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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: 10 Mar 2010 04:51 pm (UTC)Also, linkspam began as, well, a series of links on a topic, with no description other than the post title. It was "if you are interested in keeping up with this discussion, here's the latest round of conversations." No editorial content besides the occasional, "woah, this one is *really* offensive, brace before reading" warning.
Switching to a metafandom-style interaction, with callout quotes and warnings and tags, changed its impact rather drastically. Stopping masterposts, where all the posts under a single topic were collected, changed its purpose--it no longer works as an archive of past __fails, because the posts for those topics are scattered and hard to find.
Linkspam has shifted from a roundup/archive resource to an editorial resource. That may, in the long run, be more useful, but it's certainly different.
no subject
Date: 10 Mar 2010 05:14 pm (UTC)Linkspam has shifted from a roundup/archive resource to an editorial resource. That may, in the long run, be more useful, but it's certainly different.
I think that distinction is of crucial import, because -- as you note -- it changes dramatically the way one should interact with the digests, and how one interprets the information's presentation.
While it's true that the masterposts, those endless lists of "here's what everyone's saying" in one long list, could be hard to process (because it could sometimes just be so much at once and it felt sort of like getting the kitchen sink thrown at me with, "okay, caveat reader!" implied)... but now that we've had enough time to see the metafandom-style incorporated, I have to say that I'm not thinking the new version is an improvement. Like you note, it's really most useful for mid-conversation, real-time, collection of links, as opposed to archival "here's just what was being said on this day".
Plus, it seems to me that when one's link is just one of about fifty links listed on a page, there's a greater chance one's moment of stupid will get buried, or at least not given huge focus, allowing a little more leeway to amend. (Heh.) Or, at least, that people perusing that list will be more selective about what they read/follow, because there's such a variety out there, so you're less likely to get flybys that are simply following every single link on the topic and dropping their twenty cents in before heading on again. Less likely, I note, not "not likely at all", since there will always be folks with way too much time on their hands. (In bad ways, and good!)
The additional warnings... okay, I can see the value, but I still think they act as red flags, and especially in light of the real-time collection, act as shaming devices as well. That shame carries double weight, too, as long as LS continues to emphasize this (pseudo) archival purpose, because then it becomes not just "some folks are being stupid today, but might wise up tomorrow" but "people being stupid are hereby captured for all time in their moment of stupid".
A concept seemingly rooted in fandom_wank's tradition of screen-capping to get around deletion, and fandom_wank is most definitely one that most definitely capitalizes on the notion of shaming. That might be also why I find the "archive your stupid as-it-happens (so people can respond real-time)" rather grating, because that habit smacks too closely of fandom_wank. In turn, it casts many of the Fails as being nothing more than one big explosion of wank. That perception trivializes the discussion(s) in a way I find especially offensive, even if that attitude is only implied and instinctive, and rarely explicitly stated. It's still there.
no subject
Date: 10 Mar 2010 07:30 pm (UTC)If a year from now, someone wants to know what happened with Bloomsbury and the cover of Liar, they'll be pointed at maybe the delicious link going to 44 posts (if more aren't added; if there's no new "cover_fail" themed posts about a different book/set of books), or they'll be aimed at a tag, rather than a single post, at the Linkspam comm. Odds of them understanding what happened are a lot lower than if they were pointed at a single post with links to the earliest reactions at the top, and later conversations listed underneath that.
I think some of the "archive the stupid as it happens" is likely to backfire--the way it's done, highlighting the most eye-catching phrase in the post so that people head over to rebut *that* claim, is likely to cause a lot more defensive lockdowns than plain linking. And it's causing a lot of people to reconsider what they post publicly at all--which, on the one hand, less fail in public; on the other, they're self-censoring a lot more than "opinions someone might find offensive about the recent hot topic."
I know it's skewing what I say in public; posts I'd prefer not linked, but want public feeback on, are heavily slanted towards topics oblique to Linkspam's interests. And, of course, there's the derail/tangent issue, which has boiled down to, "if you don't want to be considered part of the conversation, don't tell your readers what inspired you to write this post," which directly clashes with years of online conversational habits.
Oh, and Moar Funn: posts like this one are often linked on metafandom but not linkspam, because they are part of "how fans communicate with each other," but not part of any specific oppression theme or anti-oppression activism. However, most of LS's conversations (if not individual posts) wind up on metafandom, so there's a weird distorted-mirror effect going on between the two comms.
(And thanks. It's my "miscellaneous online activity" icon.)