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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: 8 Mar 2010 03:12 am (UTC)I think sometimes that's all you can ask for, because there does have to be consideration for the limitations of a format.
Originally I'd meant to reply with a somewhat digressive commentary about the difficulty of LJ/DW style in that you can't really tag when you're doing a collection of links, unless you do a post for each section and tag within that... uh. Hmm.
Really, no idea, except to wonder whether it would be that bothersome to readers if you double-posted, that is, if a post deals with ableism and with TV show XYZ, then put it under fandom for XYZ and under a header for all -isms, as well.
In the end, it's not like people can't click on a link and decide for themselves pretty quickly whether or not it fits their interest to read it -- and conversely, it means someone like me (who pretty much watches no television, reads no american comics, has no time for keeping up with any sports teams, and only goes to see a movie once in a blue moon) could still find posts of interest via the -ism (or broader) categories, even if those posts individually overlap with another area.
On the other hand, someone like me probably isn't going to be found reading fandomnews that much, I suppose. Maybe I'm just wierd that way.
no subject
Date: 8 Mar 2010 03:56 am (UTC)At the moment, I have about three IM windows open with people who either help provide links, post or edit and we were discussing those limitations. We could try to tag but given how we're building this daily, we'd have probably have to tag internally linking to Fan History. And then we'd have to update pages on Fan History every day to include links to those articles... which creates a whole set of problems in that we'll remove links from
Really, no idea, except to wonder whether it would be that bothersome to readers if you double-posted, that is, if a post deals with ableism and with TV show XYZ, then put it under fandom for XYZ and under a header for all -isms, as well.
Originally we were doing between 20 and 60 links in a post. After about three weeks, we did 45 and then rolled everything else into the next day. We weren't sure if people would want a second post... but we did a poll. The majority of people who responded indicated they didn't mind overflow posts and were looking for about 20 to 30 links a posts. So we went with that as our standard.
If we started breaking down by isms, with double posts, it would probably entail fewer posts being linked to the overall possibility of more posts a day. (Which would require a lot more work on our part. As it is, our admin team on this probably spends 2 to 3 hours a day on an issue.)
We'd still be in a pickle for some things. An example for today on things we'd have with problematic labeling: http://www.womentalksports.com/items/read/324/213914 . It is a follow up to an issue in sports fandom about a female basketball player who punched another one. Some people have said people were more upset about this situation than they would be if it had been male athletes because of the cult of women, which says we should play nice and not be violent like male athletes. Except the issue is, that post doesn't necessarily go into that issue. Rather, it compares that situation to an American female basketball player in a German professional league who broke to other player's noses using her elbow. And when the referee didn't call the elbow to the face, the player decided to try to charge her with assault. Is that feminism related and would we tag it feminism? I don't really know because it is a bit removed though clearly related to other discussions about feminism.
And anyway, are most LiveJournal media fandom feminists going to care about this issue? No, I don't think they likely will care because it isn't likely to pertain to their interest set as it pertains to feminism. On the other hand, those who are interested in sports are likely to and they can find it under fandom specific meta, Basketball.
Which is its own set of issues. Do we preface with Women's basketball or Basketball? Or German basketball? Is it sexist to preface a sports related post about women with their gender? Our internal consistency is admittedly awful. We should improve... but we have our cultural assumptions for how these things should be handled and we sometimes just roll with what feels right in the moment.
could still find posts of interest via the -ism (or broader) categories, even if those posts individually overlap with another area.
If we think a post has broader application outside its fandom specific boundaries, we'll toss it in the general meta section. (This is a judgment call on our part. Trying to be consistent is problematic.) Going through those, you might stumble across a sports related posts that you might not have otherwise... and if you're not interested in sports related isms or Buddy related meta, then the current sorting gives you an easy way to skim and decide to pass.
On the other hand, someone like me probably isn't going to be found reading fandomnews that much, I suppose.
Meh. Different resources cater to different audiences. I don't think this makes anyone weird... I know that we created it because we were pretty much doing some of these things anyway. We also knew that we had issues with inclusion and content policies on other communities. Those who help out on
no subject
Date: 9 Mar 2010 07:41 am (UTC)As for what I meant by someone like me -- was that for someone who has little time/interaction with any specific fandom (and doesn't even participate or watch the media for any fandom), I sometimes get the impression I'm among a minority who will read some essays solely for enjoying someone's reasoning, even when I'm utterly clueless about what show and issues they're discussing. I mean, that whole Dollhouse thing still has me baffled.
But if I think of anything, I'll probably make noise about it at some point, if not here, then on another post. I tend to do that whole thinking stuff just a little too often than is good for me.
no subject
Date: 9 Mar 2010 02:15 pm (UTC)Back tracking to doing something mostly on LiveJournal and clones just feels... weird. Our admin type discussions aren't as public (and given that we understand some issues people have with our admin staff, we don't want to force people to visit a site they don't like) and we're not sure how to keep a historical record for these types of conversations. They can be really important for understanding how things work, making things as transparent as possible in order to gain back/win trust and credibility. (Which I feel like has been one of the issues that exists with linkspam and metafandom. These issues might have been discussed at length amongst the people running them... but finding a public record so that the audience can understand exactly what happened, why policies evolved the way they did, staff turn over that impacted on frequency just are not easy to find. )
And any feedback is appreciated. :)
no subject
Date: 10 Mar 2010 04:25 am (UTC)Yah, business-speak in there, but it's the presentation of discussion without naming names, and still communicating the gist of the mods' modus operandi (mods operandi?).
Okay, on the other hand, that would mean someone would have to write up the minutes. Nooooooooooooo. I hated being stuck with doing minutes. Hate, hate, hate.
no subject
Date: 10 Mar 2010 01:59 pm (UTC)"This is what we discussed, some suggestions were made about A, B, and C, and here were the reasons for not using A, or B, and the final agreement was made to use C, voted on and passed 6-2."
I don't think it would need to be that formal. (Do most newsletters staffs operate via voting?) When
It isn't an issue that probably concerns most people, but if we felt it necessary, we could have done it with a few lines in the bottom of the newsletter: "Some one asked us about revising our link removal request so all links can be removed on request. After brief discussion and looking at other newsletters and how they handled link removal requests, we thought this was a good idea to implement. Information on requesting link removal has been updated on all profile pages."
It can be way to easy to over think these things. (Or underthink these things. We further revised our link inclusion policy: If you request that linkspam or metafandom not to link to a post, we won't [shouldn't] link to it either unless we get permission. We didn't feel the need to modify policy regarding that because the impact on the community was so small... and providing a specific post to rationalize that didn't seem to serve any greater good. It is a really minor detail.)
Meta can make people really wordy. Simple can work best. :)