Meek Barbarian informed us that veteran blogger Anil Dash wrote a piece recently discussing websites having open and anonymous commenting on their sites. I'll preface this with a quick anecdote. I discovered Techdirt some three years back when my boss informed me that, as a technology consultant, it would be useful to follow a couple of technology related blogs to keep up on what is occurring in the industry. I came across Techdirt, found an article I was interested in, and dove in. I was immediately drawn in by the comments section and the community. There were anonymous cowards bravely trolling the threads. There were other anonymous cowards offering up valuable statistics, links, and points of view. There were folks using funny names and cartoon pictures as their avatars, while others used what were apparently their real names and real pictures. Even the author of the article was diving into the comments and responding to some.

I saw information. I saw jokes. I saw supporting views and dissenting opinions. I saw trolls, academics, lawyers, techs, etc. etc. etc. It was true chaos theory at work, with the article setting up a comments section sensitive to the conditions discussed but open to the topological mixing of the wide open world. More than anything else, I think I was most amazed at how this tumultuous soup of free communication provided surprising and useful information, laughter, and references. I was hooked. This was the place for me to offer my view on stories I cared about, read responses from others, get opposing views, and most of all, make more phallic-related jokes than an Adam Carolla on meth.

So that was the background I brought when I read Anil's piece, which he conservatively and open-mindedly titled, "If Your Website's Full Of Assholes, It's Your Fault." Let's dive in:

"The examples are already part of pop culture mythology: We can post a harmless video of a child's birthday party and be treated to profoundly racist non-sequiturs in the comments. We can read about a minor local traffic accident on a newspaper's website and see vicious personal attacks on the parties involved. A popular blog can write about harmless topics like real estate, restaurants or sports and see dozens of vitriolic, hate-filled spewings within just a few hours."

I'll thank Anil here, because we immediately get to my baseline issue with this viewpoint. I read all of the above, hear all about how rudeboy knuckle-draggers will show up on the most innocuous article and scream racist nonsense, spout uninformed conspiracy theories, and call you the kind of names that would make Sam Kinison do that screaming thing he did, and all I can think to myself is so what? Words don't hurt unless you let them. I, as someone with an Irish background, can be called a dumb potato-farming mick, and I can ignore it. More importantly, the idiot that calls me that loses all credibility in the formed community. Even if he's anonymous, all such behavior does is provide a reason for the community to couch their faith in comments provided by ACs in skepticism. The community provides a reason to identify yourself, in the hopes that you'll be taken more seriously. In other words, from the chaos emerges order. And not an unnatural kind of order provided by head-in-the-sand policing and moderation. Assholes exist, both online and in real life. So what?

In any case, Anil prescribes us his wisdom-medication on how everyone should run their website:

"You should have real humans dedicated to monitoring and responding to your community."

I happen to agree. As does Techdirt, actually. You know who is dedicated to monitoring and responding to our community? Our community! As long as we aren't working from a supposition of "words can hurt," we see our community policing itself just fine. Trolls get called trolls, true. But I've seen dissenters stick up for Techdirt supporters. I've seen Techdirt contributors and those with like-minds stick up for dissenters and their opinions (I know this one in particular, because I make a point to do this, though I'm not the only one). ACs have a tougher road in the realm of credibility because of the way the community polices itself. Those with accounts and names have a tougher road because we have a comment history we have to own up to. It's as simplistic as it is beautiful. And it's all emergent behavior, meaning it's natural and not forced or faked. That's what open comments do: they create fertile ground for emerged behavior. And it's amazing how productive that is.

"You should have community policies about what is and isn't acceptable behavior."

Bullshit. And here's why: one man's asshole is another man's prophet. Who am I, or Mike, or anyone else to say what is acceptable and what isn't? Are there things that most can agree suck? Sure. Racism is just plain stupid and ignorant. What does a policy against racism do? Really? "Don't be racist, Techdirt community." Did I just end racism? Did I somehow change the minds of anyone who would read a racist comment and think of it as anything other than pure stupidity to be rebuked or ignored? No, I didn't. So why bother? Remember, words don't have any power unless we give it to them.

"Your site should have accountable identities."

No, it shouldn't. It should certainly offer that option. But I've seen value from both sides of the debate on this site coming from Anonymous Cowards. And I know that some of the folks that contribute anonymously here do so because they're afraid of real repercussions in having their names associated with their words. Does that make their words any less valuable? No, it doesn't. And would making some racist, trolling, or ignorant jackwad sign in with a name make his/her words any different? No, it wouldn't. So why bother with this at all? What's the upside?

"You should have the technology to easily identify and stop bad behaviors."

Again, unless it's just flatout illegal or automated annoyance, what's the point of this? I think we can all agree that a relatively intelligent spam filtering system makes sense, but that isn't the kind of "bad behavior" Anil appears to be discussing. He's talking about controversial speech. Who is getting hurt when someone exhibits "bad behavior"? And how do you define that? If the site is community driven, shouldn't they be the ones to decide what is "bad behavior" and respond accordingly?

"You should make a budget that supports having a good community, or you should find another line of work."

It isn't a matter of cost, it's a matter of reason. What's the point? You're killing off all the good you get from the anonymous and semi-anonymous chaos, and what are you getting in return? People don't have to hear certain words that make them itchy?

I apologize for repeating myself, but I can't say this enough: words do not hurt. They never do. When someone says something designed to inflict pain, you get to choose how to react and respond. If an anonymous coward calls me an idiot and my response is, "Nice argument there, captain logic", then what has that person accomplished? I'm not hurt, they've put themselves on display being a jerk, and the community at large will react accordingly.

Don't lock down your comments. Don't kill off anonymity. Don't pretend the trolls and jerks don't exist. Do the opposite. Open it all up and trust in your community to be smart enough to react accordingly. I know that's largely what occurs here at Techdirt and elsewhere.

And I can't tell you how thankful I am for it and for everyone here, from those that generally agree with us to those that don't. You're welcome here. Forever and always.

It's been six years since we first wrote about JK Rowling's confused refusal to offer an ebook, claiming she was worried about "piracy." Of course, as we explained back then, the argument made no sense, since others had already digitized her books, and the only choice for those who wanted ebook options was to go with an infringing copy. In other words, her moves actually encouraged a lot more "piracy." And while there have been rumors in the past of her growing recognition that ebooks aren't evil, she's now decided to embrace them in a huge way. She's setting up her own Harry Potter-themed site, Pottermore, which will offer ebook versions of all her books for a variety of platforms -- all direct from her. In other words, she's mostly gone around publishers and booksellers, and has decided to go fully direct to fan (while she retains the rights, apparently she is giving her publishes some cut). Wow. Oh, and no DRM (though it will have an identifying watermark).

On top of that, it looks like she's really trying to add more value, as well. The site is going to have social networking features to connect fans of the books, and will also include extra (and new) content (both written and graphical), which apparently will continue to grow over time. The whole thing is set up as an interactive and immersive experience. Basically, she's very nicely realized that she can do more beyond just the book. While I've had my problems with Rowling's approach to the online world in the past, this seems like a huge leap forward. And, yes, she's in a different position than most authors, but I think any author will be able to learn from this, if just to recognize that you can do more to connect with fans outside of just the straight book experience.

A whole bunch of folks have been sending in random versions of the story of how author Sean Power recovered his stolen laptop despite being in another country, thanks to the power of social media, some open source software and some good samaritans. The "short" version is that Sean had his laptop stolen a few days ago in New York City, just a day before he had to go to Canada for a few days. He had some open source anti-theft software on there, called Prey. I'd never heard of it, but it gets excellent reviews. Anyway, after not being alerted to anything for a few days, Sean suddenly was notified that someone was using his laptop -- and he mentioned it on Twitter. From there, it helps to follow the story on Twitter, and thankfully Ryan Ozawa used Storify to post the relevant tweets: You really should read the story as it happens, but basically some girl got wind of the story (it's still not entirely clear how... since she's not on Twitter), and went to the bar where the guy with the laptop was. She befriended some of the bartenders and others at the bar and found out that the guy with the laptop had some sort of connection with the bar. Reading through the various tweets, there is some confusion over who's who in this story, but the nameless girl in the purple sarong was soon backed up by another guy, Nick Reese, who just saw the story unfolding on Twitter and (as a brand new NYC resident) decided to jump in. The girl in the purple sarong apparently flirted with one of the two guys (Max) with the laptop, and got his business card. Sean had called the police, but they refused to go, since Sean hadn't filed a police report (he claims he didn't have time before leaving for Canada). Eventually, Sean called the phone number on the card, leading Max to call the other guy at the bar (Paulo) just as Nick and Purple Sarong Girl (PSG?) were confronting him. After some back and forth, Nick pulled out his phone and showed Paulo the photo of Paulo on the laptop from the webcam that Sean had gotten from Prey and posted to Twitter. Not surprisingly, that quickly led to the laptop (and the laptop bag) being handed over...

Nick and the girl in the purple sarong then put up a video of what happened which is both mildly entertaining and mildly frustrating (and it's not hard to assume that the girl has consumed a fair bit of alcohol by this point -- and I think I have to agree with the Village Voice that she may be the most annoying woman in the world) Update: The video has been set to private. Reese is claiming it's to "protect the identity" of the girl -- which seems odd... All in all it's quite a story. There have been a few people suggesting this is just a publicity stunt for Prey, but plenty of folks are insisting that's not the case. To be honest, even if it is a publicity stunt for Prey, I gotta say that it's fantastically well-done, and amazingly compelling. I wouldn't care if it were a publicity stunt, because then the story would be about how to make brilliantly compelling marketing... But, again, most people are insisting that this was all real, and then the story is just about the wonders of modern technology combined with good people. A story of our times...

One of my biggest complaints about the way some old school journalism folks view "the news business," is that they still have trouble recognizing they're in the community business. They're so focused on delivering the "news," they forget the bigger issue. The news business has always been a community business. It was a way of bringing together a community of people with something in common (usually locality), and then selling their attention to advertisers. The big problem facing the industry today is that there are many more ways for communities to form. They used to be one of the few games in town. These days, however, there are many, many more places for communities -- and most of them treat the communities much better, and provide a lot more value. And yet, too often we hear newspaper folks talk down to and insult the idea that they should ever be expected to actually rub virtual shoulders with their community. They don't like using comments. They don't want to talk to fans or critics alike. They just want to report the news and move on.

Obviously, there are many, many exceptions to this. And the number of exceptions are growing and that's a good thing, because eventually they won't be exceptions at all. For now, though, it's nice to highlight stories of journalists recognizing the importance of actually communicating with their community. Pickle Monger points us to a piece by a long-time BBC reporter, Paul Reynolds, talking about his experience embracing the community rather than shunning it, and recognizing that this involvement of the public really is "the future of news." He admits it wasn't always pleasant, and it did require establishing something of a thick skin, but he seems to feel that it's worth it.

A bunch of folks have been sending in Paul Ford's recent essay entitled The Web Is a Customer Service Medium, which I've been thinking about the past few days. I think the title is somewhat misleading, and might have turned some folks off, but I believe there are (at least) three separate (but related) points that Ford makes that are worth highlighting and discussing. And they all touch on points that we regularly discuss around here. Let's take them in order. The piece starts off with a response to the standard Andrew Keen/Nick Carr-style elitism about how the web is so full of riff raff that it takes away from the value of the really smart people (i.e., the people who matter). He highlights how these people who play up some sort of cultural elitism as being important, and how it's missing the point of the web:

I call the people who say such things the Gutenbourgeois. They believe in the cultural primacy of writers and editors and they feel good--even a bit superior--about working in publishing. They believe it is their job to drive culture forward. The web, they are a little proud to admit, confuses them. They say: "We gave away all those short stories on our website but it sold no books." Or: "We built a promo site for our famous author who does the crime novels and it was just a total boondoggle with no traffic." Or: "The magazine can't get enough pageviews, even after we hired the famous blogger. Now management wants to make people pay for access."

"Look," I say, "maybe you're doing it wrong."

"But," they say, "we tweet."

This sounds all too familiar, though in other areas we deal with. We'll discuss a musician successfully building up a business model involving a huge following and community -- and we'll hear from someone saying "but I use Twitter and I didn't have the same success, so you're wrong." The problem is that they're doing cargo cult copying -- copying the superficial aspects (using Twitter, hiring a famous blogger, putting something out for free) without really understanding the underlying reasons why communities form online. They just see that others have done one or another of these things, and think that this single action is the key step, rather than recognizing what it takes to actually enable a community.

Why? Well, that's where Ford's second key point comes in. The web is often seen through the prisms of what came before. As each new industry jumped on the web, it tried to reinterpret the web in its own image. As Ford notes:

A medium has a niche. A sitcom works better on TV than in a newspaper, but a 10,000 word investigative piece about a civic issue works better in a newspaper.

When it arrived the web seemed to fill all of those niches at once. The web was surprisingly good at emulating a TV, a newspaper, a book, or a radio. Which meant that people expected it to answer the questions of each medium, and with the promise of advertising revenue as incentive, web developers set out to provide those answers. As a result, people in the newspaper industry saw the web as a newspaper. People in TV saw the web as TV, and people in book publishing saw it as a weird kind of potential book. But the web is not just some kind of magic all-absorbing meta-medium. It's its own thing.

Again, this is a point we've discussed before (less eloquently), in noting how the entertainment industry keeps trying to remake the web into a broadcast medium, when it's power is really in the fact that it's a communications medium that also does other things (such as broadcast). But if you ignore the communications element, then you're in trouble. Of course, too many people think that adding a communications element means "just add comments." But, that's (again) a form of cargo cult copying. Yes, comments can be a component of building a community, but comments alone do not a community make.

And that brings us to the third key point that Ford raises: the one thing that the web does really really well is answer the "Why Wasn't I Consulted?" question.

"Why wasn't I consulted," which I abbreviate as WWIC, is the fundamental question of the web. It is the rule from which other rules are derived. Humans have a fundamental need to be consulted, engaged, to exercise their knowledge (and thus power), and no other medium that came before has been able to tap into that as effectively.

This is such a good point that cuts through to the heart of why so many people have trouble understanding what makes a real community online. It's not just about turning on a set of technologies or "using Twitter," it's about actually enabling people's voices to be heard. I imagine some will still get this point confused, but there's a difference between allowing people to speak and helping people get heard, and I believe that's the key that Ford is getting at with his WWIC concept.

There's more in Ford's piece in terms of how people might go about setting up these sorts of communities, by thinking of the web as a customer service medium, rather than a publishing medium, but I actually think that point isn't as strong as these first three. Still, the whole thing is worth reading, especially all of his examples of sites that have succeeded by focusing wholly on the WWIC issue. While there were certainly a lot of key points in the article that I'd thought about separately, I hadn't really put all of them together, and it's definitely making me think about how best to enable successful communities online.

Ross Pruden points us to a neat little graphic that Mediaweek put together, highlighting all of News Corps.' internet failures over the years (pdf) as it gets ready to launch its iPad only publication called The Daily. If you look at the image (or click it to go to the original Mediaweek pdf), you begin to sense a pattern: The downfall in almost every case is about Murdoch focusing on using the internet as mainly a broadcast medium, rather than a communications medium. Delphi was all about community... and then News Corp. tried to turn it into a place to sell his magazines and newspapers. Fox Interactive was all about pushing content, and had little community. MySpace, of all things, which was really about community from the beginning, has completely faltered under News Corps' control, because they tried to focus on using it to sell music and stopped investing in any sort of real community features -- as services like Facebook and Twitter totally leapfrogged them on that front. It's the same story over and over again, and given that The Daily is so focused on platform, rather than users, it seems likely to be a repeat of the same mistake all over again.

When we talk about things like "participatory journalism," or "news as a community," we've had traditional newspaper people insist they "get it." They say that they've "added comments" to their website, so it's now participatory. But that, of course, is cargo cult participation. They look at sites that have a lively community, and they see comments, so they think "well, if we add comments, we'll have community." They don't bother to understand what actually makes journalism participatory, or what actually brings a real community together.

Clay Shirky has written another of his essays, once again, building on the idea of "cognitive surplus," highlighting the difference between a "pipeline" model of journalism and a true community model. The pipeline model involves passing a story along a pipeline. Someone makes news, someone reports the news, someone edits the news and then everyone consumes the news. But the community model actually involves people who become a part of the story itself, in digging deeper, in adding their own input to the story, in shaping the further story. Shirky provides numerous examples of this, with the following being my favorite:

In 2005, the London transit system was bombed. Sir Ian Blair, the head of London's Metropolitan police, went on radio and TV to announce that the cause had been an electrical failure in the underground. Within minutes of Blair's statements, people began posting and analyzing pictures of a bombed double-decker bus in Tavistock Square, and in less than two hours, there were hundreds of blog posts analyzing this evidence and explicitly contradicting Blair's interpretation.

Seeing this, and overriding the advice of his own communications staff, Blair went on air again less than two hours later to say that it had indeed been a bombing, that the police didn't have all the answers yet, and that he would continue reporting as they knew more. When he spoke to the public, Blair had the power of all the traditional media behind him, but it was clear that merely having a consistent message on every broadcast channel in existence was no longer the same as having control.

This is not about just "adding comments" -- it's about enabling people who have the inclination to actually be a part of the overall process. It's not "the 4th estate" talking down to everyone, but it's about the press enabling those who wish to participate to do so. This doesn't mean that there is no role for traditional journalists or editors or publishers. To the contrary, those roles are still important, but in a different manner.

As Shirky notes, this is a big change that may be difficult for some used to the old "pipeline model" to full grasp. It involves a different conception of what it is a journalism outfit needs to accomplish:

What's going away, from the pipeline model, isn't the importance of news, or the importance of dedicated professionals. What's going away is the linearity of the process, and the passivity of the audience. What's going away is a world where the news was only made by professionals, and consumed by amateurs who couldn't do much to produce news on their own, or to distribute it, or to act on it en masse.

We are living through a shock of inclusion, where the former audience is becoming increasingly intertwined with all aspects of news, as sources who can go public on their own, as groups that can both create and comb through data in ways the professionals can't, as disseminators and syndicators and users of the news.

This shock of inclusion is coming from the outside in, driven not by the professionals formerly in charge, but by the former audience. It is also being driven by new news entrepreneurs, the men and women who want to build new kinds of sites and services that assume, rather than ignore, the free time and talents of the public.

This a change so varied and robust that we need to consider retiring the word "consumer" altogether, and treat consumption as simply one behavior of many that citizens can now engage in. The kinds of changes that are coming will dwarf those we've already seen, as citizen involvement stops being a set of special cases, and becomes a core to our conception of how news can be, and should be, part of the fabric of society.

Until the various media players begin to recognize that participation within journalism isn't about delivering the news, but enabling everyone who wants to to participate, they're going to continue to struggle with the changing marketplace.

Just about a year ago, we wrote about how actress Felicia Day had turned her web production, The Guild into a big success, by building a community of fans, connecting with them, and then coming up with some interesting ways to make money from that, including a unique sponsorship deal with Microsoft. Reader tuna points us to a Fast Company profile that updates us on how the last year has gone, and it sounds like things have only improved over time.

One of the keys to the success is that she chose the sponsorship deal with Microsoft, in large part because it let her retain creative control over the project -- allowing it to remain authentic and true to what her fans wanted and expected.

As buzz built, Day and her company, Knights of Good Productions, signed with ICM new-media head George Ruiz. "At one point, there were 25 different offers on the table," Ruiz says, "including from some major studios and networks and even a director with several $100 million films."

Day turned down every one. "She said, 'George, don't make me take this deal!' " he says. So by the time Microsoft came calling, the agent had a new approach: The Guild is not for sale, but you can license it.

The Seattle-based behemoth bit. Microsoft pays an undisclosed fee to debut each season exclusively on the company's Xbox Live, MSN, and Zune platforms (season four debuted in mid-July). "There is a common perception about Microsoft," says Day. "Especially when we first signed with them, the fans had reservations." But she was impressed that it got what she was doing and didn't want to interfere. "Microsoft doesn't even give me notes [on scripts]!"

This is a key point that often gets lost in business model discussions. When we talk about different offerings, it's amazing how much people discount the importance of authenticity as a scarcity. We see it all the time with companies who want to sponsor something, and then have tremendous level of control -- losing all of the authenticity and, with it, much of the value (and, eventually, audience). It's nice to see a situation where a company (in this case, Microsoft) properly recognized when not to get too involved.

A few weeks back, I wrote about how a evening newscaster in Detroit named Stephen Clark was successfully embracing Twitter to break down the typical walls between newscaster and audience, and discovering some interesting things at the same time -- such as the fact that the community doesn't just want to talk to him, but to each other. One point I noted was that Clark still could go even further with his embrace of Twitter. He talked about how his use of Twitter had changed his perception from talking at people to talking to people -- and I wondered when it would reach the point of talking with people. It looks like it's getting there.

Clark himself alerted me to his latest experiment to better connect with viewers by asking them to pitch stories for the evening news -- and even to try to put together their own video and share it not just with him, but with the wider community that's come together:

Starting immediately I want you to find the stories that I will cover on Channel 7. I want you to find the good people doing good things in your community. I want you to tell me about the interesting characters and fascinating sights that make your communities special. I want you to stop complaining that all you see on TV is bad news and give me some good news.

That's it...pretty simple. Oh, there is one little catch. I don't want you just to tell me about it. I want you so show me. I want you to show the entire #backchannel. It doesn't have to be perfect and polished. Just take your flip camera or iPhone and shoot some video. Show us the pictures of why it is a compelling story. If you have a fascinating character that needs to be introduced to the #backchannel... and the Channel 7 audience... put him/her/it on camera and show us. If you can edit some sound, video, even your own narration into a short story, do it! Post the video on YouTube or Vimeo or wherever and hashtag a synopsis to the #backchannel.

When I first wrote about Clark, some of the usual skeptics scoffed that the nature of the conversation somehow wasn't substantial. But, of course, that missed the point. It's like the people who mocked blogging in the early days because they "don't care about your cat," or the folks who mocked Twitter because they "don't want to know what some stranger had for lunch." But the point is that all of this is totally voluntary. You don't follow the people whose lunch plans or cats you don't find interesting. But for all the cats and lunches you don't want to hear about, there's likely to be something or someone interesting that you do want to find out about.

In this case, perhaps the community sometimes came together over silly discussions -- such as the "Silverfish Hand Catch!" example we discussed in the first post, but it's those kinds of group bonding experiences that allows the community to build a relationship with each other, trust each other, and do something more interesting and compelling in the long run. I have no idea if this latest experiment will actually produce anything of value. And I already know that the same folks who complained about "nothing substantial" occurring in the #backchannel last time, will pop up to complain that now Clark is asking for "free labor" or something such as that. In the end, people who want to hate will always find something to complain about... and while they do, they'll miss the fact that some amazing new forms of communication have sprouted out right beneath their eyes while they were sneering about how beneath them it was.