Managing An Online Community Is Hard Work
Commenting on recent events over at Freddie's place, Twitter and elsewhere.
So over at his place Freddie DeBoer had a bit of a…well…calling it a tantrum seems uncharitable. Let’s say a strong statement with respect to his comment section. Seems like some of the commentariat over there really really want to talk about trans issues, to the extent that they inject it into nearly every discussion.
Freddie got fed up and so, like an overworked Kindergarten teacher, read us all the riot act and issued a collective punishment. No commenting for a month.
He makes some good points in his jermiad, although I do find it amusing that he instructs those of us who are blameless in this regard to “get mad at” the bad actors who have forced his hand, as if we could get together and give them a virtual blanket party to show them the error of their ways.
I have a lot of sympathy for Freddie. He backed into a writing gig that’s making him a good amount of money, but somehow he’s also become the manager of an online community and I don’t think he quite knows how to deal with it.
I’ve been managing different types of online discussions and space for well over two decades now, from old web forums to large Facebook groups. It can be difficult and frustrating, trying to square the circle of allowing good discussion and debate and curating a good experience for your users without letting things run off the rails.
Maybe this experience will give Freddie a bit of sympathy for what the people who do this stuff at Twitter go through and the decisions they make, even if they’r’e wrong.
I’ve seen Freddie talk about this multiple times; I suspect a lot of people read his stuff but don’t really listen to much of what he’s actually saying, preferring to just fast-forward to the part where they get to score points off strangers.