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Jon Lebkowsky › Comments
Muddling through privacy and the social Web | Lawgarithms | ZDNet.com - http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howell...
Live blog of a Supernova panel on privacy and the social web.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Time to test out the Tesla in almost-freezing weather
Hope the electricity doesn't freeze.
- Jon Lebkowsky
@randomdeanna I was on a tower in the desert wi. a power tool & bourbon. My pal said: "you may be going home sooner than you had planned."
Bahiyyih liked this
There's a Jodorowsky film in this, sounds like.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Reading :: The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico - http://spinuzzi.blogspot.com/2009...
I once wrote a pice about the Zaptistas. We should discuss when we meet.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Definitely! It's a fascinating topic.
- Clay Spinuzzi
Social Networking is the Means to Achieve Workplace Collaboration - O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/2009...
Jon Lebkowsky liked this
the purely social aspect helps relationships & therefore collaboration
- Adina Levin
the purely social aspect helps relationships & therefore collaboration
- Adina Levin
This is where we really like to do consulting, vs social media marketing. Collaboration, community, shared relationship and experience are all far more interesting than basic attention.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Stallings Automotive Repair (5/5) - http://www.yelp.com/biz...
"Our car broke down as we arrived in San Antonio for a meeting. It was massively overheading, so we were stuck where we stopped. We found Stallings Automotive on GPS as well as Yelp. I called John…"
- Jon Lebkowsky
RobertatGist: Top 10 Web Collaboration Tools (That Aren't Google Wave) http://bit.ly/1aEcvJ - http://twitter.com/Roberta...
Doc List, Brian, Jaap Willem and Jannifer @wordsforliving liked this
Are those really the TOP ten? Or just a random ten? Or "their favorite"? Timebridge and MindMeister are both somewhat broken, for instance. I would've listed WhenIsGood vs Timebridge.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Contemplating the damage that Google's link-based search algorithm has done to the creation of a more holistic, people-centric web.
Daniel Mietchen, Thierry R. Andriamirado, Sebastian Wain and 51 other people liked this
An interesting thought... but you've got to elaborate on that :-)
- Ankush Narula
People-centric web? I don't trust people. I trust their "interests". People love shiny and trendy things. I love people who love what I love. those people often love trendy things but that's okay, since I love them :) — In other words: an attention-centric web is better, IMHO
- directeur
Humm, not sure how you'd go about a people-centric web. You'd have to first get past the integration level (duplicate name spaces, different personas, householding) and then deal with the age/time variable (who you are today isn't who you were a year ago, or 10). How would we determine what a person stood for? You'd be back to on-site analysis of who THEY say they are and what other...
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- AJ Kohn
AJ, what "I" look like, my skin color, my name, my religion, my language... are NOT important unless someone wants to "sell" me something. The online "Me" is the set of "things" I'm interested in and the set of "people" I like to interact with. Google algorithm is based on a simple fact: You have content about a "subject", and this content is linked by content that is already "popular"...
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- directeur
To extend your analogy... shouldn't Einstein's recommendation carry more weight since he's a known authority in physics? I think the Google algorithm might not take this factor into account unless the algorithm looks at the popularity of the linking page/site as well.
- Ankush Narula
Ankush, and that's how it works in fact. A link by Dmoz directory is better than a link by well, britney spears' fan geocities page :) — their algorithm iirc looks at the semantic subject of the content + the rank of other content that links to it
- directeur
Hadn't realized that... now back to what a holistic, people-centric web is all about...
- Ankush Narula
@directeur: I completely agree, which is why a people-centric web seems ... improbable (impossible?) and likely unsatisfactory. @Ankush: directeur's right, Google gives sites more authority based on the number and quality of links it gets - and not just overall but from the same topic/category/niche. It's still not very smart in the scheme of things (hence my blog's title) but it's getting better and better.
- AJ Kohn
This is not a positive and in a way quite false assumption. Google's algorithm has not done any damage, if you remember where the state of research were before Google came. Google enhanced in some ways the Web at this time. But if you have an idea for a people centric Web search, then go for it ! ;-)
- Thierry Lhôte
And also the approach of Google search IS holistic even i it is not people oriented. it is perhaps the first real try of Web-mapping.
- Thierry Lhôte
Agree Thierry. Also, even if google is not perfect (no AI will be perfect) *people* are responsible for its imperfections. People love to game the search engine for fun and more often for profit. Those "gurus" that other people often call "authority" ask their subscribers/readers/"managed community"/horde to "bookmark" (not fave/vote/share) their entries are corrupting the value of "value". This is another kind of spam, it's a taboo, but it's a vicious kind of spam.
- directeur
I think the problem is that there's potentially great content in the long tail that won't surface in a Google search because Google focuses on popularity + authority. This is just what makes the Google search useful, so I wouldn't expect a change. However it would be good to have alternatives - search that finds quality in obscurity, the sort of stuff that we now find through curated...
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- Jon Lebkowsky
I saw a paper a while ago (can't find the reference now, sorry) that found that Google's existence increased the popularity of the “tail” pages, because people no longer link to the big popular sites anymore, since they can find them on Google. They link to new, interesting, and hard-to-find things, which over time gives those things more PageRank.
- Amit Patel
So long as people, not bots, are the ones making the links I don't see the problem.
- Garin Kilpatrick
I think my point was lost. Generally speaking, the focus on links as the atomic unit of the web has done several useful things — but in terms of being able to ask: "Who is this person that wrote this content? And what else have they done? And who do they know? And what is the complete picture of the self-conception?" I think that focusing so much on *document* links has inhibited the development of the social web.
- Chris Messina
and 4chan would never have existed :)
- Jérôme Flipo
Chris, I see what you mean. Look, one thing I'm humbly sure of is: trends and hype will always win over personal relevancy. That's sad I know, but I'm almost resigned. I've humbly created socialwhois http://socialwhois.com which btw uses google SGN, supports microformats, apml, xfn but most people don't know about it because I'm just directeur, not say... Kevin Rose who afterwards launched wefollow. I'm not sad or bitter about it, not at all. Just more sure about how this world works :)
- directeur
Yes Alex, exactly, Web was not designed to be social-media, usenet, IRC and the like were. The future paradigm of the universal social-media tool should evolve around Google Wave concept and XMPP.
- Thierry Lhôte
Thierry and Alex, it was not designed for this in fact. But efforts like microformats make this possible. Data about people that is machine-readable using POSH. And Google who Chris is blaming here actually made a big and useful piece: SGN. Questions asked by Chris above "who wrote this, what did he wrote..." are ligitime, but if I had to chose between content and persons, I'd go with...
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- directeur
i use the web from a greedy interest of problem solving. thats why my needs are problem/solution centric. the best solution is the one that fits to my situation and worked for the most people in similar situations. therefore i love a net that i feed with my data (location, situation) and i get socially rated customized solutions. perfect :) and since i have lots of time im interested in...
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- Chris Hofmann
@Alex: that's kind of my point. What if it had started with proper representations of people, like <person> tags, etc? The reason why we rely on centralized services like Twitter and Facebook is because they've added a "people" layer on top of the "document web". And, if I search for someone in Google, I'll get many links to their profiles — but not a complete view of them. Hence my original tweet.
- Chris Messina
"I think that focusing so much on *document* links has inhibited the development of the social web." Well now, there's a whole body of work in the semantic web directed at that problem. So rather than complain about Google's statistical model, what will you do get the diso, activity streams (and the html5) crowd to use or learn from it? For example activity streams is still in need of a way to represent actions.
- Bill de hÓra
I think sites like BackType and Disqus remedy the "what else has this person said" problem to some extent. Google Friend Connect + Google Profiles tries to solve this problem also by becoming a distributed social network. Over time, I think similar competing protocols will help the social web will integrate to the point where aggregating contributions from and information about a person will be rudimentary. We just have to make sure the protocols stay open and and the technologies proliferate.
- Ankush Narula
Let me add that I think OpenID needs more support.
- Ankush Narula
@Bill: Hrm, the semantic web is still rather reductionist and mathematical, rather than being expressive or generative. In terms of the effort it takes for my mom to benefit from what I understand as being the "semantic web", I don't think she'll see it in her lifetime.
- Chris Messina
OK Chris, so it is 1997, and Altavista is the king of search, with a bunch of others coming up behind. Everyone's search results are getting crapped up with SEO-driven spam, such that meta tags are now being ignored by all major search engines, and various forms of 'invisible text' on the page are state-of-the-art. What would you like to have happened differently from the approach Google took for increasing search relevance?
- Michael R. Bernstein
@Ankush: BackType is a great service — Disqus, CoComment, Co.mments and IntenseDebate are all also interesting solutions — but require you to re-establish a profile. Why can't one just pick their definitive profile and federate that? These services hint at what I'm getting at, but still leave much to be desired.
- Chris Messina
@Michael: Good question. I guess one possibility for routing spam and whatnot is to become more people oriented — as Facebook is. If you source content to particular profiles, then you can build up what Facebook now calls the "social graph", to help inform reputability. Back in 1997, there wasn't enough connectivity or enough people with online presences to make such a situation really work — but I think that situation has or is changing.
- Chris Messina
@Chris: Well, you're just looking for the overlay of the semantic web then, correct? Whether it's self-tagged by the person, or derived through an algorithm, that's how you'd map document to author, and author to author universe. Self-tagging is the only way to ensure this happens correctly - algorithms can be developed to determine if it's the 'same' ... AJ Kohn or not. So, Google...
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- AJ Kohn
AJ, relying on self-tagging has some serious problems. See the aforementioned SEO tactics that rendered HTML meta-tags useless. This is known as the 'metacrap' problem. To use your scenario, what happens if you actually self-tag as AJ Kohn the skateboarder?
- Michael R. Bernstein
@Michael: True enough. Self-tagging can be exploited in nefarious ways as well. Which brings us back again to the links caring some sort of semantic meta data - so that it is others who help define the who - and can actually be a safeguard against 'semantic-theft'. But, that too can be abused in a Google Bomb sort of way if everyone agrees to associate someone as the author of some...
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- AJ Kohn
Well, there's a re-balancing that's needed between social knowledge (i.e. who knows who — vis a vis Twitter/Facebook graphs) and the links that are about, related, or created by people. If profiles were first class citizens, and everyone was incentivized to have one or two EACH (rather than many), perhaps the social web would be further along than it is.
- Chris Messina
What is a "first class citizen", Chris?
- directeur
Documents are currently first class citizens on the web. As are images. Videos are not. A basic test is to consider whether an object class shows up in the source code of the web. We have <img> and <object>, but no <person> tags. It's simple, but it'd be much easier to create social websites if designers could just use something like <person class="viewer"><avatar /></person> to show the active viewer's face in their HTML!
- Chris Messina
Chris. Why? I mean.,microformats do this already. why add a new tag? We just can say to the designer use this class name please.
- directeur
Sure, I support microformats, but they don't "do" anything right now — not without custom JS. In this case, I'm talking about tags (or microformats — I don't really care) that are supported by browser rendering engines — that could reveal social information based on the viewer and his/her friends. This is similar to OpenSocial's model, so I guess there is *some* progress being made my Google! ;)
- Chris Messina
Chris, I think you're about 5 years behind Google on this. Google in 2000 only knew about documents. Google now knows about (and ranks) entities such as businesses, products, and people. Now it has a variety of ways of linking those entities to documents (submitted data feeds, microformats, and algorithmic extraction, among others). Authorship is another question, and you have a good...
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- Daniel Dulitz
Hrm, I wouldn't say I'm railing on Google at all. I'm only contemplating the effects of decisions — which, in hindsight, prove them to be rather wise. Instead I'm asking: what did we not focus on because we chose instead to focus on links? It's great that we have half a loaf — but what about the other half?
- Chris Messina
Well, microformats and RDF are being used by Google and others in a number of ways. However, I think we'd all like to develop a way where the user didn't have to do the work and instead the relationships could be discovered and learned by the algorithm. @Chris: I think the one thing you're assuming is that people would want just a few profiles, or that it would be the optimal way to see...
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- AJ Kohn
What about => FluidDB » Blog Archive » Truly social data http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidDB...
- Desirade
Damage isn't quite the right word.
- Cliff Gerrish
from iPhone
@Cliff: "inhibit"?
- Chris Messina
@Aj: I support the idea of multiple profiles — and of sharding identity, if you *chose* to. That it's the default baseline means that people who don't want to fragment their digital identity are forced to. Put another way: if BOTH sharding AND holistic identities were the norm today, I wouldn't likely have raised this point! ;)
- Chris Messina
@Chris: Got it. If anything, a holistic identify - a primary or default identity *would* be an interesting idea. It could serve the purpose for those who *do* want a holistic identity and can be a sign-post for those who want fragmented identities. [edit] I appreciate and thank you for the dialog.
- AJ Kohn
Was this really some sort of decision Google made, or was it just a natural evolution of the "one page = one URL = one object" paradigm we've been living with since day 1 of the web? Blogs, search engines, URL shorteners... everything's perpetuating the idea that you don't link to *stuff* or people per se, you link to pages.
- Ken Sheppardson
And of course everyone wants to own that page, or your views of that page, like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Everyone wants you to use their UI. We can't just link to a person or an an article or a comment, we have to link to that object with all sorts of UI overhead, ad banner wrapping, etc. We're stuck in a site/page centric world, vs a user/content centric one. See also http://friendfeed.com/vanelsa...
- Ken Sheppardson
I don't think I would be too worried about self-tagging. It's just one piece of the puzzle. There are other forces available, such as all my friends that know I'm an extremely lousy skateboarder. Also, I would like to think that I'm just one person on the web, but that I can choose what aspects of me are visible in a given context.
- Alexander van Elsas
Totally agree we should have a whole loaf. I think there are a lot of folks who want to solve the identity-on-the-web problem, including the JS_Kit guys, Facebook, etc. This discussion here is very interesting, thanks.
- Daniel Dulitz
"the semantic web is still rather reductionist and mathematical" @Chris I can see why you'd say that, and I don't go for the high formalism much myself. I think it helps to consider something like RDF as a medium, and one that arguably has more degrees of freedom for expression that say relational technology, or the current web2.0 argots. In comic book terms, RDF and Linked Data is for penclilers, XML and JSON is for inkers. The story is another matter ;)
- Bill de hÓra
"However, I think we'd all like to develop a way where the user didn't have to do the work and instead the relationships could be discovered and learned by the algorithm." @AjKohn back in the day, this was called a hybrid architecture - lower layers dealt with statistical, telemetry and event data and higher layers dealt with representation, concepts and logic. A good example from robotics is InteRRaP http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/mas...
- Bill de hÓra
Self, Meditating - Happy Days Blog - NYTimes.com - http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009...
A Vipassana retreat
- Jon Lebkowsky
Task Force Raids LA Marijuana Dispensaries, Shoots Dog (Exclusive: Search Warrant Docs) | Huffington Post - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony...
Phil G, Carlton Prest, Jonathon and 4 other people liked this
“As perplexing as the current legal environment is for medical marijuana patients, one thing is quite clear: despite administration statements, little has changed with regard to federal enforcement of marijuana laws, even in states where it has been decriminalized.” #drugpolicy
- Anthony Citrano
They've been watching "Weeds."
- Jon Lebkowsky
somehow doubtful.
- Anthony Citrano
Hi, I'm from the government. I'm here to help. *shoots dog*
- Tad
Maybe they should chase those guys that started the fire near Santa Barbara instead
- Dave Hodson
Boo and BOO. Why did they have to shoot fido? :(
- Mathew A. Koeneker
They always shoot the dog. It's SOP
- Alex Scrivener
@Alex: a lot of things are SOP which are also insane.
- Anthony Citrano
Hm, crickets on states rights indignation.
- Todd Hoff
Madness. Makes you think the reassurances were simply a feint.
- Jason Wehmhoener
WTF?!?! I thought Obama promised they would not go after the dispensaries!!! We were better off with Bush in charge. ><
- pitlord
@Anthony, I agree, I just wanted to point out that dogs tend to get killed any time cops show up anywhere. They are like exterminators for pets. @Todd, let me take this opportunity to be more vocal in my support of federalism, as well as legalization.
- Alex Scrivener
@Jason: not quite; DEA still entirely run by Bush appointees who are (to put it mildly) still quite happy doing their own thing. I tried to allude to that in the article without being too shrieky. @Todd: exactly, although there are many very thoughtful states-rights conservatives who are pro-decrim. @pitlord: get serious and get a clue. @Alex: 10-4, but the sad/annoying part of that...
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- Anthony Citrano
Ya'll are right and I just don't know why but it does seem to be SOP to shoot the dog whether or not it can be tranquilized or not. Just as bad as Vick in my opinion.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
@Mathew: I want to be fair about this, and say that while I absolutely totally disagree with the existence of the DEA, the DEA is not completely absent intelligent professionals. But it is run (mostly) by militant ideologues from a bygone era. They are not all bad people, either. But they are wrong and their core function is discordant with the founding principles of the American...
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- Anthony Citrano
I am afraid you are right. It still makes my blood boil. I had some friends in a former life and while I might not have agreed with much that they were guilty of; their dog was an innocent. Roscoe a beautiful, well-healed German Short Hair Retriever was executed in cold blood much the same way back in the mid 90's to demonstrate a point the officer was quoted to say.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
@Mathew: there's word the shooter made a similar remark at this bust, too. I'm working on more details for a follow-up piece.
- Anthony Citrano
@anthony get your own clue, this Obama administration is a disaster. The DEA did nothing to stop the dispensaries under Bush. Now they are breaking down doors and shooting dogs. Obama is in charge of the DEA and this is Obama's responsibility.
- pitlord
@pitlord: you have some reading to do. I look forward to your refreshed perspective.
- Anthony Citrano
Anthony, our country is embroiled in a drug war on our southern border with thousands of casualties that the media is virtually ignoring, yet the DEA somehow, under Barack H. Obama, has time to make commando style raids on little mom and pop herb stores in Los Angeles, CA and you're going to blame George W. Bush? 0.0
- pitlord
@pitlord: your myopic POV that All Bad Things can be blamed on the President reflects both an unhealhy obsession and a total lack of understanding about how US government works.
- Anthony Citrano
from BuddyFeed
yeah anthony, but when you point the finger you only have one finger to point ;) /s
- Chris Heath
Q1: Friday August 7, 2009 - (via Jason Peck) Can businesses effectively outsource their community management? Have you seen it done well? Would you recommend it?
I have been mulling this over for a few weeks, Sonny. I think perhaps on a case-by-case basis. Can they really be clear with their mission? I am actually working on something that might take that on. The outsourcing piece.
- Angela
What I'm fighting with is the fact that community management is more than just one platform where an agency can reside. CM effects biz dev and relationships with your base, and so many other facets of your business.
- Sonny Gill
Yes, it is more than that so maybe it would have to be VERY specific. A lot of orgs may not yet see it as all encompassing in the way we do, Sonny.
- Angela
I think it's doable but not recommended. Comm management needs to be integrated, communication-wise into many other aspects of the business. It can be hard to do that if it's done externally.
- David Spinks
Okay, so maybe we are talking moderation vs. management?
- Angela
Good point Angela - breaking it down and giving them the piece for moderation vs. management? Management is a widespread strategy with communities, breaking it down to the moderation aspect of it is definitely feasible.
- Sonny Gill
Totally agree with the integration aspect as well as the division b/w moderation and management. This division also speaks to perhaps 2 people sharing the one role of Community Manager based on their skill sets
- Tanya McGinnity
@David - good thoughts. I've always preached about doing things internally as the people and evangelists you have within your company are the ones with the true passion and ones who very well have a stronger voice than an outsourced company, no matter if they understand all of your goals.
- Sonny Gill
moderation is only as good as the action taken afterwards. It's okay to outsource moderation only if you can still effectively tie it in to action internally.
- David Spinks
I agree Sonny. But maybe there is room for both. I think I may be talking myself into something here. I mean, if some really smart folks like us were at the helm. :-) It might work.
- Angela
@Angela - true! But the awesome people we have in this chat unfortunately aren't always the ones who understand this growing space and how it effects businesses. Like you said, not all orgs see it the way we do.
- Sonny Gill
I think as long as the agency/people moderating are as aware of your company's goals and community initiatives as you are...it might be possible. One dedicated team from an agency that handles one account?
- Teresa Basich
There is a difference between being a brand advocate and being a community manager. Sometimes these don't align depending on the person...
- Tanya McGinnity
Not all organizations intrinsically understand mgmt and actually *want* outside help (or agencies, like ours) to come in and help help.
- Bryan Person
@Teresa - that could be a possibility as well. Though resources always are an issue whether it's internal or external.
- Sonny Gill
Yes on Brand Advocate v. Comm Manager. What is about the term "agency" that turns me off when we're talking about community management and facilitation?
- Angela
@Tanya that's where the role between Community Manager and Marketer seem to get blurred. Some want a CM for the community, but some see the CM role as more of a marketer.
- Sue
You mentioned awareness of company goals and community initiatives: does the outsourced CM need some awareness of the business's marketplace and the profile(s) of the potential members too?
- Mathieu Ayel
I have to draw the marketing line at my organization often. had to do it just today but found a way to incorporate what they were asking but with my approach as a CM.
- Angela
@Sonny, that's the biggest hurdle, I think. If you outsource, how do you make sure your outside team will have all the resources available to properly moderate YOUR community?
- Teresa Basich
@Mathieu I would say that's an important question and one that needs to be thought about a great deal by the company looking to outsource their community management. Especially if its an already established community.
- Sue
@Mathieu - I believe the outsourced company needs to understand the culture of said business for sure and represent them accordingly.
- Sonny Gill
At the end of it all, it's necessary to ask the question "Is this something the community wants or likes?" vs "Is this what I like?" "Is this what marketing/ product management/ my boss likes?" Sometimes communities tell us things that we don't want to hear.
- Tanya McGinnity
@Tanya - great point. Do what's best for the community still, even with such a large business decision.
- Sonny Gill
Complete understanding of company is a must regardless who manages community. Definitely challenging. Should also understand co goals and marketing. But to the outside world they just need to be a great people person and project an understanding of the company and industry.
- Jason Peck
from iPhone
On point with your additional thoughts, Jason. And thanks so much for spurring this question!
- Sonny Gill
Way to bring it home Jason with comment about how it appears to the outside. Definitely important--the customer/member perception.
- Angela
Would like to know if anyone has seen outsourcing this done right
- Jason Peck
from iPhone
I think it's better to bring someone in to help you get started with the community, but staff it internally long term.
- Jon Lebkowsky
@john I think that makes a lot of sense
- Jason Peck
from iPhone
What about specifically including mentoring sessions from the outsourced CM towards the inhouse moderators as part of the community dev plan to try to get the best of both worlds?
- Mathieu Ayel
@Mathieu I like that suggestion re: mentoring sessions to help people get their focus aligned.
- Tanya McGinnity
I have worked with several major companies that outsource community management. It is a very viable and cost effective option, but only works if the community managers are incorporated into the company's work and information flow. For successful outsourcing there has to be a solid partnership between the community managers and the company that includes weekly meetings, access to company resources, and a solid information escalation plan.
- Angela Lawson
what do you do with the GOLO profiles?
- Chris Geier
That's a great idea, especially where people do not know each other or there has been an influx of new people.
- Brenda Young
are the interviews, text, audio video?
- Chris Geier
We have a mil community spotlight every Thursday where we feature other initiatives/groups, etc.
- Lauren Vargas
Q2: How to K2 a series of technical how to videos that focus on specific (usually requested) K2 topics and run through how to accomplish them
- Chris Geier
The spotlight breaks down competitive barriers and fosters discussion
- Lauren Vargas
Hi Chris, I do a phone interview and transcribe it. Then post a blog. Here is a link to all of them http://www.wral.com/golo...
- Angela
Lauren do you run into roadblocks with doing profiles on miliatry?
- Chris Geier
Chris, no...always ask permission...bring them into the loop and it is all good.
- Lauren Vargas
Angela, the look great. Nice work
- Chris Geier
How about a newsletter. Any successful newsletters? I started a monthly newsletter in January.
- Angela
We do scheduled group phone calls and record as podcasts & MP3 & post into community for those not there.
- Jeff Hurt
(newsletters) have had success with internal community but not external customers
- Lauren Vargas
We have a newsletter that has good circulation, but i have been trying to make it more "interactive" Not having a ton of success with it.
- Chris Geier
Lauren: Military spotlight sounds cool! Group phone calls, jeff? I need to steal that idea.
- Angela
Sorry to be dense, what is GOLO?
- Mark Sylvester
Lauren, agree internal is much easier to do.
- Chris Geier
Mark check out http://growingsuccessfulonline...
- Chris Geier
@Angela We found that certain issues became "hot" fast & open phone calls became a good way to discuss those issues openly with those that wanted it. We get good response from them.
- Jeff Hurt
We also do member profiles through blogtalkradio which are recorded as podcasts & MP3s. Those have live caller element and get posted in community as well. We have larger audience with the downloads.
- Jeff Hurt
When I was Online Community Director at Whole Foods Market, we started a "food haiku" topic that took off in a big way. Surprised us.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Jeff would love to hear more about how you do that on blogtalk radio
- Chris Geier
@Jon That is so cool.
- Jeff Hurt
Hi Jon: Can you write a food haiku for us right now, on the spot?
- Angela
That's really neat, Jon. It's really the small things that get people excited and want to contribute.
- Sonny Gill
Jeff. I never thought about using Blogtalk Radio. That is genius!!
- Angela
Food haiku was cool / It opened up some lurkers / And gave us a treat.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Mark, GOLO is the community I manage. Sorry I wasn't clear. www.wral.com/golo
- Angela
We do weekly user profiles where users share their own experiences, what brought them to the community, what they do there, etc.
- Jamie Pappas
@Chris very easy to do as it's internet radio & free. We schedule three to four people for a 60 minute chat & spend 15-20 minutes with each. We have two people do each interview & promote. It is good engagment & drives audience participation
- Jeff Hurt
We also do monthly "Social Media Socials" - 1 focused topic per month on community or social media tools and how they're being used in the enterprise - people love these
- Jamie Pappas
Jeff: Sounds like Chris and I are going to steal that Blogtalk Radio idea. That is such a valuable tip. I will reach out to you offline.
- Angela
Jamie, are the social media tools based on how to get more out of what they already are using, or exposure to tools that they can add to the mix? Who decides on the topics? The Community, or is it based on insight you are getting from the Community analytically?
- Mark Sylvester
Mark: We do a mix of both what they're already using as well as introduce them to tools that others are using that might be helpful to them. We ask people to propose topics of interest to them for the sessions, which they do sometimes, and when that doesn't happen, we come up with a topic that we think will be interesting based on conversations and comments from past sessions.
- Jamie Pappas
Jamie, how far in advance do you plan the content for the sessions? Week? Month? Quarter?
- Mark Sylvester
Mark: We typically do them about 3-4 weeks in advance. By the time one session ends, we're working on the agenda for the next one. Sometimes farther in advance if there are hot requested topics that we are able to line up.
- Jamie Pappas
Mark: Should add that the format we use is a few slides - 10 or less with pictures and not too wordy, but those are really the supporting materials or take-aways. We strive for it to be conversational in nature because we want it to be helpful to the attendees to get their thoughts and questions out on the table and discuss them with others.
- Jamie Pappas
You need a benevolent dictator who will remove the user pretty quickly if it's blatant disruption. Stalling undermines trust in mgt.
- Jon Lebkowsky
depends on the level of disruption.
- Chris Geier
They stifle engagement by veering of course w/their nonsense and getting ppls thoughts elsewhere. But as Chris said, depends on the level of disruption on how to react.
- Sonny Gill
I agree with @Chris. Dpends on the type of offense, person disrupting, how often they've done that, etc.
- Jeff Hurt
Whoa Jon: A benevolent dictator. Can't you see that in a job description? I have had some serious trolls and it has made me tough.
- Angela
Generally, by trying to intimidate newer users ("this isn't how it works here") or spewing lots of angry rhetoric and/or filling up with lots of comments. If it's a violation of the site's guidelines it gets pulled, but often there's not much that can be done without seeming like someone is getting singled out.
- Steph
Steph: Yes, it is horrifying to see new users pushed away by bullies!
- Angela
Steph, I think removal is the best bet for a true troll/disrupter. Thenn possibly a private back-end conversation. I could tell a rather long story about a user to practically trashed the WELL before the community managers dealt with the problem. He was taking advantage of the WELL's commitment to free speech. (WELL = http://well.com)
- Jon Lebkowsky
But where do you draw the line between disruption and disagreement? A lot of what community members consider "trolling" (and react to as such) is often simply someone with a different viewpoint.
- Steph
The benevolent dictator emerged from Howard Rheingold's Electric Minds in the 90s. Realization was that a social process for dealing with a troll or blatant disruptor undermines trust and social fabric, so you have to be prepared to take unilateral action.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Disruptive members are often very harmful to the community and our approach is to contact them offline and explain our concerns and refer them back to our community guidelines. We might be the exception, but this has always worked for us to correct the behavior and folks are appreciative of the feedback.
- Jamie Pappas
Steph: I've never found it hard to tell someone whose goal is to disrupt from someone who is merely disagreeing or being disagreeable.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Someone who's destructive can take your community down pretty quickly if you try to handle with open social process.
- Jon Lebkowsky
I think it depends on the community, Jon. If heavy debate and political issues are a huge component, it can be difficult to draw the line of someone who is being disruptive to be disruptive, or who is interacting in a way that is perhaps not the best.
- Steph
And not handling all community members with open process only leaves the door wide open for accusations of bias and censorship.
- Steph
Steph: Are you saying that it's best to do it all out in the open? Or is there ever a situation to treat someone differently?
- Angela
Steph: We do it offline so as not to embarrass the person and lose their trust in us and confidence in the community. We document everything via email, so there's a record of it. But our ultimate goal in the whole process is to educate and information and win them over, not embarrass or alienate, which I have seen happen all to often when correction's done in public.
- Jamie Pappas
I don't think there is a situation to treat someone differently. Given a chance, most trolls/disruptive users will wind up violating the site's standards enough to warrant removal
- Steph
Steph: I think I need a pep talk from you about being more consistent with this.
- Angela
Jamie--sorry, my previous comment wasn't clear! We correct via email and private discussion, but I was referring to being open about the standards that we hold people to. There is no separate set of procedures for someone who appears to be a troll.
- Steph
Ha, I wish I had one! :) It's tough, and something we're working on too.
- Steph
A lot of transparency about standards seems to have been helpful; there will always be people who are of the 'free speech no matter what' persuasion, who want to cry censorship any time something is removed, but most reasonable community members will start to understand and speak up.
- Steph
Hey Steph, Here is what I tell people about free speech: "Free speech is a constitutional right designed to keep the federal government from making laws to limit it. It does not mean the public has the right to say whatever it wants on a privately-owned Web site. Our goal is to create an environment for civil and productive community dialogue. We hope you will contribute to that goal and have fun along the way!"
- Angela
We say something similar, but I find it doesn't always sink in! A high sense of ownership seems to translate into a lot of strong opinions on how the site should be run. I'm thrilled to see that our community cares that much, but sometimes it means a lot of back and forth on things.
- Steph
Steph: Ah yes - I agree with you completely on being open and transparent on the standards people are held to! Absolutely! :-)
- Jamie Pappas
Give them easy opportunities to jump into the conversation with a minimal amount of fear. Open ended questions, more thought and opinion questions
- Chris Geier
Pull in those Whole Foods lurkers with real food. :) Just kidding. I can tell who's in community live so I'll often ask them publicly for a response. Invite them personally to become involved.
- Jeff Hurt
I like to do polls with crazy answers. Gets them involved because they can't resist.
- Angela
That's a good example Angela. Doing something simple and fun, baby steps for them.
- Sonny Gill
what do you use for polls
- Chris Geier
An example might be: What do you think of Sarah Palin? Answers would be something like:A: I think she is one smart cookie. B: I think she should be running for president. C. She should have remained a soccer mom. D. Why should I waste time thinking about her?
- Angela
Setting the right context (friendly, open, safe) is the best I know to do. You never know, though, what will cause someone to uncloak.
- Jon Lebkowsky
I pull people in with questions like: "What was the scariest day of your life" and I tell some story about myself to get it started.
- Angela
Have to second crazy or controversial polls as a way to suck in lurkers! We have had great success with polls...the answers/feedback lead to follow-up posts and features.
- Lauren Vargas
So what is a good way/format to do polls? Just in a forum?
- Chris Geier
Wide-open questions are one way "Does anyone know why..?" or "What is the big deal about..?" -- asking questions broadly, about questions with a broad range of appeal for your user group.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
Steve: And I second that. I posted a blog a few weeks ago called: Why do people drive 15mph when it rains. Boy they gave it to me in that post. But it was worth it! 100 comments in less than 20 minutes.
- Angela
A wide variety of topics that have opinion vs. factual answers has worked well for us to pull in lurkers. It seems one key area of not contributing is not wanting to be wrong in front of peers - when asking folks for their opinion, it makes the conversation much more neutral and tends to get them to jump in quicker.
- Jamie Pappas
Jamie: Wow, it is great that you recognized that fear and found a way to create a better experience. I applaud that.
- Angela
Friday, July 24, 2009, Q2: Imagine you were the community manager of Domino's (not sure if the position exists) when that wretched video came out. It's a real crisis for your brand. What steps would you take?
Sonny Gill, Lilian Mahoukou and Daniel Johnson, Jr. liked this
If it were me, I think I'd acknowledge that something is out there.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Acknowledge it happened, Spread Awareness, own the video, while you have the eyeballs, publicly ensure that it never happens again.
- Sean Canton
Immediate, unscripted response. With something like that, the issue becomes very time sensitive before it blows up. Be there when it happens and even if it still blows up, your message goes along with the video.
- Sonny Gill
I think you certainly have to acknowledge, and afterward, broadly distribute the actions taken. Take steps to prevent a repeat performance.
- Star Aasved
The key again is authenticity. I like the unscripted response approach.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Agree, the first thing would be to acknowledge it. Staying silent in a situation like that just makes a bad situation worse
- Sue
Quickly creating a "spontaneous" video response and writing a blog post
- Lilian Mahoukou
If a Community Mangement position doesn't exist (for any company- but especially for one the size of Domino's), I'd make sure that I had someone community-savvy in the role, monitoring my online brand image. Speaking in a human voice about a gaffe as soon as possible is much better than a talking head or canned release.
- Tanya McGinnity
From a consumer standpoint, I needed details. They should have provided details. Where this happened. What shift. Who/how many if ANY are at risk. Was this distributed. They should have been all over the blogosphere. I have similar feelings about United Airlines. I think they should hire Weird Al Yankovic to make a music video for them.
- Angela
@Angela - I love the Weird Al idea! Or maybe Rick Astley :)
- Tanya McGinnity
@Tanya, I posted that idea on my blog. Here's a link. http://blog.angelaconnor.com/2009...
- Angela
Asking the CEO to add his voice and analyzing the impact of the action. We could also segment the crisis into several stages. 1: The Discovery 2: The Corporate's Response 3: People's reactions 4: The Recovery.
- Lilian Mahoukou
@Lilian I LOVE that approach. The Four Tiers of Community Crisis Management. Don't steal that. It's mine. :-)
- Angela
Does the CEO need to be the one to respond in all cases? I can see from a credibility perspective maybe.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
@Daniel: I like Lilian's approach but do NOT believe that it has to be the CEO.
- Angela
@Daniel @Angela How to pick the right executives ?
- Lilian Mahoukou
I like the video done by the store manager and his boss. It was honest, unscripted and very effective.
- Bill Free
@Bill I liked it too. "Unscripted" is a great component and makes you sound less manipulative
- Lilian Mahoukou
Response needs to be appropriate to be credible. Your CEO is not always the appropriate spokesperson, especially for a local issue that demands a local response.
- Bill Free
@Bill Free I like that. Issue was local so be sure it's addressed locally, at least.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
@Daniel It's interesting how media fragmentation is affecting crisis planning. Responding within SM communites is a great example.
- Bill Free
If the community had heard about already, I would ask them what their perctptions were, how would they act as management in this situation and what could Domino's do to make them feel secure and purchasing from them again
- Larae Junior
Right - engage the community in the response.
- Jon Lebkowsky
There'll be an Austin Google Wave Meetup next Wednesday, July 23rd, 6:30pm at Conjunctured, 1309 E. 7th.
That's July 22nd - sorry for the typo.
- Jon Lebkowsky
#CmtyChat Q4 July 17, 2009: via Chuck Hemann - How do you convince a company/your boss that a community manager is needed?
Lilian Mahoukou, Daniel Johnson, Jr. and Mark Sylvester liked this
Amber (Naslund) openly states that if you have to convince your company or boss that they need one, maybe they're not ready for that step?
- Sonny Gill
I don't think I'd want to try. Your work would be miserable: constant justification and fighting for your position. Hang on though, isn't that normal life as an employee?
- Martin Reed
I tell them the story about how they didnt know they needed a webmaster either - (think 1999) and this is exactly the same issue. Like designing a garden and not hiring a gardner
- Mark Sylvester
Community Management and having such a role is as much a cultural acceptance, as is Social Media within a business.
- Sonny Gill
I agree with Amber - the company has to have a social type of culture. They may not be ready for it yet.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Interesting. Part of the SM hesitation seems to be that companies don't think there's much chatter out there about their brands. Would showing them unanswered chatter contribute?
- Chuck Hemann
Ask your boss if he's ever seen a bar without a bartender (and often a bouncer).
- Jon Lebkowsky
I agree w/ you, Sonny. There has to be an established culture where execs want to create community. Too much convincing means community might not be the right fit at the moment. Natural progression.
- Teresa Basich
Chuck: I think it's important to start with a listening platform, which is a yes answer.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Does a community have to be online already? Can a community exist otherwise? (Thinking out loud here.)
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
But in thinking about Amber's argument ... if that were the case, it would only ever be the "boss" who decided that a community was needed.
- Bryan Person
Note that social media != community.
- Jon Lebkowsky
A good compilation of what is going on in the community, what is being said, opinions -- that should help prove the point.
- Star Aasved
Some cultures may be too rigid to change, but others *can* change with the right kind of champions moving things forward.
- Bryan Person
To Star's point, I think if it were obvious that others were talking about the business elsewhere in SM (blogs, twitter, FBook, etc.), then a strong case could be made for a community manager.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
We are in a massive educational inflection point in the industry - as a vendor, and you as CM's - working together we have to teach decision makers
- Mark Sylvester
@Martin has a great point about the job being miserable. But if it's an organization you love and you've got some influence, go for it.
- Angela
Thing I worry about is the title itself. it often requires quite a bit of explanation. Your opinion on what it is you should be doing may be different than your boss
- Chuck Hemann
Mark, often as we are learning ourselves!
- Star Aasved
By proving the shift in marketing and PR, with regular people gaining power thanks to blogs and other social media (a set of case studies)
- Lilian Mahoukou
New Media Cincinnati was founded because there was an interest in podcasters, twitterers, etc., to meet together. Online cmty was a natural outgrowth of it.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Star - we are all learning at the same time - that's part of the intense thrill of it all - learning and inventing go hand in hand.
- Mark Sylvester
Lou said, in response to another question: I've built "listening dashboards" that aggregated conversations from blogs, social networks, etc and used these to report on brand mentions, what competitors are saying, trends and "bullets". Very effective tool, I need to put together a slideshare on how to do this. - Lou Ordorica
- Star Aasved
Great comment, Sonny, on cultural acceptance.
- Bill Free
I'd like to learn how you've done that, Lou! It would be of benefit in selling community management.
- Star Aasved
We are really dealing with different dynamics when discussing monitoring all the space vs. building a specific branded community. I am noticing that each week and the more I talk to CM's. .
- Angela
Then, does every company needs a CM ? "Cultural acceptance" is a starting point. Then, understanding/saying is one thing, acting "social" is more important.
- Lilian Mahoukou
@Lou: I second Star's remark. Would love to see that Slideshare once you get it up.
- Bryan Person
In re to what Lou said, a social media dashboard is essential for a community manager. I've been using something I created in Netvibes for over a year.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
@Lilian - every company doesn't need a CM. Heck, every company doesn't need to be utilizing social media. It isn't a one size fits all or a role that can just be thrown in the mix because it's what's hot.
- Sonny Gill
Amen to that Sonny.
- Angela
Every company that has a community also has a community manager - they just may not have that title - but they have the responsibility. It is important to raise the importance, so they have the title and the recognition of the importance of community to the organization. This is an organizational shift that is just starting to happen
- Mark Sylvester
Star Asved, Bryan -- OK guys, that's the motivation I needed. I will get going on how to build a listening dashboard slideshare over the weekend.
- Lou Ordorica
Interesting comment on dynamics, Angela. Does monitoring your space in and of itself justify a community strategy?
- Bill Free
@Lou: Glad we convinced you! Please e-mail me at bperson - AT - LiveWorld - DOT - com if you'd like to discuss this some more.
- Bryan Person
@Lou - Great! I'd love to see that; if you get a chance, please drop me a line when it's up!
- Martin Reed
@Lou Terrific, Lou! Hope to hear from you on this. Good stuff.
- Star Aasved
@Lou you're the man. We all want to see this now. :)
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Agree, Mark, and I'd add that every company has communities, whether they see/define them that way or not. A question is whether your strategy supports "managing" them. Another is whether SM provides the right tools to engage w/them.
- Bill Free
We all need to ask ourselves: Is objective to engage or is it influence & encourage ppl to do something more inspiring than they've done before? #cmtychat
- Marcia Conner
#CmtyChat Q3 July 17, 2009: via Daniel Johnson - What skills are absolutely essential for effective CMs?
Lilian Mahoukou, Mike Whaling and Daniel Johnson, Jr. liked this
I think listening is one of the top skills required.
- Star Aasved
understanding of all communications, not just social media. listening is vital. personable is another.
- Chuck Hemann
Multi-tasking, patience, dedication, commitment, tolerance, personable.
- Martin Reed
An understanding of how communications/biz dev/marketing are tied into the CM role.
- Sonny Gill
Authenticity and the humility to apologize - my personal experience. Learner's heart.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Being able to plot out what engagement/community can or will do for the organization's bottom line.
- Teresa Basich
Ability to pull resources from any department within the organization - provide access by bringing the subject matter expert to the table.
- Mike Whaling
really like the authenticity point from Daniel. It's easy to spot someone who is being "fake"
- Chuck Hemann
The community manager must speak fluent Social Media as well as fluent traditional business. CM must be a good translator as well as creative.
- Keith Burtis
Has to be able to represent management to the community and the community to management.
- Jenna Woodul
@Keith - Good point. The traditional side of the business and how community management ties into the rest of your business' goals is important.
- Sonny Gill
Diplomacy but not to the point of avoiding conflict at any cost.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
@Keith - is that the ROI point? how do the CM's effots contribute to the bottom line?
- Chuck Hemann
Great point, Jenna. Conduit between two sides.
- Teresa Basich
Understanding company's goals, being able to translate those into implementation.
- Star Aasved
@Jenna: Great take. Connie Bensen likes to say that a community manager is the voice of the company externally and the voice of the community internally.
- Bryan Person
Everything ties back to ROI whether we like it or not...if you go to a senior exec and say..Ive had 15 conversations added 100 twitter followers and have 500 fans on friendfeed..they'll say..."Who cares?"
- Keith Burtis
Thick skin. Tact. Empathy. The ability to communicate very effectively about positives and negatives. The written word is crucial.
- Angela
How about effectively managing differing sets of expectations?
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
@Bryan - so they are a defacto company spokesperson then? How does that role diverge from a traditional media spokesperson? or do they work in harmony?
- Chuck Hemann
BUT - if you can show the ACTIONS people are taking as a result of the community invlvemnt then you have a win win - Community = X (X=Y)
- Keith Burtis
Fluidity. Ability to roll with changes, know when change is necessary and when change may not be the best course of action.
- Star Aasved
But if you can illustrate to a senior Exec how you retained customers, changed a persons view, kept them around when they were leaving for good. Sent an email that turned them around completely, that works. You need the stories.
- Angela
And here I thought the face of the company was the receptionist. ;)
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Empathetic listening; ability to persuade with words; acting quickly and surely but never too hastily.
- Kat Brennan
Great points Keith on ROI. Companies are looking for DIRECT returns, not fluff from social media numbers.
- Sonny Gill
It would seem that measuring ROI in social media is the brass ring.
- Daniel Johnson, Jr.
I agree with Keith that direct ROI metrics sell community, but I think they also exclude much of the value of community. We should educate c-level execs about the less direct and less tangible - but still very real - value in social transactions.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Jon, yes - metrics only tell part of the story.
- Star Aasved
Should we expect our CM to understand business metrics? Seems like a different skill set to me
- Mark Sylvester
Daniel -- I remember going to a conference where a speaker emphasized using Return on Information as opposed to ROI. Took this advice, one of the bigger mistakes I've made. Lesson is always stick to the vocabulary and rules everyone else plays to. There is room for creativity, but not when it comes to hard-line numbers.
- Lou Ordorica
Essential to understand business as well
- Keith Burtis
CM doesn't need to be a business person, but definitely needs to understand the business goals of the community and how the community goals support them. Otherwise, the community is going to be short-lived.
- Jenna Woodul
Two threads I'm picking up. One, CM is a hybrid position that requires a diverse skills portfolio. Very untraditional. Two, it all ties back to ROI.
- Bill Free
@Mark I think CMs should understand business metrics, if it's not the case they might face more hurdles to do their work the best way.
- Lilian Mahoukou
CM's MUST create meaningful metrics that align with the business, we can't be rogue warriors, having a business understanding and being accepted internally as a key player are very important.
- Keith Burtis
After you have the meaningfull metrics set up benchmarks for yourself. This helps you proove your effectiveness. Once the internal reporting, meaningful metrics and benchmarks are set up you can go out into the wild and be creative. That pipeline of metrics ALWAYS stays the same. How you go about your community activities is fluid and moves with the industry
- Keith Burtis
Business reporting and community building need to be inherently seperate....You NEVER want to look at your community, network or individuals in your community as numbers to convert. My biggest rule is: never approach a network or individual in a network with a one sided greedy objective
- Keith Burtis
@Keith: Do you ever find it difficult to separate community building from business goals?
- Bryan Person
@Bryan - the business goals remain static, once you set the pipeline up you tend to forget about it. So not really. I love the creative, passionate, and communal part of social media. I find that if my heart is in the right place and the business pipeline is set up then everything falls into place
- Keith Burtis
@Bryan - the biggest fear I have when teaching people about ROI and traditiona;l business is that they will treat social media like traditional advertising and broadcasting. Thats why I say you need to be able to speak fluent business as well as have a massive understanding of the socil culture
- Keith Burtis
Keith -- really like your thinking on the role of community building and CM in a business, shows how the role is evolving.
- Lou Ordorica
Thanks Lou
- Keith Burtis
great discussions today #CmtyChat - c'mon and join in!
I'm lurking - have to run to a meeting soon. Having a little trouble figuring out which conversation to track in FF.
- Jon Lebkowsky
@Kevindoylejones for a deep, dirty look at corporate personhood and its effects, read @rushkoff's Life Inc.
Second that - Life, Inc is an eye opener.
- Jon Lebkowsky
come hear @techpeace talk about Cucumber at @AustinOnRails tonight Omni Hotel downtown 8th floor (hosted by @OtherInbox and @DatranMedia)
Very cool, tell @techpeace to "break a leg"! Rails rock star.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Show support for democracy in Iran add green ribbon to your Twitter avatar with 1-click - http://helpiranelection.com/
Didn't keep the green ribbon.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Oh, to be the Economist - http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009...
Paola Bonomo, Alessandro Lanni and Jon Lebkowsky liked this
Agree - quality can break all the rules!
- Jon Lebkowsky
I don't want to be the one who starts it, but I'm surprised I haven't seen the old pretty protester meme start yet. http://www.daylife.com/photo...
I think you really are the one who started it, just.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Flickr Founder Calls Nuked User 'A Dick' | Gawker - http://gawker.com/5288759...
TheHenry, Davis Freeberg, Michael Hart and 64 other people liked this
Look, I think flickR should be able to control their network and its content however they wish. But this policy is ridiculous and evil (wiping out all user data and not letting them get it back) and they deserve all the negative press that comes with it, especially when they act like dismissive assholes.
- Anthony Citrano
from Bookmarklet
Is he the guy that wrote that hilarious exit letter re: silver mining?
- anna sauce
Same dude anna.
- vijay
god, I love Stuart (finally read post) nice way to stand behind your colleague.
- anna sauce
exactly. : ) Title is misleading.
- vijay
I'm not a fan of Flickr but it's hard for me to summon any outrage on behalf of that dick.
- Chester
Check this out.. last line from Johnson- "Ask Heather to fill you in". lol! Credit to Stewart for showing the level of restraint he did.
- vijay
flickr is a great service but their terms of use and the ways they enforce them makes them much bigger dicks than any justifiably irate user. And I am not trying to compliment them. But it's typical corporate internet arrogance.
- Rick Powell
What a great chance to respond to a CR issue without having to represent the company admirably... given a chance to say what he actually felt, I think Stewart's response was maybe not totally called for, but totally funny and he has the right. Way to back up your former peeps too.
- SAM
Well, whatever. I think Stewart is a dick, but far fewer people will read that than have read and will read his e-mail and will make their own minds up.
- Rick Powell
So, if somebody emailed me to ask me to mediate a problem they were having with my former employer, I suspect that my response would both be ruder and shorter.
- Wirehead
I completely agree Anthony, it is unbelievable and I have a Pro account :-|
- Luca Conti
@Wirehead Well, in that case, you, just like Stewart, would be going out of your way to be a dick yourself. All he really needed to write was the first sentence, or not respond at all. But flickr's policy of deleting a user's photos without warning and without appeal, pretty much sums up corporate assholism for me.
- Rick Powell
My capital rules of staying on the internet: 1. be nice. 2. if you can't be nice, be civil. 3. if you can't be civil, be offline. They served me well in the last 15 years. (and - honestly - I trust Heather's judgement in managing communities a wee bit more than a random guy trolling comment threads, being nuked from existence and throwing a tantrum about it)
- dario
There is usually little difference between a nice person enforcing bad corporate policy and a bad person doing it, except for the style in which it's done. Apologies to "Heather," I'm sure, since I don't know her personally. [insert eye rolls here.]
- Rick Powell
this is why i stopped using flikr. They dont CARE.
- Jim Hague
As somebody who manages online communities for a living, I'm going to have to say that the response here was probably the right one (granted I haven't seen the original threads, and he could have afforded to be a little more civil with his language). Trolls live for this shit. And most of them are dicks.
- mike fabio
Troll is a dismissive word, used ubiquitously and uncritically. It's been MY experience that while there are genuine trolls, the word is not infrequently used to dismiss someone who brings up an uncomfortable political issue. No excuse for being a dick, of course.
- Rick Powell
What concerns me in this issue is that if someone at Yahoo decides that they disagree with something I said or the way I said it, they are willing to completely remove my account. It makes me distrustful of the cloud as a place to store my data. With that said, Yahoo was perfectly within their rights to make this move. It just seems like they don't care to engender confidence in the integrity of the data on their servers.
- Scott Ohlemacher
I have wondered if flickr so easily deletes paying customers photos because they have never provided an easy way for anyone to download all of their collection once it's in the cloud. I guess they think, why would anyone want to do that?
- Rick Powell
@Rick Powell: You're right that there is no excuse for being a dick, but dickery is subjective.
- Scott Ohlemacher
And I think deleting a paying customer's photos, even if he violated terms of service, and not the law, for instance, is simply bad corporate policy. That is really being a dick, in my opinion.
- Rick Powell
Amen, Rick, Amen. Perhaps the real issue was that flickr was afraid of losing the White House photostream?
- Scott Ohlemacher
Wow, just wow. Just goes to show you that money (or talent for that matter) and class don't always go hand in hand.
- Alex Scoble
Finally Flickr's actions as Judge, Jury and Executioner in deleting unwanted members is getting some mainstream coverage due to the political angle. Even if some disagree whether it was the correct forum to air his grievances on the WH's detainee photo policy, it appears to have been measured and civil. Certainly not grounds for a non-appealable deletion. So exactly how does Flickr safeguard our photos (i.e. backups), if deleted members cannot be retrieved? Cloud-computing, or merely dust?
- Nils Sandin
Yeah- seems like a draconian move by Yahoo.
- anna sauce
another Community Manager from a different site chiming in... Flickr was totally within their rights to toast this guy *and* his account. The TOS on any site is not just an agreement between a single user and the company with regard to their own content, but also between the community at large and the company that OTHER users will be subjected to the TOS. This guy was spamming and...
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- Edubya
Spam? What exactly was he selling? If I read the accounts right, every American needs to have those pictures shoved under their noses until they wake the frak up. Really, the vagueness in rhetoric that everyone just accepts here is amazing. They were pictures of torture. It was a political protest. Yahoo was certainly within their "rights," although the idea of assigning rights to a corporation makes me queasy, but that doesn't mean I think the world is better off because Yahoo gets to do what it wants.
- Rick Powell
@Edubya They have a right and obligation to uphold their TOS. However, asymmetrical responses like this are not a good way to keep up a good image.
- Scott Ohlemacher
Yeah, this definitely falls under the definition of protected speech in my opinion. Yahoo isn't looking good over this.
- Alex Scoble
"protected speech"? I don't think the constitution said you were guaranteed the right be able to post on flickr. The constitution doesn't mean everyone has to put up with your shit. A political protest in flickr comments is a pretty lazy freedom fighter anyway. That said, wiping out a paying customers stored images without a warning is really messed up, and it seems like they do that quite frequently.
- Richard Lawler
It may not be constitutionally protected speech in this context, but in another it would be. That should at least make Yahoo pause and handle the situation carefully and diplomatically just to avoid the backlash.
- Scott Ohlemacher
The constitution says that political speech is protected. It doesn't specify forum.
- Alex Scoble
I think that Anthony's first comment here sums up the situation admirably. Flickr did something legal that was morally ambiguous.
- Scott Ohlemacher
Just because speech is protect by the constitution doesn't mean that a private service has to allow unfettered expression of it.
- Kevin Pedraja
No, it's not protected speech but it just points out why we can't trust corporations with our data, with anything. They don't give a shit and they don't have to.
- Rick Powell
Ah, I love it when people speak up to defend the rights of corporations! Give them exemptions to all moral obligations! So encouraging for our democracy. Whether or not they have the legal right is irrelevant if we are talking about ethics. This is, however, the kind of culture we have.
- Rick Powell
A rule against spamming comments != a law prohibiting free speech. How is a corporation morally obligated to put up with spammers, no matter what the content is they're spamming?
- Richard Lawler
This may not hold up to scrutiny, but as a publicly traded company reliant on their image to maintain a user base and therefore profits, don't they have an obligation to shareholders to handle situations like this in the most diplomatic way possible?
- Scott Ohlemacher
Sometimes the truth hurts and hearing it from someone you hope will help you hurts even more. I've seen Johnson's trolling and he deserved this treatment, plain and simple.
- Rene Wirtz
Corporations are not morally obligated to do anything. That's the point. That is why they cannot be trusted. Further, I didn't make that equivalency between spam and free speech. You did. Not to mention which the word "spam" is debatable in this case, not least because corporate policies disdain politics, by default, a position which, of course, always favors the powerful.
- Rick Powell
debating whether this is a free speech issue or not is moot. Flickr (or pretty much anywhere else different from your own site) is private property, they have community guidelines which are designed for "the greater good" (which translates nicely to: having the largest number of satisfied users/customers possible). Flickr community guidelines basically boil down to "Behave. If you don't, it may very well be one strike, you're out".
- dario
Rick, not to defend Flickr because I think they've handled this poorly (from a PR point of view if nothing else). But if you sign up to use a service and agree to the TOS, you are voluntarily agreeing to a certain code of conduct. If you violate the TOS, you are subject to the penalties of doing so. Johnson is free to take his protest to another venue. That said, Flickr could be a bit more accommodating and give the guy his images back.
- Kevin Pedraja
and yes, losing your stuff sucks bad, and yes, they probably should implement some sort of "pre-ban" which lets you download your content back on - say - a two weeks notice before the termination of your account.
- dario
Is it an appropriate solution for us to "vote with our eyeballs" and boycott the service until they change some of these policies in a public way?
- Scott Ohlemacher
Peeps, the First Amendment protects you against government action. You have no constitutional right to a flickR account. There's a difference between saying "flickR sucks for doing this" and "flickR has no right to do this." They certainly do have a right to do it, and I have a right to think they're assholes because of it. But I guess that's what I said initially (sorry.)
- Anthony Citrano
@Kevin Have you read the TOS lately? Do you know what NIPSA means? I certainly don't know, after reading it a dozen times. Their TOS is not as arcane, opaque and just plain retarded as ebay's, which must set some sort of record in the history of incomprehensible corporate jargon, but it's not exactly transparent. I think they can ban me if they want. But after accepting my money and...
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- Rick Powell
also, on the "morally reprehensible" issue: this has nothing to do with ethics. Turning over your users' personal data to the chinese government IS unethical, and still, as a publicly shared company, you have to answer to your shareholders first, which might -or might not- be interested in your moral high ground
- dario
@dario What you described is why, in my youth, I believed in economic democracy, which, I think, only the Zapatistas actually advocate now.
- Rick Powell
I think you people are confusing how the flickr software is presently implemented with an arbitrary policy decision. This is common with people who don't know what they are talking about but like to sound like they do. I twittered this on Tuesday... unless you've actually hacked big software that runs on large server farms, STFU about how you'd change how a large website that runs on large server farms would work.
- Wirehead
Oh, I love that one! Technological barriers, the last refuge of the nihilist. Give me a frakin break. This thread has seen it all, right? First-name dropping, specious arguments about the rights of corporations, equating speech with spam, and now claiming the high ground for those who "have hacked big software." I believe I'll have another beer and thank the gods I have never been anywhere near large server farms. Big cow farms, yes.
- Rick Powell
Anthony...I agree. Chalk it up to another Festivus miracle, my friend! lol
- Carlton Hackett
@Wirehead That was needlessly vitriolic. Couldn't be civil and say something like "There are technological limitations related to policy implementation in communities of this size" rather than making assumptions about the skills and experiences of the people in the discussion and then disparaging them? You didn't contribute to this conversation at all, you detracted from it. @everyone else: sorry for feeding the troll.
- Scott Ohlemacher
Dude, I'm just stating an unpleasant truth. But it's very popular amongst people with a little grain of knowledge to assume that they can apply this everywhere. Do I sit here and make suggestions for how cattle ranchers might improve production? No, because I recognize that I don't know a damn thing about cattle ranching and would probably suggest something really stupid.
- Wirehead
On that note, I'm going to go have a beer and watch the hockey game.
- Scott Ohlemacher
I'm a bit sad that Mr. Johnson lost all his pictures. (Rule 1: always make backups!) But the more I hear about his one-man crusade, the more I agree with Stewart Butterfield's assessment. There are right ways to get one's message out, and wrong ways. Mr. Johnson thought his cause was so noble, his message so urgent, that the normal rules didn't apply to him. Alas for his 1200 pictures, he was wrong.
- Pat Rice
@Pat I would guess that a large percentage of the world's dissidents would say that the normal rules don't apply to them, and they would be right, else they would not be dissidents. As for your comment, your rhetoric is precious (alas? a bit sad?) and your argument, if I can call it that, empty. Anyone else?
- Rick Powell
Alex: The constitution defines how government must act. The speech is protected from the government squelching it. No private company is obligated to allow anyone to speak in any way other than the way it wants. Period. The constitution does not give you the right to make the New York Times print anything and everything you want, nor does it give you the right to make flickr do it either.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Most law, and most particularly, the Constitution points back to principles that Dick Cheney, among others, refers to as "quaint," but that doesn't mean they're not valued or have no value, or don't constitute, get that word, the basis for understanding moral behavior. Most citizens understand this. Corporations, unique in history we will eventually realize, are somehow allowed to opt...
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- Rick Powell
Big, scary, god-like (it's a technology, Captain, but none like we've ever seen) server farm or not, I expect backups have to be available. Maybe only for a week (I think that's how long I was told Sprint's picture mail server kept backups), but for some period of time.
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
See, you are just proving my point, BoringMage. There is a difference between backups and restoring deleted accounts. Given the expected failure rate of disk drives, if flickr didn't keep backups, you'd know. :)
- Wirehead
Flickr could disable the account and prevent harmful activity without deletion of customer data, and that is what they should be doing in these cases. This is more about consumer rights than freedom of speech.
- Mike Chelen
I'm afraid it cannot be "protected speech" if you spam the same comment 10, 20 more times on individual pictures. Then it becomes heckling. These are the flickr terms: "Don’t vent your frustrations, rant, or bore the brains out of other members. Flickr is not a venue for you to harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we’ll...
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- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
If they did warn him and he kept spamming, then he deserved what happened. If he didn't back up his own data after being warned and continued doing the same thing, who can he blame?
- Richard Lawler
Jeez, I keep commenting, since so many people find so many creative or not-so-creative ways of avoiding the real points. There is no easy way to back up one's flickr collection, which in some cases involves clicking twice for each photo - which can run into thousands of clicks. If you knew what you were talking about, then you would already know this. flickr's API does not allow...
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- Rick Powell
Yes, we've heard your opinion Rick. That's great. It still doesn't justify the guy's behavior. It doesn't entirely pardon flickr, and I don't think anyone is, but he made his choice.
- Richard Lawler
Well, Richard, if anyone had actually heard my opinion then they would comment as if they understood the contents of my opinion, which you clearly haven't. I have not made justifications about his behavior, mostly because I really don't fully know the extent and content of his behavior. Do you? Perhaps you can fill us all in? It seems clear he was obnoxious, as many people are who want...
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- Rick Powell
Rick, I am not sure about your point - in order to upload to Flickr you need to have the image in the first place, so the assumption is you still have the originals and could re-upload to a new account (I certainly have my images on 2 drives here plus several places online). If you somehow lose the originals you should take copies back out of Flickr immediately, not rely on Flickr (or anything) as your sole copy. PS: have you tried http://www.ghacks.net/2009...
- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
Congratulations, Joelle, your life is a lot more stable than mine was. I started uploading to flickr when I was homeless and had no computer of my own. Borrowed cameras, with personal images, and gift memberships from readers of my blog. This year will be the first time I have to decide whether to flip the bird to flickr or pay up. 4 years of connections, not to mention photos. Not an...
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- Rick Powell
Just for the purpose of backup perhaps you can switch the images from private to public (but w. adult warning to avoid people being offended) - run the backup, then change it back? Just circumvent the system temporarily so you have your images at least! I totally agree with you that the feeling that the plug can be pulled under you is an uneasy one, but the cases where flickr has done...
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- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
You have totally disarmed me. ;-) I will think about trying that, and any indie, open, distributed options you have would be welcome.
- Rick Powell
I have a lot of thoughts on this as some might expect. May have to break them down into a few posts. I saw this letter from Stewart well before it appeared in Valleywag. It first appeared in the DeleteMe Uncensored group that I admin on Flickr. My first problem with the letter is that I don't think Shepherd should have posted it there or anywhere at all. It was private correspondence...
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- Thomas Hawk
Had Shepherd asked Stewart for permission to post it and Stewart said yes I think that'd probably be ok then. But I don't think Shepherd did that and I don't think Stewart gave permission for it to be published. While I support Shepard's fight against Flickr, I did tell him that I didn't think it was right that he published this email. I know that I personally won't publish emails...
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- Thomas Hawk
Stewart and Heather are friends so I'd think it fair to assume that he'd stick up for Heather in this case without admittedly knowing many of the specific details. I think a lot of us might as our first reaction stick up for our friends. Unfortunately, I think Stewart's response turns this debate more into a personality thing than it should be. I think there are three problems with the way that Flickr handled the Shepherd Johnson case.
- Thomas Hawk
1. Obama campaigned on a platform of transparency in Govt. Deleting critical comments is not transparency. Obama is using social media to enhance his transparency. Deleting critical comments doesn't add much to his credibility in that department. This is not an Obama campaign photostream. It's the official Whitehouse photostream produced by your and my tax dollars. The Obama...
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- Thomas Hawk
2. Shepherd Johnson should not have had his account deleted over the comments that he posted. He linked to a photo (not his but from another photostream as allowed by flickr that was also nuked) depicting detainee prison abuse with a message protesting Obama's support of a new law to suppress additional photos from being released. Of all speech political speech should be given the...
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- Thomas Hawk
3. Flickr should not be deleting *any* accounts permanently and irrevocably. To be so arrogant that they would assume that they will never make a mistake in an account deletion is mind numbing. The fact that they refuse to address this issue and simply dismiss anyone who suggests otherwise is an equally horrible position of arrogance. Instead Flickr should change their policy with...
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- Thomas Hawk
+++ @TH
- Nils Sandin
Scott, this is not just about a Flickr account deletion. According to Shepherd, Heather was not aware of some of the comments that were deleted on the President's stream. The only way those comments could have been deleted (if not by flickr) would have been by Shepherd himself or someone who controls the President's stream. I've personally written to the White House on it and posted a...
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- Thomas Hawk
And there is no political bias on my part in this one. I voted for Obama and support him as my President even if I might not vote for him again. I'm a Democrat who believes strongly that censorship is wrong, even if it's done by a popular Democratic President.
- Thomas Hawk
Political speech does not and should not deserve a wider berth if the guy was breaking the rules. That should be entirely content agnostic.
- Richard Lawler
When are you going to realize that Obama and Bush policy wise are one and the same?
- John Blanton
from twhirl
Richard, the problem with that position is that the "rules" at flickr are very, very subjective. According to Shepherd, Heather told him his account was deleted because he posted a link to a detainee abuse photo and because he was "spamming" flickr, and yet Heather refused to define what "spamming" was and there is definitely no specific rule about not linking to detainee abuse photos....
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- Thomas Hawk
so in Flickr's subjective implementation of their rules? Yes, I do think that political speech should be given a wider berth. Not directly relevant, but U.S. Courts have consistently given political speech a wider berth when dealing with First Amendment issues.
- Thomas Hawk
If you think flickrs rules are bad then thats great, but its not censorship for them to have and enforce rules on their own website.This is not a first amendment issue and flickr shouldn't treat it as one, that amendment does not give you the rights being implied here. If your Dad sent a complaint to flickr about you posting his photo and you continued to repost it, then sure your stream should be deleted.
- Richard Lawler
Richard it is actually censorship if Flickr deletes an account. It might not be Govt. censorship (which also may or may not have taken place in this case). Censorship doesn't have to be Govt sponsored to be considered censorship. It may be *justifiable* censorship to you but it is still censorship.
- Thomas Hawk
No, it's censorship if they remove it because of the content, which is exactly why whether it is political speech or not should never come into play.
- Richard Lawler
Moral of the story: Don't be a dick.
- © b e e n s w a n k
Richard, Flickr did remove Shepherds account because of content. That's exactly why his account was deleted. Content of an image (detainee torture abuse) and content of his words (protesting the Obama administration) that they called spam but would not define.
- Thomas Hawk
You've decided it was the content based on their lack of a hard definition for spam, but that doesn't make it so. What he was doing doesn't serve for justification for how he went about doing it.
- Richard Lawler
Not sure anyone in this long thread has corrected the assumption that this is "censorship." Censorship is inherently a government act. If it's not an act of government, by definition, it isn't censorship.
- Jon Lebkowsky
At least, if you folow the strict, original defnition of the term. There's a huge issue here, but I don't see it as an issue of censorship.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Censorship by any definition is anyone preventing anyone else from fully using our right to free speech. .this is censorship of the worst kind.
- John Blanton
from twhirl
Jon: Censorship is not limited to government accts. Your confusing "censorship" with "government censorship," a common mistake that people make. Since you mention the definition of the term, check out the definition in the dictionary. Richard, according to Shepherd, his account was deleted in part for the photo and in part for what they call spamming (without any notice or warning I...
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- Thomas Hawk
Again, you have a right to free speech in /public/ - Flickr is a /private/ place. Just as you can dictate the speech that goes on in your own home, so can Flickr in their message boards. It may be censorship, but it is not infringing on your right to free speech We are all free to bitch about Flickr in public. So's the guy they dumped. Flickr is free to censor any damn thing they like...
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- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
It is censorship, but it's perfectly legal and "fine" for them to do, however offensive and inadvisable it may be
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Rob, I've never said his speech on Flickr is protected. I've never said that what Flickr did her was illegal. Flickr can censor me for wearing a green shirt if they want to. Nobody's disputing that. I'm saying it's bad policy and as one of the most active community members who has put thousands of hours into the site and thousands of pieces of content into the site, I think their...
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- Thomas Hawk
I do wish actually though that the White House would in fact address the question of whether or not they censor comments on their own Flickrstream. I think it's a fair question in light of Obama's oft promised new "transparency" in Govt.
- Thomas Hawk
Thomas: no you never said any of those things. And i have to agree that it's bad policy. I think in general censorship sucks no matter who does it. And definitely I think you're correct that the Obama Administration should address that question. It's a fair question regardless of promised "transparency" - it's a fair question because it is OUR government. (of, for, and BY the people, right?)But, we've sen on several occasions already that the Obama White House cannot & will not live up to it's promises.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
If this is just a debate over corporate policy, then perhaps we ought to stop slinging around emotionally-charged & easily-misconstrued words like 'censorship'. Calling it censorship implies that it's a First Amendment, freedom-of-speech issue. It isn't. P.S. To Rick Powell: nice ad hominem there.
- Pat Rice
Thanks Pat :) Well said.
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
Pat, calling it *government* censorship (which in fact may or may not have taken place here) implies that it's a First Amendment freedom-of-speech issue. Calling it censorship is simply stating what it is. If FriendFeed decided to delete a user's account for posting images of prison detainee abuse that would also be censorship. Fortunately for all of us, Friendfeed doesn't seem to be...
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- Thomas Hawk
It does suck, but we do have to remember that this type of censorship is also an exercise of freedom as well. No matter how much it sucks, it is Flickr's right to do it. (no matter how bad it is for their users, or their own company it's still their right -we are all free to engage in our own stupidity) "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire
- guruvan (Rob Nelson)
If I paint my message on the side of the Washington Monument, and the National Park Service sends somebody to wash it off, is that censorship?
- Pat Rice
"I will defend your right to say it" indeed - but I won't defend your right to yell it, say it over and over right in someone's face, or heckle in a public space. And I wont defend your right to say it by force to people who dont want to hear it. None of these are free speech - As soon as your speech infringes on the free speech or freedom of others, it's no longer free speech. If...
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- Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)
Sorry, Joelle, I can only say you've never encountered an issue where your passion and your politics overrode your sense of propriety, (I have) because that is what you are talking about now. Unless you have suddenly become a public figure at the level of the President of the United States. Free speech as a right protects us against the government, not against corporate assholes, which...
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- Rick Powell
OK, I'm guessing ppl following less ppl aren't seeing the TweetDeck errors. I just noticed Remaining API: 4494/20000
Scott, the update went fine for me. Suggest you reinstall Tweetdeck?
- Jon Lebkowsky
Photos taken around our house at Inks Lake.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Cooking up a good blog rant. I should do this more often -- it's cathartic.
Is it rare for you to rant on your blog?
- Jon Lebkowsky
Today is my nephew's 3rd birthday. I love him so much. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
Caleb's a very cute little guy, Uncle John.
- Jon Lebkowsky
Firefox is not my friend.
Are you more of an Opera guy then?
- Dean Kakridas
No, more of a "firefox crashed again, and at a very bad time" guy.
- Jon Lebkowsky
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