![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouIf I ran the world, here's my list for linkspam, though also applicable to linkspam's siblings fandomnews & metafandom. (See comments for further discussion, clarifications, and digressions of interest.)
1. Set a grace period, say, 72 hours before linking.
We all have stupid moments, but most of us are pretty good about realizing the stupid even if it takes posting to see it in pixels and say, man, that was an idiot moment. Oh, certainly, some people are going to fail -- we all will -- and some folks won't check their own privilege -- we all do that at some point -- but for the average person, it only takes a friend replying, "man, you're being an idiot here," for us to say, hey, whoops, okay, idiot moment. Before you invite everyone and their sister to come storming down our doors for being an idiot, allow us the chance to avert the disaster of a wrecked house (or crispy-fried journal).
I had a coach in high school who, by midway through the racing season, would only call out my errors maybe every few practices. Being terribly neurotic about my technique and whether it was good enough, I cornered her once, wanting to know if her lack of coaching towards me meant that I was just so bad that she'd gotten tired of even trying. Oh, no, she assured me, she could see I was trying, and that when I screwed up, if she waited a bit, she'd see me catch myself, and do it right the next time. She could see me thinking about it, and she believed it was better to give me the space to correct myself than to only speak the one time I went wrong while being silent the ten times I had it right.
In a way, that's how I see grace periods: it's letting a person get it wrong, and giving them a chance to try again and get it right before bringing down the howling denizens to castigate the wrongness -- because most people do have some self-correcting skills. Sometimes we're just a bit belated about it.
2. Stop grouping posts under a single general header-topic.
See, in case this missed you, Linkspam and its ilk don't link to posts that declare the world is a happy place. Well, unless it's a terribly idiot oppression-laced happy place statement, in which case it's bound to get someone all het up about the oppressive element, and hence you have controversy.
That's the total heart of linkspam, the partial heart of metafandom, and to a slightly lesser degree, fandomnews: they bring us a collated list of controversy. Whatever has everyone talking. Or, this being the internets, what has everyones' panties in a freaking double windsor. And in this life we call the internets, there's always someone raring to go on just about any topic you can name; it's positively open bar for them as likes to argue when Linkspam et al provides a ready-made list of destination spots.
We are territorial creatures, we humans, and that includes our discussions. If someone out there is omgRONG on the interweebs, and their discussion is grouped under a collective heading with our own post, I'm not surprised that some folks are, essentially, acting like they're "defending" their discussion-territory. That's where you get the derailing accusations and ensuing drama, with this example being specifically Linkspam, though semi-relevant to its siblings:
a. The collective grouping creates an illusion of all posts being in alignment as part of a set-topic discussion.
b. Included posts are thus either "for oppression [of topic]" or "against oppression [of topic]".
c. If the post isn't precisely "against oppression [of topic]", it becomes "for oppression" by default, thanks to the kneejerk of "if you're not for us, you're against us".
The end result: a side discussion (and digression is a legitimate element of argument evolution) is suddenly disdained as both derailment and pro-oppression. From what I've seen, this has little to do with the post's own validity and everything to do with the fact that it's not on-topic -- to a broad topic which was foisted on that post by virtue of Linkspam grouping that post with the so-called umbrella topic, even when the post is validly and honestly tangential. Which begs the question of just who is setting the topic to judge who's in and who's out, but that's a role many are willing to take on for themselves. My suggestion is that you not help them.
Just post the links, with excerpts, and don't band them together as all-one-topic. People can read the excerpts and determine for themselves whether it's about ableism, sexuality, or pink elephants rampaging through Central Park. They're going to join a pitchfork-bearing horde if they're so inclined, and little anyone can do about it -- but Linkspam makes it awfully quick for them to find a continuing supply of easy victims. Well, more than that: Linkspam's mission statement, combined with delineating topic headers, justifies that reaction.
Alternate option:
--- If a post is tangential, put it in a secondary group.
Major clue that a post digresses (uses another post as a jump-off point): somewhere in there, usually near or at the top, the average OP will make the statement that "so-and-so's post got me thinking about something related..." and off we go. Being in the OP's own journal, it's not an automatic derailment of the main topic, although it is clearly a digression in an overall scheme; that entry-statement is a big signal for of tangentiality. If the main topic is "pink elephants in Central Park" and this digression revolves around "blue giraffes on Wall Street", then start a secondary topic labeled, I don't know, "off-shoot discussions" or "related posts". Something neutral, seeing how blue giraffes may be a completely valid topic in their own right, even if they're digressive from the issue of pink elephants.
At least then, if someone's wanting to stay on the issue of pink elephants, they can avoid the blue giraffes. And if they want to carry pitchforks and tar into the journal of those digressing on blue giraffes, they don't have the weight of Linkspam's own classification as justification for their cries of derailment and oppression -- because it's not always immediately oppression, and it's not fair to put a target on anyone's forehead when a discussion's natural course is to evolve. Trying to prevent such is stultifying the discussions that could otherwise occur.
3. If it's nothing but links, skip it.
Really. When a topic really gets going, there's nothing more annoying than trying to keep up -- and hitting multiple instances of what amounts to a link to an already-LS'd post, with no additional commentary. Or a post that discusses something else completely and then adds a single sentence that amounts to, "and so-and-so had this post, and you should definitely read it." If the comments then went off into a wildly long discussion, then link to that thread, but in every instance I came across of an uncommented link (not counting the "I agree with this person"), there were either comments about the non-related stuff, or no comments at all. What's the point of that?
If the intention of linking is to link to items of substance, then skip the posts whose substance amounts to nothing more than quoting someone else. Either link to the quoted person's post if it's relevant, or skip it, and let those of us paying attention to you save our energy for someone who's doing something more than just "I read this and agreed."
This goes double for uncommented posts with multiple links.
4. For crying out loud, change the freaking name.
A linkspam is not a good thing. It's a series of links on a website, in which the links are included solely for the purposes of upping someone's google ranking, and -- this is important -- by definition are links that have no intrinsic merit. Linkspams are also called nepotistic linking, and that right there is probably not the impression I'd think Linkspam would be wanting anyone to have -- but it's the first reaction I had, and I can't possibly be the only one.
Even if I really am the only one among hundreds who's aware of linkspams, for crying out loud, how can anything with the word spam in it be something good?
ETA: HYPOTHETICALS, PEOPLE.
If you reference past events, be glossy; if you point out issues in the track record, SUGGEST SOLUTIONS. The value of critically constructive discourse relies on making sure no one feels like they're being personally attacked, and it can be hard to distance oneself when specifics are getting specified and names are being named and sleeping arguments are getting poked with a sharp stick. Therefore, I recommend when outlining, identify only the general pattern you've seen; if you suggest ways of undoing past damage, do it from both sides, as if you were party A and as if you were party B, to give both the benefit of the doubt. Alternately, suggest how such a pattern could be prevented in the future without delving into the two sides, but that means neither mentioning who is on what side, nor how those sides formed.
Approaching any reply with this in mind will go a long way towards making sure this doesn't devolve into beating at the water long under the bridge. After all, that's not the goal of this post, which is focused more on coming up with ways to keep the next bridge from getting burnt in the first place. ...to totally whack the metaphors, there, heh.
1. Set a grace period, say, 72 hours before linking.
We all have stupid moments, but most of us are pretty good about realizing the stupid even if it takes posting to see it in pixels and say, man, that was an idiot moment. Oh, certainly, some people are going to fail -- we all will -- and some folks won't check their own privilege -- we all do that at some point -- but for the average person, it only takes a friend replying, "man, you're being an idiot here," for us to say, hey, whoops, okay, idiot moment. Before you invite everyone and their sister to come storming down our doors for being an idiot, allow us the chance to avert the disaster of a wrecked house (or crispy-fried journal).
I had a coach in high school who, by midway through the racing season, would only call out my errors maybe every few practices. Being terribly neurotic about my technique and whether it was good enough, I cornered her once, wanting to know if her lack of coaching towards me meant that I was just so bad that she'd gotten tired of even trying. Oh, no, she assured me, she could see I was trying, and that when I screwed up, if she waited a bit, she'd see me catch myself, and do it right the next time. She could see me thinking about it, and she believed it was better to give me the space to correct myself than to only speak the one time I went wrong while being silent the ten times I had it right.
In a way, that's how I see grace periods: it's letting a person get it wrong, and giving them a chance to try again and get it right before bringing down the howling denizens to castigate the wrongness -- because most people do have some self-correcting skills. Sometimes we're just a bit belated about it.
2. Stop grouping posts under a single general header-topic.
See, in case this missed you, Linkspam and its ilk don't link to posts that declare the world is a happy place. Well, unless it's a terribly idiot oppression-laced happy place statement, in which case it's bound to get someone all het up about the oppressive element, and hence you have controversy.
That's the total heart of linkspam, the partial heart of metafandom, and to a slightly lesser degree, fandomnews: they bring us a collated list of controversy. Whatever has everyone talking. Or, this being the internets, what has everyones' panties in a freaking double windsor. And in this life we call the internets, there's always someone raring to go on just about any topic you can name; it's positively open bar for them as likes to argue when Linkspam et al provides a ready-made list of destination spots.
We are territorial creatures, we humans, and that includes our discussions. If someone out there is omgRONG on the interweebs, and their discussion is grouped under a collective heading with our own post, I'm not surprised that some folks are, essentially, acting like they're "defending" their discussion-territory. That's where you get the derailing accusations and ensuing drama, with this example being specifically Linkspam, though semi-relevant to its siblings:
a. The collective grouping creates an illusion of all posts being in alignment as part of a set-topic discussion.
b. Included posts are thus either "for oppression [of topic]" or "against oppression [of topic]".
c. If the post isn't precisely "against oppression [of topic]", it becomes "for oppression" by default, thanks to the kneejerk of "if you're not for us, you're against us".
The end result: a side discussion (and digression is a legitimate element of argument evolution) is suddenly disdained as both derailment and pro-oppression. From what I've seen, this has little to do with the post's own validity and everything to do with the fact that it's not on-topic -- to a broad topic which was foisted on that post by virtue of Linkspam grouping that post with the so-called umbrella topic, even when the post is validly and honestly tangential. Which begs the question of just who is setting the topic to judge who's in and who's out, but that's a role many are willing to take on for themselves. My suggestion is that you not help them.
Just post the links, with excerpts, and don't band them together as all-one-topic. People can read the excerpts and determine for themselves whether it's about ableism, sexuality, or pink elephants rampaging through Central Park. They're going to join a pitchfork-bearing horde if they're so inclined, and little anyone can do about it -- but Linkspam makes it awfully quick for them to find a continuing supply of easy victims. Well, more than that: Linkspam's mission statement, combined with delineating topic headers, justifies that reaction.
Alternate option:
--- If a post is tangential, put it in a secondary group.
Major clue that a post digresses (uses another post as a jump-off point): somewhere in there, usually near or at the top, the average OP will make the statement that "so-and-so's post got me thinking about something related..." and off we go. Being in the OP's own journal, it's not an automatic derailment of the main topic, although it is clearly a digression in an overall scheme; that entry-statement is a big signal for of tangentiality. If the main topic is "pink elephants in Central Park" and this digression revolves around "blue giraffes on Wall Street", then start a secondary topic labeled, I don't know, "off-shoot discussions" or "related posts". Something neutral, seeing how blue giraffes may be a completely valid topic in their own right, even if they're digressive from the issue of pink elephants.
At least then, if someone's wanting to stay on the issue of pink elephants, they can avoid the blue giraffes. And if they want to carry pitchforks and tar into the journal of those digressing on blue giraffes, they don't have the weight of Linkspam's own classification as justification for their cries of derailment and oppression -- because it's not always immediately oppression, and it's not fair to put a target on anyone's forehead when a discussion's natural course is to evolve. Trying to prevent such is stultifying the discussions that could otherwise occur.
3. If it's nothing but links, skip it.
Really. When a topic really gets going, there's nothing more annoying than trying to keep up -- and hitting multiple instances of what amounts to a link to an already-LS'd post, with no additional commentary. Or a post that discusses something else completely and then adds a single sentence that amounts to, "and so-and-so had this post, and you should definitely read it." If the comments then went off into a wildly long discussion, then link to that thread, but in every instance I came across of an uncommented link (not counting the "I agree with this person"), there were either comments about the non-related stuff, or no comments at all. What's the point of that?
If the intention of linking is to link to items of substance, then skip the posts whose substance amounts to nothing more than quoting someone else. Either link to the quoted person's post if it's relevant, or skip it, and let those of us paying attention to you save our energy for someone who's doing something more than just "I read this and agreed."
This goes double for uncommented posts with multiple links.
4. For crying out loud, change the freaking name.
A linkspam is not a good thing. It's a series of links on a website, in which the links are included solely for the purposes of upping someone's google ranking, and -- this is important -- by definition are links that have no intrinsic merit. Linkspams are also called nepotistic linking, and that right there is probably not the impression I'd think Linkspam would be wanting anyone to have -- but it's the first reaction I had, and I can't possibly be the only one.
Even if I really am the only one among hundreds who's aware of linkspams, for crying out loud, how can anything with the word spam in it be something good?
ETA: HYPOTHETICALS, PEOPLE.
If you reference past events, be glossy; if you point out issues in the track record, SUGGEST SOLUTIONS. The value of critically constructive discourse relies on making sure no one feels like they're being personally attacked, and it can be hard to distance oneself when specifics are getting specified and names are being named and sleeping arguments are getting poked with a sharp stick. Therefore, I recommend when outlining, identify only the general pattern you've seen; if you suggest ways of undoing past damage, do it from both sides, as if you were party A and as if you were party B, to give both the benefit of the doubt. Alternately, suggest how such a pattern could be prevented in the future without delving into the two sides, but that means neither mentioning who is on what side, nor how those sides formed.
Approaching any reply with this in mind will go a long way towards making sure this doesn't devolve into beating at the water long under the bridge. After all, that's not the goal of this post, which is focused more on coming up with ways to keep the next bridge from getting burnt in the first place. ...to totally whack the metaphors, there, heh.
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 06:54 pm (UTC)We try to be. It's a policy that was in effect before I joined the team, and there is or was a strong practical reason for it: LJ at least has something of a cultural norm of commenting only on fairly recent posts, so that if people were going to join a discussion they needed to be aware of it within a couple of days of it being launched. Sometimes there's an inadvertent cooling-off period, where one or more of us won't be sure whether something really belongs in our roundup and hold it for review by other compilers, but that's unusual.
I can't see that really changing, unless the surrounding culture changes and people become more comfortable about commenting on older entries. But I'm also not sure how much difference it really makes, because with the advent of delicious accounts as a kind of holding pen for not-yet-posted and/or not-yet-reviewed-by-the-full-group links, those who're so inclined need not wait for metafandom or linkspam to actually post anything. I don't know how many readers take advantage of this, but I know there must be a decent number who do; I've found that I can tell when either one of my colleagues has tagged something I wrote1 or linkspam has done so because there's a distinct uptick in comments within hours. (Then there'll be a little lull, with comments trickling in at a steady, somewhat elevated rate, and then a larger burst of traffic when the actual link post goes up.) So even though there's already a significant lag between when linkspam will note a post for future inclusion and when they actually put it in a roundup, readers of linkspam will be along to comment on something almost as soon as one of the linkspam compilers has noted its existence.
So while I see the value of a cooling off/rewrite period, I'm not sure it's something that would really work with the technology and culture we've got.
1I normally avoid linking anything I wrote; how do I know whether it's interesting or not?
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 07:00 pm (UTC)Since I don't, I'm stuck with complaining here -- and sticking with requests at tops of posts to lay the hell off linking when it's a particularly controversial topic (or one that's going to generate enough discussion that I know I'll be editing out the stupid).
And that, really, is less to do with the fact that I don't stand behind my words, and a helluva lot more to do with the fact that I can't stand the attitudes of a lot of the hungry-for-a-fight people who follow linkspam and metafandom, who will come barrelling in without a second thought and steamroller right through what -- for me -- is more of a contemplative, open-to-discussion, kind of thing. Given the comments I've seen elsewhere on my dwircle/flist, I'm not the only one disinterested in suddenly hosting a host of adamant folks who aren't really interested in true (read: evolving and potentially digressive) discussion so much as they are in persuasion, specifically persuasion towards their own objective of whatever "their" topic currently is.
Or maybe we just need icons or an acronym that politely notifies any potential linkers (without having to belabor the point) that linkage is not welcome, or maybe just not welcome right now.
Or maybe metafandom, linkspam, et al need to be a bit more adamant in their own linkage that going to someone's journal and freaking flaming them for daring to raise a topic is, well, really not cool.
*shrug*
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 07:21 pm (UTC)Which, grant you, is anyone's prerogative regarding publicly posted material, but runs rather contra to the sort of community norms that have prevailed up till recently in most of the journalling spaces (as far as I've noticed, anyway).
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 07:36 pm (UTC)I'm not sure if it's explicit, but it's certainly implied -- and as I think you (or the other Em?) has pointed out, that makes it even more egregious, not to mention audacious, to then have the gall to label a post as "tangential", let alone "derailing". If it's freaking derailing, then freaking ignore it.
But I think part of it's also that linkspam is like any old-time anthropologist, freely disregarding its own impact on the spaces it purports to be reporting/studying: its use of editorial comments most definitely has a major damn impact on how people perceive a conversational flow.
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 07:42 pm (UTC)Which is a sort of editorializing in and of itself; why would you lock your post if you didn't have anything to hide? And when did you stop beating your wife?
I know that linkspam specifically identifies as anti-oppression, and I do think that some of the work they've done in the past has been valuable. But I'm also starting to think that, as it's become an established presence and people are starting to follow it who haven't, in essence, done their homework about anti-oppression work are starting to pick up on it, it's becoming a locus for people who like to go in and shout other people down, with the added frisson of getting to feel that they're right for doing so. (Caveat: I'm not saying that everyone who follows linkspam is doing this, or that some people aren't definitely Wrong on the Internet. But I'm saying that it seems like some people are doing that, and the net result is that it's shutting down conversation.)
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2010 12:54 am (UTC)And no, I don't agree that if one is being stupid then one's party should be wrecked. No, I think in that case, stupidity does -- especially in this communication-heavy environment -- get served far better if it's simply shunned. There have been plenty of times I've posted, realized my stupid, and realized that this might've been the reasons for the silence: people were waiting for me to smack myself on the forehead and say, okay, that was stupid.
But then again, the party-wreckers don't seem to care about that, so much as they care about being righteously indignant with alleged justification, context or no.
Ehhh, whatever, because now I shall post something that I'm sure will bring them out of the woodwork, if not in this post, in its conclusion. Oh, joy! I can hardly wait.
*suddenly feels compelling need to organize sock drawer*
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 08:59 pm (UTC)I'm sorry. I fear that I must have sounded more defensive, or more combative, or both, than I intended. It was really only the policy geek in me coming out to play and being too exuberant about it.
Given the comments I've seen elsewhere on my dwircle/flist, I'm not the only one disinterested in suddenly hosting a host of adamant folks who aren't really interested in true (read: evolving and potentially digressive) discussion so much as they are in persuasion,
You are emphatically not the only one. Oh, how well I know it.
Metafandom's policy has always been to honor do-not-link requests, no questions asked and no belaboring needed. I only wish that it hadn't become quite so obviously desirable to make those requests under some circumstances.
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2010 01:07 am (UTC)I don't mind linkage, so long as there's a way to modify when linkers make mistakes, as they will, being human. Although linkspam has its own idiosyncratic foibles (like leaving up posts even when the post is locked or deleted, which kinda defeats the purpose of being a 'resource' since you can't read it, and really acts more like a shaming device after the fact), at the very least, when it gets a link or title wrong, it does (sometimes) appear to correct that much.
And the truth is that I don't mind linkspam in theory. It's the fact that it may put a different context around my post, creating a pre-existing expectation/impression for visitors, that really pisses me off. It's one reason I'm (only sort of) glad I never posted about deconstructing M/M romance, back in December (when, unbeknownst to me, the entire slash fandom was exploding). I don't read [fandom] slash these days, being barely on the periphery of any fandoms, so I've no interest in deconstructing it, but I do find romance (in all its versions) to be of massive deconstructionist interest -- so the context is different. Based on linkspam's track record, can I a) really trust that they'll get that there's a difference between "gay characters in slash" and "male romance", or b) expect that they'll leap on the first instance of "m/m" and lump it in with the existing controversy and then declare my pretty-much-unrelated topic to be digressive, if not outright derailing?
Hmmm. Lemme think. Sorry, Bob, I'm going to have to go with door number two, and expect Linkspam to screw it up in the worst way possible.
There's Murphy's Law, and then there's the Linkspam Law: if there's any potential for controversy by misrepresenting a post, Linkspam do it just to enjoy the toasty warmth of the flamewars.
ps: no, you didn't sound combative or defensive at all. see, I like policy geeks. always extra fun at parties when you make them balance their pocket protectors on their nose if they want to have a martini!
no subject
Date: 9 Mar 2010 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Mar 2010 04:12 am (UTC)Okay, that all said, if you've got any suggestions for when you run the world what you'd like to see in digest-style posts (any or all or just vague "digest" style), feel free to list!
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 08:32 pm (UTC)(Also, I'm totally open to criticism of metafandom; when things go offtrack my feeling is that it's good to try to diagnose the problem and fix it if it can be fixed. So I'd feel faintly apologetic about sounding defensive even if you had intended to be critical. Which a number of people have of late, so it's on my mind.)
no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2010 08:48 pm (UTC)