Eccentric Flower talk:201101/Why Wasnt I Consulted

Iain:

Turns out your piece mostly makes sense without reading the original article. Which is good, since it appears that a nerve was indeed struck, and ftrain.com seems to be getting hammered into nonresponsiveness. (The article is not only already in Google's database, but is the top response for that phrase.)

Also, even without having seen it, I would be willing to bet that the response of every professional librarian would be: "Yes? And? So? Is there something new here?" Instruction librarians in particular have the thankless job of teaching people that just because it's on the web doesn't mean it's any good, and trying to get them to understand how to evaluate sources. Also most faculty members. (Watching them try to get students to understand that Wikipedia may or may not be useful as a starting point but not for any real research makes me terribly glad that I was out of instruction by the time it came along. Never mind the whole "No, you can't just copy an article from there and hand it in as your work" issue.) But then, I suppose we're a bit self-selected for that sort of thing.

-- 17:46, 6 January 2011 (GMT)

Bunny42:

I have a bad habit of believing Wikipedia, even though I acknowledge that it could be wrong, wrong, wrong. Same with Snopes, which I consult regularly. The thing is, it would be exceedingly difficult for a moderator to be completely objective, and, even if he is, he's gonna piss off a certain percentage of the readers. Who'd want that hassle? The trick must be for us to find someone whose opinions we trust (such as your favorite film critics) and hope that others take up the mantle of filterer/moderator.

Sean shakes his head that I question his sources so often. He does tend to follow blogs with a certain agenda, not all of them, but some. So I'm continually making him justify his source material. And he should. But I'm sure it's a little irritating, after a while.

As for wanting to be heard, I find it more a question of wanting to participate in an intelligent conversation, free of flaming and malicious snark. (Don't get me wrong, I do love it when you get snarky, because it's not aimed at me!) You touched a nerve, though, when you mentioned lack of research. I tend to allow others to do the digging, because they're interested in the subject, and then I learn as much as I can from what they write.

-- 20:51, 6 January 2011 (GMT)

Medley:

Ok, I've read this twice now and I have to ask, regarding: "With opinion, what I want to know is 1) how much thought have you given that opinion and 2) how well do you express it. In other words, okay, your taste in cocktails doesn't agree with mine, but have you actually tried the drinks you don't like? How well and interestingly can you explain what you don't like about them, or what you do like about the drinks you like?"

Why doesn't this same analysis apply to group affiliation, for you? That is:

With self-proclaimed group affiliation, what I want to know is 1) how much thought have you given that affiliation and 2) how well do you express it. In other words, okay, you choose to affiliate with groups I don't, but have you actually considered other affiliations, or no affiliation? How well and interestingly can you explain what you don't like about them, or what you do like about groups you affiliate with?"

I am not much of a joiner by nature and resist labels, but your earlier expression of distaste for stated group affiliations has been niggling at me. I'm not trying to stir up angst and am not offended if you choose not to revisit that discussion... but I tripped over that paragraph on opinion (which I agree with) each time I read it.

-- 21:29, 6 January 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

No angst here, but I'm not sure I take your point. The same analysis does apply to group affiliation for me - that is, your third paragraph expresses my beliefs on the matter pretty well. Did I lead you to believe it wouldn't? (I'm aware that, on this whole group thing, I have not stated my case particularly lucidly.)

I think that's actually the problem I have with people who make group affiliation such a strong point of their identity; it tends to make me think that either

1) They have not examined that affiliation closely enough, and want to hang an identity or a status on it without really developing one of their own; or

2) They really do believe in the ideals and/or purposes of the group so strongly that it is a very important part of their identity, and that frightens me a little.

Put another way, I worry that if I meet someone who comes out strongly as a Democrat, that either they haven't given nearly enough thought on what "Democrat" means to them and are just using it as a convenient label, or they really do believe strongly and uncritically in the ideals of the Democratic party (whatever the hell they are). Either approach is far too unquestioning for me; either they're not questioning their own beliefs enough or they're not questioning Democrats enough.

Now I admit that this is unfair, and the reason it's unfair isn't dismissiveness but that I don't, personally, ever claim shallow affiliations. To me, when you claim to be a part of X, it implies a pretty thorough claim to be part of X. I don't do lip service. So, for example, I would never claim to be a Democrat, because if I made that claim it would imply general agreement with Democrat principles, which I do not have. I'm not even sure I achieve 50% agreement.

This is why I don't claim membership of much of anything, because I am a picker and chooser. I take bits of thing X that I like and discard all the rest, and thus don't think I can fairly claim any affiliation with thing X or with any other thing. It is probably not right of me to be suspicious of those who do, but I am.

Part of it is also sheer contrariness. If you say to me that you are a Democrat, my immediate impulse is going to be to try to trap you. "Oh yeah? So that means you agree with their [position of Democrats that I choose because I suspect it will be most personally obnoxious to the person I'm confronting]." Except I don't ever actually do that aloud, because I'm too polite - but it will affect the way I conduct conversations with you in the future. I'll figure either you are a kneejerk parroter of someone else's positions without analysis, or you're just picking some set of names to establish an identity, which is lazy.

I want to base my mental identity of you on what you really believe - what's IN your suitcase, not the tags and stickers on the outside. I don't care if you've been to Paris (and are thus in the "been to Paris" affiliation); I want to know what you really thought of the place, what you hated, whether you actually saw anything or stayed in your hotel the whole time, whether you learned any French for the trip, how much French you learned on the trip, and so on. "I went to Paris and it was lovely" is not a very useful statement to me. "I saw the Eiffel Tower and you know, I kind of agree with the people when it was built who thought it was a monstrosity, and also the elevators hold about three people at a time and they smell bad, and the restaurant is too expensive" - now THAT is useful stuff.

All that can only come out via a slow process of discovery, so I understand why people resort to fast labels of convenience - but I just don't like them, and I'm such a stubborn person that a label often acts like a stop sign to me; it makes me disinclined to dig past that and find the real person underneath.

Going back to the analogy (sorry this is turning into an epic): WHAT your opinion is matters far less to me than how interestingly and how well and convincingly you present it. Similarly, WHAT your labels are matter far less to me than how interestingly and how well and how convincingly you share/communicate what you actually believe. A group affiliation, to me, most often is used as a conversation-stopper. You say "I'm a Democrat" and it's a fast way to get half the room to assume they agree with you completely (when they likely don't) and the other half to assume they disagree with you completely (when they likely don't). The half that is theoretically allied with you no longer needs to discuss your political views because they think they can assume solidarity; the half that is theoretically opposed to you no longer needs to discuss politics with you because they think they can assume that there is no common ground. Poof, that kills pretty much any chance to find out what you actually think, politically.

That's a fairly severe example - I admit there is rather less danger in, say, claiming an affiliation with a particular SF fandom. But even with something that should be that trivial, it's amazing how fast it stops true discovery because now the person with the affiliation has taken refuge behind a label.

-- 22:04, 6 January 2011 (GMT)

Jette:

Funny you should publish this just as I was having to deal with a moderation issue on the neighborhood Yahoo Group. Several of us took over the moderation of this group last year after it became ugly and useless because there were no enforced guidelines for posting.

In the past 18 months, I have had to deal with all kinds of vitriol, being called a censor and a "little Hitler" (my Jewish husband just loved that one, thank you) and ignorant people who weren't even on the list questioning my judgment in removing inflammatory posts.

But because we moderated so thoroughly and well, most of The Drama was backstage and unseen by our members. The list is now useful and productive, and neighbors are re-joining it and have complimented me on its success.

And after 18 months of dealing with the backstage contention, I am now burned out and looking for a new willing victim-I-mean-volunteer. Moderation is hard work and not terribly rewarding and it's easy to burn out. I can't imagine moderating over at Metafilter.

And as you know, I just moderated a subReddit for the past month, and some of that experience was frustrating, although I think that's a topic best addressed elsewhere. I will say I think the biggest problem was that "down votes" were anonymous; participants were seeing 1 or even more negative votes on a blog entry for no reason they could understand, that might not even be coming from members of the subReddit, and that dissuaded them from wanting to participate more. (I am also getting a lot of WWIC-style feedback on using Reddit in the first place, which I am trying to accept gracefully.)

-- 22:29, 6 January 2011 (GMT)

Columbina:

Yeah, I saw a little of that. That's exactly the kind of thing. Right now internet moderation is like, only one or two people ever bother to weed the flowerbeds, and they don't get paid for it, but unlike the real world, where they might occasionally get praised or usually just ignored, on the web they get yelled at for it.

-- 01:15, 7 January 2011 (GMT)

Medley:

"The same analysis does apply to group affiliation for me"

Ok - but you are not, apparently, as bothered when people have opinions as you are when they choose to affiliate or identify with a group. So there's some distinction going on...

I concur with the wish for true discovery (and one of my unwritten blog posts is a lament that I cannot spend as much time simply talking with people as I'd like), but I don't see labels as a 'refuge' in most cases so much as an implicit recognition of the need for efficiency. At the same time, I agree that labels ultimately convey very little information, absent consensus on a shared definition. And that very consensus (or lack thereof) can only be uncovered through conversation.

-- 15:59, 7 January 2011 (GMT)