reset on linkspam with a few blue giraffes

[kaigou]

If 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.

Comments

[troisroyaumes]

Hm, well, again, just speaking for myself here, but I usually do go read posts labeled as problematic (unless the conversation is about racism or xenophobia, which I avoid for my own emotional energy levels and not because I've automatically written them off) along with everything else that gets linked even if I don't engage, and I try to figure out why the label was applied. In cases where I do possess my own privilege blinders, sometimes it takes me a while to see it, and sometimes I don't see it at all. Of course, my going through a learning process doesn't really justify anything, but I do think that this response is not as unlikely as you may think.

As for why linkspam might bother to link to those posts, in some cases, the post labeled as problematic does need to be read in order to keep track of what the resulting discussion is referring to. Sometimes the post is not necessarily problematic on the issue at hand but failed on other issues (e.g. being sexist while talking about ableism). I usually assume that the link is included not because the post is worthless but that it did in fact have something to contribute and/or had an important role in the discussion. (I do agree that if neither category applies, the post shouldn't be linked. I also am sympathetic to the argument that links perceived as obviously derailing shouldn't be linked at all. The only real justification I can see is that sometimes the derailing has already taken place and the discussion has shifted to focus on the derailing post, in which case, in the interests of archival, it makes sense to link it.) Granted, my interpretation of linkspam != everyone's interpretation of linkspam, and I honestly have no idea what their criteria for including or excluding links are, so this is all just rampant speculation.

Actually, as I follow that line of thought, that's probably the fundamental problem here: linkspam is essentially functioning as a discussion-promoting comm like metafandom but its policies are based on its archiving/historical function (editorializing being inevitable when you're putting together a historical record, particularly when your very mission is to present that record from a specific, non-objective angle). Which does argue in favor of the grace period you suggested in this post.

Sure, perhaps the points would've been better raised elsewhere, but see, that assumes I actually really care enough to make that much effort.

Oh, just to clarify--my phrasing seems to be particularly inept today--I meant that I thought that my points would probably be better made elsewhere rather than in your journal, but that you got stuck with them because, heh, I do indeed feel comfortable commenting in your journal even if I don't do it very often. (And I really do mean that sincerely; yours was the first post I've seen expressing criticism of linkspam without including enraging/hurtful commentary about Racefail.) Also, if you really don't want to talk anymore about the topic even here, just say the word.

[kaigou]

I'm always up for talking, and when I'm not, I tend to just let it lie until it comes around again (which everything always does). I don't mean any specific controversy, only my interest/energy towards it. So lack of reply doesn't mean no interest, just no time currently, and then you may see a reply from me (on this post!) a month later.

But if you're comfortable talking here, then you're certainly welcome to use it as a place to poke at the topic as part of coming to a point you can articulate it for elsewhere. That's pretty much what I do with this journal, after all: bounce things back and forth until I can really distill the ideas into something a bit less, uhm, wordy. (Not that I always succeed, but that's the intent.)

Back on the general topic: when I've been following a discussion avidly, I find that I'm much less likely to click on links that have warnings of any kind. It's an automatic reaction, especially when first approaching a discussion, to want to stick to the main body of the discussion. Sort of like the same thing as walking into a lecture for the first time, and while what the people behind you are whispering about sounds interesting, you feel the need to focus on the main lecture to get a solid grounding before you can then feel equipped to contribute (or even fully grasp) what's going on in the side conversations.

When I do click on those warned-links, it's anecdotal (hm, there'd be something interesting to track) but it does seem as though such posts are either likely to have very few here-via-roundup positive replies, with the majority of positive replies seeming to be from pre-existing journal-audience, OR a higher percentage of here-via-roundup critical replies. That's one source of my impression that such warnings act as starting-gun shots for those ready and raring for an argument, doubly so if they can feel righteously justified in doing so.

The notion of linkspam as archival... that's a really good point, and one I think gets lost in the practical application. If archival, then it is valuable to record all branches of the discussion including ones that derailed, digressed, or even were deleted...

Okay, I amend my if-I-ran-the-world suggestion, to break the roundup into two. The first tracks current discussion. Probably use delicious for that, since (from what I can see) anyone can add/tag a post to that. The second uses the first to create the actual Roundup* (aka Linkspam) aka THE FREAKING ARCHIVES with all posts on a topic sorted out: Main, Related, etc. Including deleted or locked -- since that usually happens within a few days of posting, and by the time it's archived, the player can be noted as participating but withdrawn, essentially.

Or even "withdrawn" as a term itself -- because that's what deletion or locking really is: the person is withdrawing their interaction from the discussion, regardless of reason. That's what bugs me the most about noting when a post is deleted or locked, because it does imply the person was (bluntly) beaten down and then slunk away like the pro-oppression scum they are. (Not stated in so many words, but them's the honest impression from the usual Linkspam tone and from ensuing references by others, to the previously-readable post.) One can withdraw, even when one's right, simply because one doesn't have the time or energy. Frex, if one accidentally offended a personal friend in some way and wants to reconsider or just set the disagreement aside, even if overall the post was valuable to the discussion. Not everyone has a skin made of iron.

But then, as the reply below notes, the simple element of organization with an eye towards archival is, in itself, a hugely political situation. What goes where, and why, and what about the fact that things in this group might be 'weighted' more than things in that group, when all are valid and valuable voices in the discussion? and so on.

* of course, the problem with calling anything Roundup is that, well, it's the name of a major weed-killing company brand. Given that any discussion is by nature like an untended garden, the idea of something meant to kill the weeds might not be the best visual, especially seeing how the mainstream culture usually sees non-normative voices as, well, pretty much human versions of weeds.

[troisroyaumes]

The more I think about it, the more I really like the scheme you outline here. I think it would solve some logistic problems too--e.g. how to distinguish signal-boosting posts that don't actually add to the discussion from posts that end up having extended comment threads. And it would be easier to maintain a consistent set of editorial standards if all the posts are assessed together in the aftermath instead of while the discussion is still in full swing, though of course, any set of editorial standards would probably be controversial.

[elf]

One can withdraw, even when one's right, simply because one doesn't have the time or energy.

Or for entirely different reasons, like, "my publisher has advised me that my recent post may tread close to libel of [rival publisher] and our legal team has suggested I remove it from public view."

Or, "my mom has discovered weblandia, and this is *not* the first post of mine I want her to see."

Not every withdrawal has anything to do with the current conversation.

[dharma_slut]

yours was the first post I've seen expressing criticism of linkspam without including enraging/hurtful commentary about Racefail.

which means you never saw my post then. Nor the (never unscreened, even though I asked) protests that I have made in numerous linkspam posts before I made that open letter.

[troisroyaumes]

Er, yes, I never saw your post. And I don't see why I would have seen your screened comments either, since (as I mentioned above) I'm only a linkspam reader and not a mod. I did see your unscreened comments on the post that asked for feedback, but I also commented on that post myself, albeit expressing a different opinion. For what it's worth, I wasn't sure what was problematic with your friend's posts either, but I also didn't think that the warnings meant that she had nothing valuable to say.

Rereading my comment, I guess I implied that all critical posts were inflammatory; I'm sorry for that implication since what I really meant was exactly what I said: the reason that I haven't commented on any of the critical posts I've seen was because they ventured into territory that usually made me feel too emotional to engage, and I was glad that kaigou's post gave me a chance to babble at great length and think about the topic further.

[kaigou]

Well, the thing about a meta post -- and I don't mean in the colloquial sense but in the classic, "about ____" -- is that it's best to keep specific examples out of the discussion, as best as one can. To speak in trends, generalities, overall movements, patterns: means that one doesn't have to justify or critique any one situation (or fail, as the case may be). That's much of the reason I see no value in bringing a specific Fail into the picture, because to have any value towards future examples, it works best (at least for me) to pull back/up high enough that the tiny details fade and we can see broad trends.

Which has its drawbacks to those who do want to argue the specifics, but since this is my journal and I'm the one running the meta, I get to say that needs to wait for some other time -- and, in doing so, I find it makes for a safer place to talk about stuff that otherwise we couldn't because we'd be too busy having to justify or defend specific examples.

[dharma_slut]

I am so sorry, I didn't mean to sound accusatory towards you!

No, I am pissed off at the linkspam mods.

The woman I was taking up for is not my friend, BTW-- in fact, she's blocked me from her blogs etc for at least a year. Which is a measure of how egregious I feel linkspam's labeling policy has been.

[kaigou]

So does this mean the specifics stop here, and I don't have to tell you to dial it down? This thread (and most of my analytical posts, come to think of it) is about broad, generalized trends and how I (and anyone commenting) sees those trends as having bearing on a policy or policies. Getting into the gritty is the fastest way to start backing people into corners -- not to mention a fallacious (specifically ignoratio elenchi) response, overall, given the post's parameters.

Which is to say: figure out what, in your previous comments/complaints, might have bearing as a general critique and is applicable to more than just one situation -- and then post a solution to it. (No, it is not good enough to only posit a problem. The world has a lot of problems. I give the most credence to those willing to take some time to thresh out possible solutions.)

I'm emphasizing that more than usual because somehow it looks like I've got folks here who are either with, or avid readers of, all three round-up digests. It seems to me that it's far more constructive for all concerned if we use our experiences to highlight repeating patterns and use those as starting-points for any ideas on preventing failure-repeats in future.

[dharma_slut]

yeah, I do my arguing via specific examples, and have never had been very good with generalities-- I see the general in the specific, I guess. I'll try better.

Generally speaking, I can say that linkspam has editorialised via their warning system (and even now charactarise their comments as "warnings") and when we are talking about extremely intersectional issues that means the comm *will* be taking a side-- and they need to think about what that means, because many times it means that someone who is legitimately trying to deal with their own oppression gets called out for oppression before they can get a grip on their own problems. And really, *that* seems like derailing, and also, oppression Olympics to me.

My solution would be to call those comments, "comments" and not "warnings."

I think also, that your suggestion of changing the words "locked" and "deleted" to "withdrawn" is an excellent one.

[kaigou]

when we are talking about extremely intersectional issues that means the comm *will* be taking a side-- and they need to think about what that means, because many times it means that someone who is legitimately trying to deal with their own oppression gets called out for oppression before they can get a grip on their own problems.

I think possibly that's the entire heart of the current LS issues, in thirty words or less, at that. Damn it. Start writing my posts for me. I never will learn to be that succinct.

[troisroyaumes]

No harm done; I just didn't want to provide room for more misunderstanding! And thanks for the clarification as well--my mistake in jumping to conclusions there.