Civility in blog discourse

February 2 2007

Last week at Lotusphere, I did an interview with Dorte Toft of Business.dk.  It's in Danish, so I'll summarize here, with big thanks to Henrik Pedersen for translation.  

Toft wanted to talk about the business impact of blogging.  We covered a lot of different aspects in our interview -- she was very well-prepared for our discussion.  And, as I learned when I read the translation, she was also skeptical going in:

There are a lot of truly boring blogs, written by CEOs that want to be on the hype. They underestimated what was required.  An IBM-Director took a different path and created a powerful way of communicating, but not without taking some beating.

Life as a IT-Journalist is too short for sweet-talking sales-directors, even if they are inspiring personalities, but last week i approached a sales-director anyway.

I was captured by his weblog even though I normally am very skeptical when it comes to blogs written by CEOs and the like. To often you see the CEO-blogger putting in  "I think" or "I mean" in something that smells a lot like a press release.

But this director uses his blog to be critical, he apologizes, he brags, he informs and he lets out the pressure on dangerous subjects. His blog gets thousands of hits, lots of comments, and is quoted by other pronounced bloggers.
During our interview, we talked about the value that I get from having daily interaction directly with my customer base, and how it has influenced my decision-making and my own influence on the IBM organization.

Of course, we replayed a few of the more "famous" incidents where this blog has been in the middle of an online food fight.  The most recent was the "Bah, humbug" thread from just before Christmas, the only time where I've shut down a discussion thread.  Quoting myself:
In the three days this thread has been open, I have watched tens of millions of dollars of end-of-year transactions come in to IBM for both existing and new customers buying Lotus Notes and Domino. It actually has been pretty hard for me to reconcile the beating taking place here with the way my business has been performing.
Since IBM has now publicly disclosed the 30% year-to-year revenue growth specifically in the Notes/Domino product line, now that sentence makes a lot more sense in context.  But it was interesting to revisit that thread once earnings had been announced.

So Toft asked me about other interesting aspects of the blog.  Even pointing to "Bah, humbug", one of the things that I attribute the success of this blog conversation to is that I have no tolerance for anonymous comments or trolls.  I'll take the beating as long as I can see my attacker (I'll take the kudos and handshakes too :-).  Today vowe explains why civility makes for a better online discussion:
There is a reason I have a "real name only" policy on vowe's magic flying circus. Let Dr. Jekyll in and keep Mr. Hyde out. The discussion is much more civilized this way. ...

There is a lesson to learn: be honest. You can just tell it as it is, and you don't have to remember your lies. And no matter what you think, you are not anonymous.
I'm going to stick with this policy.  I can't stomach reading slashdot, or even the comments on the typical online article, because those hiding behind cute screen names always seem to be more willing to make aggressive, sometimes baseless statements.  

As was reinforced again at Lotusphere, this community is more refined than that.  I think I've refined (reformed?) a bit over time as well.  Let's keep it that way.

Link: vowe dot net: Dr. Jekyll cannot hide from Mr. Hyde >

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Blogging  Add/View Comments [17]

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  1. 1  Bill Geimer  | 2/2/2007 4:05:21 PM

    Very good thought. Thanks for the link to Vowe's expansion on the topic.

    That said, Go Bears!

  1. 2  Ports http://www.mrports.com/ | 2/2/2007 5:05:31 PM

    Gah! Not real names only. Only my mum uses my real name. And that is when she is telling me off :-(

  1. 3  jaffacake http://www.jaffacake.net | 2/2/2007 6:20:09 PM

    Congratulation on the sales growth, a great achievement I missed until this post.

  1. 4  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 2/2/2007 7:19:09 PM

    The only mistake you made on the "bah humbug" thread is that you didn't shut it down after @4 :)

  1. 5  Lee Davis  | 2/2/2007 9:10:37 PM

    Congratulations on the blog (and the numbers and the last Lotusphere.)

    I agree with you completely on /. and most comment threads; they make talk radio seem enlightened. And yet, I really do not see how you asking for Name & email is significantly different than anonymous posts. Two fields, unverified without a captcha is not an insurmoutable barrier. And yet, this blog and its comments ARE very different.

    Do you think it is you? Are people who care about collaberation just better at electronic interactions? Or you spend more manual effort vetting these than I think? Are rude people and Ferris analysts not capable of making up a name? Or - typically - the human dynamics are far more important than the technical.

    P.s. It is frustrating that the internet is still strugging with authentication issues that Notes' PKI addressed a couple of decades ago.

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/3/2007 8:51:47 AM

    @3 Thanks, Ben :-)

    @4 maybe before comment #4. :-)

    @5 I actually haven't had to spend much effort vetting postings here at all. Gut instinct tells me when a post is a "stinker", and I have an elephant's memory for names. I do get tired when commentors try to hide any affiliations (such as what company they work for) out of obfuscation, rather than obligation.

    Honestly, I think the "Keiot" incident from 2004 and a few others have shown that there is no such thing as anonymity on the web; it's in this website's privacy/terms page that you must post with real names/e-mail addresses; and the occasional deleted comment (which I often leave a stub of, just so others see that something was deleted). The community is also self-policing and has been most helpful at times when I've been offline for a day or two.

  1. 7  Mika Heinonen http://siipi.com/mika | 2/3/2007 3:26:45 PM

    I think it's all about attitude how you approach people and talk to people.

    I haven't had any problems with any people yet, and of course it is everyone's own decision if you want to make restrictions to the naming policy or not. I also tend to the opinion that if you need restrictions, you have not managed your technical side sufficient, because you need those restrictions. But that's of course very case specific, and even more dependant of the number of visitors. And I don't see any technical problems with your blog site. I know some people don't want to publish their name on the internet, for what reason ever, and I respect their decision.

    One of my web sites was once hacked by some Pakistan hacker group, so I contacted them via e-mail, and we had a few e-mail correspondence, where I first congratulated them for showing me security leaks (I had left my ftp server's homepage directory open for Anonymous write access :P), and we were always friendly to eachother. Never heard about them since.

  1. 8  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 2/3/2007 7:42:59 PM

    I agree with you Ed, for better or worse, post your opinions, but when your name is on the line some people might rethink their thoughts.

    I of course just keep shoving my feet in my mouth perpetually :-)

  1. 9  The Turtle http://www.weightlessdog.com/shell.nsf | 2/5/2007 6:49:49 PM

    Fair enough, Ed, but think about this: who would know who the hell I was if I posted under my "real name?" or, say, the legendary Green Jellybean? this was the dialogue I had with Libby at her forum at LS06 on blogging... some people have a stronger online identity than their offline one, and their online reputation does not rest on the name that happens to be on their birth certificate.

  1. 10  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 2/5/2007 7:16:05 PM

    The solution seems to be obvious. Use your real name and your alias. This should work very well, unless you want to avoid this connection.

    The reason behind this whole thing is that you want (a) civility and (b) a simple enforceable rule. If you have people leading by bad example b gets harder.

    Of couse we have seen attempts by people to sneak past this rule by using fake names but this backfires if you are going just one little step to far. As it has happened last week when I uncovered yet another Mr. Hyde.

  1. 11  Duffbert http://www.twduff.com | 2/5/2007 7:18:02 PM

    I don't think it's so much the "real name", but a recognized persona. If you post under Turtle with a valid email address, everyone knows who it is. Same (I think) with Duffbert. These nicknames have ended up being associated with a particular person, and we don't try and hide who we are or hide behind the name. Now if I were to start posting here as "The Exchange Ranger" or something else equally as rediculous with an email address that didn't tie back to any online entity that could be viewed, then Ed would be within his rights to delete postings if I were trying to be a troll...

  1. 12  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 2/6/2007 8:39:00 AM

    As I've said before, blogs are nothing more than online discussion forums...except only the owner can start new topics.

    Anonymous comments are usually prevented on a forum by requiring registration before posting - it's not rocket science.

  1. 13  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 2/6/2007 12:59:11 PM

    Hey, sometimes people delete your comments even if you do identify yourself and keep them civil!

    It's not all about tone. Sometimes the difference is simply whether you're towing the line.

  1. 14  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 2/8/2007 3:43:47 AM

    @13 - Very true, thankfully Ed's site doesn't suffer from that. I no longer read sites that exercise editorial control over comments simply to help their argument.

  1. 15  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 2/8/2007 6:20:32 AM

    @13, @14: it's usually more complex than that. Whilst I'm happy to keep comments on my site that disagree with me, or ones that point out flaws in my argument (such things are a frequent occurrence ;o) ), I have also been known to remove comments on my site on the basis of who wrote them.

    The posts in question are irrelevant: indeed, they could be polite, valid and expressed under an apparently real name. But I still may delete 'em because for those certain individuals, I simply don't want their contributions on my site. End of story. It's as simple as that.

    You can't condemn *anyone* for following such a "policy". You might *disagree* with it, but so what -- these are personal weblogs we're talking about, not discussion forums or newspapers. And if you disagree that bad, you simply your thoughts about whatever the topic in hand is *on your own site*: that's your right.

    What you *don't* do is persistently whine about the sites or individuals that keeps deleting your comments. (a) it's not going to change anything and (b) you look daft; these are just web sites after all.

  1. 16  emma  | 2/8/2007 4:37:57 PM

    Just wondering if the high profile of this blog affects the civility level?

    When someone as high-profile as Ed Brill has a blog, it tends to attract comments from other very high-profile people. These people didn't get to their current position by spouting rubbish in public.

    I've never posted a comment before because I don't believe I have anything to say that is worthy of the attention of the people who post here. Maybe there are lots of readers like me.

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/8/2007 6:46:05 PM

    @Emma, I'm only "high-profile" in our community. Though I'm happy that this blog is widely read, it's no groklaw or Scobleizer.

    I'd certainly welcome more postings from new voices -- perhaps that is a good way to raise one's own profile. I also think that those opinions would probably be more unique and interesting to all than you might expect.