billmon is a pessimist. gilliard is an optimist. i'm a pragmatist -- i don't know what will happen, and i don't flatter myself that i can actually soothsay a situation as complex as the one in the middle-east. but i see no reason to let that keep me from doing my damndest that things don't go totally to pieces around me.
yes, i am starting to wonder whether the collective efforts by those of us who've been trying to make things better bit by bit in our small burgs won't be trampled again by those who have grand visions of domination. they do tend to trample everything once they get started, and i'm with billmon in hearing the hoofbeats of large war horses, larger than this particularly foolish action israel has undertaken. i admit surprise; i didn't expect them to go bananas all of a sudden, because overall things were looking up, however miniscule. i would have thought if i can see that, they can see that. but apparently not. i am not quite ready for conspiracy theories; i refuse to let bush and co's hybris turn me into a consumer of large quantities of tinfoil. and yes, fear can make you stupid, fear of weakness can make you overcompensate with extra machismo, so maybe that's all there is to it. now that it's started, and that the plan does seem to be to flatten lebanon, i see many possibilities, almost all of them worse than what we had a few weeks ago. and i see too few people with any power stand up and say "STOP". it's way past time to do that, regardless of what the feckless US administration says. my own government has handed bush an asswipe made from a canadian flag, *spit*.
still, billmon didn't exhort people to throw up their hands and refuse to vote. he was just telling them that it might not be enough, and that their party of choice is not exactly waving a large banner of progressive dreams. but americans don't like pessimists, do they; they make them feel bad about themselves. *wry grin*.
1. An individual user may be responsible for infracting a venue's rules; but when you have a dustup this big and this fraught, and what sound like solid online citizens are complaining about the capriciousness, unresponsiveness, and opacity of the moderation system, then the people who are running the venue are the ones at fault.
i think after reading through many thousands of words in this brouhaha, that most of what this dustup shows is how quickly facts get lost in an avalanche of rumours and distortions. and as soon as outsiders get involved (which happened here very quickly), things get completely out of hand, and you can't make yourself heard with a fact anymore if you had a PA system. i've seen jennett and idonotlikepeas try their damndest here, but the faulty information gets repeated over and over anyway, because shit stirrers don't like facts, they like the drama.
that said, i definitely think 6A is not doing the best it could to address the problem. instead they're letting the abuse team take the brunt of the outrage, which is wrong on more than one level.
2. If you're trying to address a complex and difficult problem, consider telling your users that that's what you're doing. There's a good chance they'll help. They want the place to survive and go on running smoothly, same as you do.
absolutely. this is IME a major mistake all too many organizations make, to not keep their users informed of what's going on. and LJ/6A are guilty of that all too often, including in this case.
also, i think that when a policy is under debate, it might be a good idea to stop with the enforcing of said policy for a while, to allow the waters to calm. surely 2 weeks of letting breastfeeders show off their icons isn't going to result in puritan meltdown all over america. if after review the policy stands, there's always time enough to enforce it. especially since LJ does not actively police anyway, but relies on reports of violations.
3. It can be valid to use volunteer labor in a profitable enterprise, but you cannot skimp on oversight, training, and overall direction.
i was on the LJ abuse team, and i've gotta say, my training was more comprehensive than the training lots of customer service reps seem to get; it was as good as what i got for my volunteer job at a crisis hotline. denise paolucci, the manager of the abuse team, is one of the best managers i've ever encountered (and i am rather above the age range of the average LJ user, *snicker*). there are things that could be improved, but honestly, i don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong.
i am strongly suspicious of people who complain that the abuse team is rude to them, because i've never seen it -- the training is quite explicit on how to word interactions with customers, and even people who're habitually blunt are taught how to adjust their language, and to not ever lash out no matter how rude the users get (and they do, do they ever). how some abuse team members conduct themselves off the job, when not in communication about a specific complaint is possibly a different story, but that should not matter.
the biggest problems at the time were always in regard to unclear policy. it was very difficult to get clarifications from higher up, mainly because i don't think brad fitzgerald really cared to think about such things; he wanted to program, and LJ had long outgrown his own vision as regards the community aspects. he was out of his league IMO, and he did not properly support the abuse team even though he put them there to do his dirty work.
i was hoping this would change with the takeover by 6A, but it looks like maybe it hasn't changed enough (i left the team before the takeover). the abuse team does not set policy, and should not get stuck with it if said policy runs into a problem. so, shame on 6A. get your heads out of the sand, and send your PR person up front and centre.
4. Is there an excuse for half-running this operation? I hadn't heard that LJ was such a marginal enterprise that it couldn't spare some thoughtful managerial attention to core user-interface issues.
i have no idea of the finances involved. but regardless, it's simply good sense to deal with problems before they snowball, because that costs time (which is allegedly money) and energy too, and it burns out one's employees and volunteers.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 1 |
| 2006 | 2 |
| 2003 | 2 |
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