultures

Some of you may have heard about the "Shitstorm in a Snow Globe" regarding Bitch, Ph.D.'s blog these past few days. I'm not going to comment on it directly, because I have no interest in visiting The Moron's self-humiliating blog to get the full picture, but I'm fascinated by all the various responses to it.

The ones that fascinate me the most are those that get at what is a continuing debate across the blogosphere: that is, what the obligations of a blog owner are regarding his or her commenters, the commenters' obligations in turn, and in particular these obligations with regards to blog content and banning policies.

On the one extreme of the spectrum are those who believe simultaneously that (a) blogs should not post anything that might offend them, even if they are only visiting a given blog on a first-time fly-by and (b) that anything should be allowed in the comment threads, up to and including insulting the blog owner and his or her other commenters. I call this the "The World Exists to Serve Me" contingent.

On the other extreme are those who believe that (a) blog owners can say whatever the hell they want, however they want, and if the people visiting the blog don't like it, they can go away (common rallying cry, "No one's making you read this blog") and (b) blog owners can do whatever they want with regards to their comments threads -- ban randomly, edit comments according to their own whims, refuse to have any comments, ban people who disagree with them, etc. I call this "It's My Blog and I Can Do What I Want" crowd.

Personally, I lean more toward the latter than the former, in that I don't give a rat's what some random stranger thinks about my blog, I dislike intensely the arrogance involved in telling other people how to blog, and I see no reason to spend my money to host comments that are insulting and unhelpful, or to provide a forum for jerks.

In practice, though, I think most people who blog (and who comment) fall in the reasonable middle, trying not to be deliberately offensive in their choice of topics and writing style and word choice (or, alternately, warning people up front about what to expect at a given blog), and allowing reasonable debate to occur in their comments threads, if said debate is constructive and respectful, at least according to the culture of that particular blog.

It's that last part that gets tricky: according to the culture of that particular blog.

This is one thing that I think proves challenging to a lot of people new to the blogosphere (as well as a few tone-deaf old hands). The blogosphere is not a uniform, homogenous place, operating according to universal rules and expectations. (My god, how boring it would be if that were so.) Instead, the blogosphere varies with the whims and inclinations of each blog host and each commenting community. Some places are fine with profanity, others aren't. Some specialize in trading witty one-offs; others prefer thoughtful, meandering conversations. Some are snarky and sarcastic; some are warm and touchy-feely. Some develop small, close-knit communities into which a newcomer must ease slowly and cautiously; others are big raucous public parties that anyone can jump into without prior experience. The blogosphere is anything but homogenous.

However, to a newcomer, it often looks that way, so the clueless go around bulling their way into existing conversations, committing social faux pas, etc. until someone calls them on it. The honestly clueless wise up, learn to "read the room" and adjust their commenting styles to the norms of each particular blog and its attendent culture.

Other folks, on the other hand, don't.

Some don't because they are incapable of reading the social cues and linguistic nuance that pass for body language and tone in a text-based forum. They blunder about, annoying everyone, but they aren't malignant; if they find the right community, in which their personal styles and interests are mirrored by the rest of the group, they do fine. If not, they continue annoy people, get banned, and remain confused as to what's going on. This group, while irrititating, are not actively malicious, and will probably remain a fact of blogospheric life, must as they do in "real" life.

Some don't because they feel that the blogosphere ought to have consistent rules, and are continually irritated that it doesn't, and take out that irritation on blog cultures that follow rules they disapprove of or are uncomfortable with. The best advice for these folks is for them to start their own blogs, where they can run things as they wish, because otherwise they run the risk of becoming cranky, bitter trolls who have no friends. (Again, we can see them in everyday life, in the form of the old ladies who scold mothers for not putting socks on their babies, people who correct other people's pronunciation, cranks who blow their stacks when someone doesn't put the stapler back just so, and so on.)

Some don't because they have an axe to grind that has nothing to do with the blogosphere per se. A particular variant of this is the proudly self-proclaimed conservative who rails at liberal bloggers for failing to tolerate dissent in their blog threads. (There are liberal equivalents, but the rhetorical tools at their disposal are different, as are those of their opponents, so the dynamics play out differently. They can't and don't level hypocrisy charges at sexist bigots, for example, if they get banned.) There's no use arguing with these types. They are not interested in hearing evidence to the contrary, because they are trying to promote an ideology, not educate themselves. They are not amenable to accusations of hypocrisy (cue LGF reference here), because they do not define themselves in terms of tolerance and open-mindedness; they are using the stereotype of liberal tolerance as a rhetorical club against ideological opponents -- if it didn't exist, they'd find another approach. They want to be banned, because then they can spin the result as proving their point about liberal hypocrisy; explaining to them that "tolerance" does not equal "putting up with every stripe of foolishness under the sun" (let alone treating such foolishness with respect) does not work, because, again, they are not interested in arguing about actual ideas, but about scoring ideological points. The closest equivalent I can think of in offline life are radio talk show hosts, or the hecklers who show up at political rallies, and the like -- the gotcha, stir-up-shit crowd, in other words.

Ultimately, though, the culture of a given blog is not entirely in the hands of the blog host. It rests in considerable part in the hands of the people who make up the community centered around that blog and its host. (Or blogs and hosts, given how many of us are part of small networks of bloggers-commenters, commenting on each others' blogs as much or as more as we post on our own.)

I've written about how I operate under the principle of The Benefit of the Doubt rather than under the principle of tolerance, and that applies here as well. Basically, I assume that all of you out there reading this blog are reasonable, thinking people, and that you can behave yourselves without active policing on my part, and continue to believe it until offered evidence to the contrary. In return, I expect that you will see me as a reasonable, thoughtful person too, and give me the benefit of the doubt in return. I don't want to be "tolerated" by my audience; that makes me feel like I'm some unpleasant medicine you're taking in order to feel good about yourself -- I'd like to think you come here because you enjoy this blog, and interacting with other commenters here, not because I'm homework or you feel obliged to be here or you want to be able to pat yourself on your back about how "tolerant" you are.

What this means in practice is that I write about what pleases me, but I try to keep it focused on things either (a) relating to me personally or (b) relating to wider trends and developments, avoiding (c) things dealing with specific individuals, unless I can do so in a positive way or make it more about (a) or (b) than about someone else per se. (Thus here, I'm writing about a specific event involving specific individuals, but I'm more interested in my own reactions to the case, and in the wider implications, than in passing judgement on the particulars.) This approach seems to work for me; doubtless other approaches will work better for others. But I would argue it's good to have at least a general sense of the "rules" or philosophy of one's blog, even if you never articulate it directly.

It also means that I rarely ban people. I delete spam without comment, and I generally warn people who are heading toward dangerous ground (being rude and insulting); I know people sometimes have a bad day, and write stupid things on the internet (I've done it!) so it seems reasonable to give fair warning. If it's ignored, or if the thing said at the outset is so rude that I can't stand seeing there, it'll go away right away, without any warning at all, and a ban may get slapped on too. If this happens to you, email me and explain, and maybe I'll let you back. (I have, in the bare handful of cases in which this occurred, let most of the banned return. I don't ban much, preferring to reserve it for serious offenses. Pretending to be me, for example, is an insta-ban offense, unless you can convince that it was an honest accident.)

Disagreement with me or other commenters is fine, but I reserve the right to get bored with your arguments, to tell you to give it a rest, to ignore you, to close comments -- and if you insist on talking over other people's comments, I'll warn you that banning is a possibility -- just as I would in real life.

But, again, the culture and feel of this blog is affected at least as much by you as it is by me. I want conversations here, people, and 99% of the time, y'all are wonderful. You make me happy to see new comments and to read what you have to say, and to just connect with such funny, thoughtful, interesting people. I want to keep that going, and if that means showing the jerks the door, so be it. I haven't had to do that all that much though -- maybe 5 times in the course of two and a half years -- and it's in huge part because of you all. Jerks and blowhards and ideologues don't get much traction here, because it's so totally clear that my "blog posse" doesn't include of that kind of person. You create the blog culture here, and you've been doing a great job. Thanks.

*stands and applauds*

Comments

[JM]

* stands and applauds for YOU *

[Chris Clarke]

* stands and applauds for JM's standing and applauding for Rana *

[Chris Clarke]

However, as someone with marked jerk, blowhard and ideologue tendencies, I have to say that the blogger makes the context. I'm way less likely to even think of flying off the handle here.

Maybe it's your superhero avatar's big ol' stick.

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

*applauds Chris applauding JM applauding Rana*

I love this place.

[Rana]

Ah, Chris, you may well be a blowhard on occasion. But then, I can't claim to be immune from that, either. As for jerk-ness, I think we've all had our moments. But acting like a jerk is different than being a jerk. People doing the former wake up eventually and apologize -- the latter do not. You're not a jerk.

I'm laughing at all the applauding of the applauding of the applauding. *grin*

[Chris Clarke]

Ah, Chris, you may well be a blowhard on occasion.

That's... that's LIBEL!

Your earthly wealth is MINE, Ravens.
I am so suing you.
Right this second.

[Rana]

*snort*

Ah, but note the clever and careful use of the qualifier in that sentence. "_may_ well be" rather than "are".

Ha-Hah! My weaseling skills/lack of commitment/academic training wins again!

btw, if you want some of this crap I'm saving up to cart to the Goodwill, you are more than welcome to it. Just say the word, and I will send you scary figurines and cat-scented clothes and ugly knicknacks 'til you cry for mercy.

[Buridan]

Very interesting post. You know, a good book on blog etiquette would probably sell very well. Someone may have already written such a piece, I don't know. You have a good start here ;-)

One of the primary reasons for my blogging is purely therapeutic. It provides a very useful release that I couldn't get elsewhere. I also like a good intellectual fight and in order to "encourage" (it's more like baiting than anything else) others to argue with me, I tend to be far more hyperbolic than I normally would. I would horrify some of my academic colleagues if they read my ranting. I've noticed, for better or worse, that the more provocative a post the more likely you are to get responses. The problem is walking that line between simply being provocative and being a crank - at some point it becomes a matter of diminishing returns.

In any event, I wish I had more dissenting responses on my blog. I have yet to censor anyone, except for spammers. I don't even get trolls for god's sake. For those successful-high volume sites, trolling is a huge problem that does need active monitoring. Such intentional hijacking of threads is far more disruptive than spammers, and I have absolutely no qualms about banning such "attention deficit disorders." Some of the worst I've seen are over at The Panda's Thumb. Oh well, the burdens of success I guess...

Hey it's all about vanity anyway, no?

[Phantom Scribbler]

*applauding Pilgrim/Heretic applauding Chris Clarke applauding JM applauding Rana*

Thatsa lotta applause.

But you deserve it, Rana. You can take a sensitive issue and discuss it in such a way that the trolls keep slumbering in their caves. It's a real talent you've got. I'm glad to be around to witness it.

[ianqui]

Ugh. I realized when I started writing for the oil drum that I have NO INTEREST in having a high-readership personal blog. I barely have interest in writing for TOD anymore, since I can't stand the people who think it's perfectly fine to respond to a post of mine by saying "Your post is idiotic. You fail to understand that..." I may be wrong about something, but there are MUCH nicer ways of putting it. I guess I should be lucky that that our commenters are pretty civil overall at TOD, but seriously, I'm that chick that doesn't have the stomach for controversy. (Wasn't this going around last year? Weren't Maureen Dowd and Dahlia Lithwick involved?)

Anyway, great post.

[JM]

Although my blogging book contains a few pages specifically on playing nice with others, I am going to put a link to this post on the blog for the book. If that's ok w/ you, that is, Rana.

[Rana]

Buridan -- I know what you mean. A huge part of the appeal of blogging is that you get a response to your words, and another part is that you get a chance to play with ideas and get a sharper sense of what one thinks about an issue. If no one else is interested, it's beyond frustrating! :) And thanks for the book comment; perhaps I'll go digging into my archives and see what I have already -- I've certainly written on blog-etiquette on more than one occasion.

Phantom -- thanks. You have that knack, too, you know. And you displayed it far sooner than I did. (There's ample evidence of bumpy missteps in my archives!)

ianqui -- I very much know what you mean. That's part of the reason why I don't tend to post on contentious issues -- especially ones where I don't feel like I can offer any new insight on them. Otherwise it's just setting myself up to argue with other people who don't want to change their minds, because they already know what they believe and like it that way, and that either gets me really angry, or it makes me bored. Either way, it turns blogging into an unpleasant experience.

JM, you're certainly welcome to do so. I'd be honored. :)

[David]

Thank you for clarifying some points. Thus far, I've not attracted hate mail and have deleted only spam. Perhaps I'm not trying hard enough!

[ianqui]

May I add one more thing that's tangentially related?

There are many different "circles" of bloggers--political bloggers, mommy bloggers, academic bloggers, etc. And I've noticed that there are great disparities among those bloggers as to how much commentary they attract. Some people build up a readership such that if they post something like "I couldn't sleep last night because the crickets were too loud", 9 people will comment to either empathize or tell some story about their own bugs, or whatever. Some other blogger in the same circle with at least 50% of the same readers will say the same thing, and get no comments. Why is that? I have my theories, but they're not fully fleshed out.

[bitchphd]

Thanks for an *intelligent* articulation of this whole issue...

[coturnix]

This is the best of all commentary on the whole saga (and I've been following it with sick interest).

What book? I am interested.

[Rana]

coturnix, well, there's at least two books -- there's the one JM's written, and then there's the blog-etiquette one Buridan is suggesting I write. (As I said, it's not like I haven't posted a lot on the topic, so there's certainly material for it.) Thanks for the compliment! (I'm also following it with a degree of interest, though I'm unwilling to go directly to the problem site in question.)

Dr. B, you are welcome -- I don't envy your place in the shitstorm, especially given the fool who keeps shaking the snowglobe. I have my fingers crossed for you!

ianqui -- Yeah, I've notice that, too. It's weird, and it bothers me when I see a nice new blog being ignored. Some of it's probably the written charisma of some bloggers, the knack of others for writing in ways that encourage discussion (and on topics that encourage responses), and, I have to admit, the ease of using the blogging system of the blog in question. I _HATE_ the way Blogger handles comments,* and it frequently discourages me from commenting, and if I don't comment, I'm often less engaged with the discussion, because I feel like I'm listening in instead of participating.

David, it sounds like you're doing exactly the right things. Unless you _want_ trolls? *grin*

* I don't like how it opens a new page before you can see the comments, I don't like how it requires yet another new page to pop up before you can _add_ a comment, and I don't like how you have to then work your way back up the tree to read and comment on other posts. I'm on dialup; unnecessary page loads are a Bad Thing.

[Another Damned Medievalist]

I posted this as part of a longer comment at Tim Burke's and decided I liked it. It needs refining, but this is kind of what I think.

I think of a blog as a house in a larger Blogtown. All the blogs have big windows, so that their neighbors and any passing person can see what’s going on inside. Everyone is implicitly invited to the party but, depending on the particular house rules, some people may be asked to leave. Those rules may be arbitrary, which can be infuriating and seem unfair. But more often, as Tim says, they are community rules, and the person holding the lease on the Bloghouse is the resident enforcer.

In Blogtown, not everybody is interested in the same things, but as in any big city, you get neighborhoods. We can tell the other people in our neighborhoods by looking at each other’s blogrolls. And the standards of neighborhoods are often an amalgamation of the standards of the individual residents. OK — I just thought of a refinement I’d make if I had time — maybe blogworld with sites like blogger and lj as major urban centers — because those types of blogs tend towards certain community norms as well. But I’m riffing a bit.

The thing is, if you don’t like the neighborhood or the people in it? Just go away. There are lots of nice neighborhoods with communities of people like you. But none of those neighborhoods, left, right, any-other-agenda-driven — wants people to come in, drive over the flowerbeds, and strew litter around.

[Rana]

I've thought that the neighborhood analogy is a good one, too, ADM. Other variations I've thought of are that some blogs are like public parks, or lecture halls, or like tables in public cafes, and a few are like closed speak-easies where only people with passwords get in.

But you're right; the general rule is to understand what kind of place a particular blog is, and what kind of culture it has, and to not engage in behaviors that are inappropriate. (The sorts of things you can get away with in Kevin Drum's very public, very unregulated comments threads are not what you can do here, much like how you can get all rowdy and drunk and loud during spring break, and have no one turn a hair, but try that at someone's quiet dinner party, especially if you're a total stranger, and you'd be out on your ass before you could blink.)

(Having just made a related comment over at Shakes' Sis about allowable behavior in public/private spaces, I'm inclined to note that blog life is much like non-blog life; one really shouldn't be rude and oblivious to social norms, regardless of where one is. I think it's just hard for a certain percentage of people to even recognize that there are social norms in blogging in the first place.)

[JM]

"I think it's just hard for a certain percentage of people to even recognize that there are social norms in blogging in the first place."

bingo.

[Toast]

So much Truth in such a small space. What is one to do?

Here's a thought: The phenomenon whereby the Blogger and the Comment Posse create a "Culture" seems to only extend itself to a certain Blog Size. Take Atrios -- who I like a lot: Too big. No "culture". Just Kool Kidz and Kaos.

Here's another thought: Chick Blogz work. (I'm saying "Chick" Blogz just because I like to maintain a certain bit of Annoying Cred.)

Prior to visiting Shakes' place, I considered the whole "Hmmmm, Why Don't Women Blog?" thing to be the stupidest and least interesting question in life. Then I started hanging out at Shakes Sis. And then I started visiting your blog. And then I started reading Tart's blog.

Well dip me in shit! (Borrowed from Southerners -- I live in CT) It's extraordinary how different a blog community is when women are prominently involved. People actually talk to each other instead of yelling past each other. People try to not step on each others' faces, as opposed to trying to punch each other out. Maybe I'm nuts, but it seems like a different world.

(sigh)

Rana, BTW, feel free to leave a comment on my blog any time...

-T

[Pink Cupcake]

Such an insightful post. I second (or third?) the suggestion that you think about writing a book about blog etiquette.

*More applause*

[Kris]

Rana:

Thanks so much for this post. Some friends and I have been tossing around the question of blogging etiquette; specifically, the relationship between commenters and bloggers. This came about after observing an odd (to us) phenomena on other blogs-- commenters who demand content change to suit their own preferences in reading. Comments such as "Please go back to writing about X. I don't like reading aboyt Y and I think you should stop writing about it."

Your entry here has given me some interesting food for thought (and my *goodness* an absorbing set of links to read on a boring day at work).

-Kris

[Rana]

Toast -- that's an interesting and insightful observation about the gendered aspects of blog dynamics. I don't know that it's gender per se, but I do know that the pundit-type poliblogs do encourage a much more aggressive commenting style (and less sense of "we're in this together" between commenters and blogger), and, for whatever reason, that seems to be a style more favored by men than women. (I don't think it's a strictly male/female thing, or even a political/other divide, because I have plenty of male bloggers I visit who also have thoughtful commenting communities, and some of them also blog frequently about politics.) I wonder if it's because most of the poliblogs that have raucous comment threads generally don't offer up much information about the blogger him or herself. That is, you don't get much sense of them as people, and, perhaps therefore, you don't feel as bad about upsetting or annoying them, because all they really are are content providers, like a newspaper or a tv station.

Pink Cupcake -- thanks!

Kris -- I've noticed that phenomenon too. I've noticed it happening particularly at blogs that started out (or came to) emphasize a specific topic for a while, attracted a bunch of readers, then decided to mix things up. I think this might relate to what I was saying in my response to Toast just now; if one comes to a blog with particular expectations, it can be easy -- especially for recent visitors, who have little sense of the blogger behind the posts -- to assume that the blog exists solely to provide a certain kind of experience. This, I find, is one advantage of having a blog where I toss out all kinds of random stuff. I mean, it's coherent in that it comes from a single mind with a number of favorite topics, but it's not really "An X Blog" of any kind. (Maybe a Rana-blog.) But nobody -- including myself -- knows exactly what will go up on any given day. So if I decide to write about something I've never written about before (like learning Japanese) or if I don't post on a topic for awhile (like yoga) nobody can claim that I'm betraying my readers.

Of course, there are also those readers who, if they are only around for a short while and don't look at the archives, might assume that a multi-topic blog is in fact a single-topic blog, and who post the sorts of annoying complaints you describe. It's rude, of course, but what can you do, aside from gently (or not-so-gently) cluesticking them? (It's not like this doesn't happen in life, either, of course -- like if you meet someone at some kind of topic-oriented group, and they are surprised when it turns out that their all-absorbing passion is only one of your many interests, including some of which they disapprove.)

[SocraticGadfly]

I'm with Buridan.

Dammit, all you people, go over to my blog and start posting some shit! I've got two other blogs linked from it, so you can post there, too!