PhotoDude.com

Wed. Jul 02, 2003

Individuals and Communities

Individuals and Communities – While reading various reactions to RSS/API Soap Opera Episode #241, I saw more than one person say, “That Whiner guy needs to read this”: “I don’t usually deviate from my own little world here but every now and again I’ll see a link on a blog and follow it, then another and another until I finally look around and realize that I’m not in Kansas anymore. Things are ugly out there, you know? People are pronouncing themselves ‘A-List’ bloggers and similar.”

“If every one of these people disappeared tomorrow they would register hardly a blip on the radar – the same goes for any of us, whether we get twelve or twelve thousand visits per day. If we quit all that would do is free up the bandwidth for someone else to step up and take our place – that’s the fluid nature of the internet. Anyone who thinks otherwise is rather full of themselves. At the end of the day who is our biggest fan? Ourselves. Period.”

Well, now, that cuts pretty close to the bone on this one, doesn’t it? We all like to think we contribute something unique … and we do. But so does everyone else. Whatever it is you do, however well you do it, there is someone out there who either does it better, does it as well, or does it slightly less well, but so slightly that no one else can tell the difference.

There’s nothing at all wrong with having pride in your accomplishments, or even tooting your own horn in moderation (who else will?). But when you become convinced your work is irreplaceable, you might ought to take a step back to determine if that’s really true. And if it is, if that’s wise. This whole arena reminds me of the words of Bertrand Russell: “One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”

I’d bet the people who put together the HTML 2.0 spec thought their work was terribly important. And it was. But it has been since been superseded and improved upon, several times. That’s the way the world works. And that’s the way the Internet works, times ten.

While things never stay the same, you can’t help but trace the lineage and see the influences of the past. Which brings me back to another piece of that article: “I’ve been telling Andy for ages that this whole thing, the blogging ‘community’ as it were, is preparing to implode on itself. What used to be quite a fun little diversion in the day has turned into, basically, a really huge newsgroup.”

That comment really struck me. Because last night, I was thinking about the similar “community” nature of Usenet newsgroups and weblogs. Except, my comparison had a much warmer light on it, based on my introduction to Usenet.

When I first got an account with an ISP in January, 1996 (the dearly departed Mindspring), they sent me 7 floppy disks containing all the software I would need to take advantage of the Internet. In addition to Netscape 1.2, Eudora Lite 1.0, and some kinda cartoon programs called Archie and Gopher, it had a version of Free Agent. And when I opened it, it was preloaded and subscribed to a series of mindspring.* newsgroups. These were internal newsgroups accessible only to Mindspringers (about 19,000 at that time), so I figured it would be a good tame place to learn about Usenet, which I’d heard was a sort of digital Wild West.

I was both right and wrong. It was far from tame, but it was the perfect place to learn about Usenet, and much more. In addition to the expected tech support newsgroups, there was a group called mindspring.general. It was intended for the discussion of Mindspring policies and services, but it also became a place for general discussion. And mayhem.

It’s hard for me to describe my experience the first time I read the group. There were maybe 30 or 40 “regular” posters … and employees. And it was quickly clear, these were serious people. It was my first encounter with the now familiar concept that the Internet is filled with people who know a lot more than you. And on Usenet, it is said that if you want an expert answer to a tough question, just post the wrong answer. Someone will come along and dissect it in detail shortly, as well as provide the real answer.

It was about 5 months before I did anything other than simply read. Every day. It was only the Olympics, and the desire to promote what I was doing, that finally brought me to post in that group. But it quickly became a very enjoyable (if fractious) and very real community for me. Topics of the day were debated, smart minds were brought to bear, and sparks flew. But no real fires.

But of course, that changed. As Mindspring absorbed other ISP’s and grew to have millions of customers, that newsgroup evolved. It got a bit ugly at times. Management eventually broke that one group into three (right after The Great Counting … but we won’t go there), and even then, there was substance to be had amongst the dreck. For a while.

But as I’ve said, all things change. Mindspring was absorbed by Earthlink, and while those newsgroups are still there, they are now merely empty sectors on a server down Peachtree Street. There’s no community, and hasn’t been for a long time.

Fortunately for me, about the same time that community was dying out, weblogs were blooming by the scores. Early on, I told some of my former correspondents in the group that I had my own newsgroup now, and could even delete the trolls. A few stopped by now and again, but only one has become a “regular” here. And that’s OK, because there’s a new cast of regulars. Not just here, but in all the weblogs around.

To me, it’s the same kind of community mind, debating topics in both heated and intellectual ways. In a more moderated environment. The connections are still made, via comments or Trackback, or off site followups with links. Of course, there will always be trolls. They can even build their own weblogs now (though most seem to prefer the habitats of comments sections). And I guess there is always the possibility the Blogosphere will “implode on itself.” But I note she’s been telling Andy that for “ages,” and it still doesn’t exactly appear imminent.

Personally, I think it’s like the rest of the Internet; whatever damage occurs to the Blogosphere, it will be routed around. Whether it is some individual stomping away mad, or the Kaycee Nicole fiasco that some thought would ruin trust in weblogs, or simply buying a domain and setting up MT to route around the damage that is often called “Blogspot.”

Whatever might come up, people will figure out a way to keep doing it. Even when they want to stomp away mad.