Free Speech in Online Communities: The Delusion of Entitlement (Blog)

[colibri]

thanks for the home analogy, I never thought that and is useful.

In a LUG (linux user group) we had some members call another "Son of a bitch", and "****ing scab" and worse. We banned them, and gave them the oportunity to join again if they excuse their self, they said:

What!!!!, you banned us, that is CENSORSHIP!!!!! And created a lot of problems, they said they wanted to be friendly(), but that they didn't tolerate censorship and that they went out by their shelf .

[Anna Conlan]

Originally Posted by MidasGirl

“GET THE HELL OUT, BITCH! AND TAKE YOUR NASTY CHEESE PUFFS WITH YOU!”................made my day. Somebody make me a poster.

Yeah, I want a poster too

Nearly peed myself laughing at this post.

I'm sure this was an eye-opening one for lots of people. I didn't realize how much work goes into keeping this forum a nice place to visit.

[Wulfen]

My home is my castle - you like it? you're welcome at the tower. You dislike it? You're free to go elsewhere. Break havoc and you'll be thrown away from the wall. Into the moat.

Apply this rule to your actual house, your internet forum, your sentimental life and relationships. Even your business. Heck when you reject a troublesome client it's twice the gain: one less problem for you and one more problem for your competition.

This posts resonates very strongly with me as a manager of a forum with 400 users (I can't imagine what kind of crazyness can bring 25.000 of them). For instance in the last posts of Steve I didn't reply because they did not resonate much with me, and in some cases I was totally in the opposite side of the fence (for instance, I'm a proud meat-eater, mind you).

But everytime I had this urge to log in here and reply to Steve's inflammatory articles, I always paused and thought, "what for?". Am I reacting? Am I trying to correct some imaginary wrongdoing? Am I trying to prove some point at any cost? Why do I have the need to criticise someone on the internet? Wouldn't it be better to try to understand his POV and, in the cases where the content is too out of my reality for me to accept (say, psychic stuff) just shrug, and move on to my own things?

Because if I have something meaningful to add to a discussion, even if it contains a criticism of some of the points made, then I'm contributing something. But if I think some stuff is totally derailed, I don't even try to argue the points, because I'm not contributing anything except drivel: people who believe in it will keep believing, and people unconvinced will remain so. What for, then? If I'm not adding value, what am I criticising for, internet validation?

Most times the rabid critics have more problems with themselves than with the object of their attacks.

Thumbs up, Steve. Great post.

[Shane]

Good reminder, this post. I like the home analogy a lot.
It would be great if everyone had the experience of owning or moderating a forum of some kind. I think it provides some perspective, to see "outsiders" come to "your home" and comment.

But I think you're being a bit unfair with the URL:
personal-development-free-for-all-subsidized-by-steve-pavlina-who-will-bend-over-and-take-it-up-the-ass-from-anyone.com

Obviously a typo. Could happen to anyone trying to type stevepavlina.com.


Oh, and The Princess Bride is awesome.

[24evita]

I loved this article!!! It resonated with me, but also taught me something really valuable....we never have to put up with something unacceptable on our own sites. I always wondered how to go about this, to keep my own dignity and at the same time, accept the so called "opinion" of others. I guess as you say, it comes down to a personal level of what is acceptable and we shouldn't feel bad if we remove something we feel is not that.

Honestly Steve, I was thinking so many times, "how is he okay with some of the blatantly rude, ignorant, disrespectful and just plain nasty comments that people leave here?"

I also thought, "wow he must have one thick skin" - but I am glad to hear that you are "human" - LOL - and won't just put up with all bad mouthing garbage from some people.

And I have to say, I think I enjoyed the comments in this topic the most of all - they all seem so nice and positive

I think those who wanted to leave something nasty, got the point quickly with that post

[AlwaysLearning]

I was a bit surprised at the profanity in the article. Not that I have anything against that (quite the opposite), I just don't remember seeing Steve use profanity in his essays before. I guess all the polyamory stuff already shot any hopes of the domain getting past those parental control panel filters

[Chris_1977]

This "you are not entitled to free speech on other persons forums" has another side. Since you are not entitled to a reasonable treatment and unreasonable treatments are not pleasant it is sometimes best to just leave and vote with your feet for the demise of the community. There are quite a few online communities that are not so very skillfully led. In that case it may be a good idea to publish somewhere the problems you were experiencing. It may help other people to decide to leave as well or you may discuss what is a better place to hang out.

[InsertNameHere]

I understand your points, but you sound (or read) angry.

[wolverine]

I'm mostly wondering what happened to spark this blog.

On the actual topic of it, I'm just confused. People have to be told this stuff? *shrugs*


Wolverine

[Trezker]

If you can't say what you want in one forum, you're free to express yourself anywhere else on the web. The most free place you can ge to express yourself is on a blog on your own server. But even then you will sometimes be restrained by your government.

Every forum on the net is an interest group. Where people discuss a limited set of interests in limited manners. The scope varies widely, but there are limits.
The goal of any forum is to help its members feel welcome, resolve issues and have fun.

People who want to argue just for the sake of arguing are known as trolls. They can not be shut up by arguing with them, this is called feeding the troll, arguing with a troll keeps it alive.
There are three ways to get rid of a troll.
1) Be 100% nice and objective, if the troll discovers it can't make you angry it will eventually leave.
2) Ignore the troll, with no responces the troll gets bored and leaves.
3) Ban the troll.

Here's a nice video about dealing with poisinous people in a community. YouTube - How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (And...

Also, check out this book (it's even free, if you like readong on a computer screen)
Art Of Community Online*|*The Book On Community Management, by Jono Bacon

[danas]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Some people seem to think that my primary motivation for starting and maintaining an online community was financial, as if being an entrepreneur means that all of one’s actions are driven by a profit motive. Now that’s a laugh and a half. If I really cared that much about money, I’d never have launched our forums in the first place, and even if I did, I’d have quickly realized my mistake and would have dropped them within a few months. Our forums aren’t profitable. They hog a lot of computing resources, requiring me to pay for a much faster server than I’d need for my blog alone. The forums usually cost more to run than they generate in revenue. On top of that, I’m not counting the value of the time Erin and I invest in administration. If we had to pay someone else to handle the admin, we’d lose more money on it, even if we could hire someone for less than minimum wage

IMO the real success secret of stevepavlina.com IS the forums.

I mean the blog is great too, Steves way of thinking is special and inspiring, but the forums are the real reason why I keep coming back here.
While Im at it, I check out if Steve and Erin have a new blog posted.

Im sure there are plenty of great PD blogs out there, and there are plenty of forums about health, or the LOA, or relationships,or business etc...
However this forum includes all these subjects in one. That is what makes it so unique. Almost all areas in life are covered here really. I can come here and interpret my dreams about snakes, find out where to buy raw seaweed, or the best way to invest 100K$. etc...

So to say "Our forums aren’t profitable", might be true directly, but indirectly, they are responsible for this site to being as profitable as it is.
Its the combination of the blog and the forums that make it such a hit.
If the forums didnt exist I would come here much less, once a month at the most. and probably many others would too. now I visit every few days. The site would get much less traffic if the forums didnt exist.

I know this has nothing to do with the free speech topic, but still, reading the above quote, made me want to give the forums the weight they deserve.

I find the Pay to Post idea, a bad one, because the great thing is that people come here to exchange information and help each other for free. Its all about give and taking, words, not money.

[estudiant9]

Notice that the URL is NOT personal-development-free-for-all-subsidized-by-steve-pavlina-who-will-bend-over-and-take-it-up-the-ass-from-anyone.com.

Getting testy, are we?

I'd be interested in hearing your take on dealing with criticism, since it's pretty obvious that you've had with users who disagree with your point of view or, for whatever reason, don't like you. The myriad references to Facebook, Tweeter, etc. are superfluous. The point that's been made abundantly clear is that you're annoyed by it, and you'll use whatever means at your disposal to discourage it.

The aggressive tone in recent articles are puzzling (this and Modern-Nazies). Are you just venting, or as you often claim, are you writing articles that will resonate with those who are at a lower level of consciousness, to help them? It'd be kind of hard to help them out once you kicked them out, wouldn't it?

All jests aside, it's interesting to get your honest take on the pains of being a webmaster.

[someguy]

I signed up on the forums specifically to comment on this article, and share my own experiences. Plus I have nothing better to do at the moment.

Once upon a time I was an admin on a very large forum. We had the prerequisite laundry list of rules that included the near-mandatory "we can kill you if we don't like you." While I only banned a handful of people in the time I worked on it, I reviewed the ban list often. There was only two reasons ever that someone was banned:

• They tried to give us viagra or porn
• They behaved as a jackass and alienated the rest of the users

Getting banned when you weren't a spammer was incredibly difficult because as a rule threads that were highly offensive or just plain ridiculous were sent to a special forum to die (if any of you are goons think FYAD), yet at least 3 people per day would manage to do it.

At least once a month we would get an email from a disgruntled ex-forum user telling us that it was a complete and total violation of his God-given right to free speech and expression and we would be sued for such transgressions. That would typically be the point some of the more "nazi-mod" mods would make it his or her personal mission to find any sock-puppet accounts and ban them for evasion.

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by wolverine

...
On the actual topic of it, I'm just confused. People have to be told this stuff? *shrugs*
...

You clearly have never been a moderator on a forum .

I have (not on this forum though) and I know, both as mod and as member that some people need to be told.

Compare it with our law system. We need an offcial system with sanctions, even though 'everybody knows' we shouldn't steal stuff or kill people.

[murphzlaw1]

I joined this forum only to say "Excellent post"

As admin of a forum with over 8000 members, I've used the "home" analogy many times.

Some members, of course, seem to not get it, and scream "censorship" every time they get told to quit the behavior that got them in trouble.

Well...it very well may be censorship, but dangit, it's my forum, and if I decide that I don't want "that" kind of discussion, then that's my right.

But, well said. Thank you.