Digital ownership
But not in the way you think.
I haven't spoken in a while about my core idea for floof, and it's sort of gelled a bit, so I want to try to express it again. It's not about anything technological, really; nor is it just about categorization (though that's always awesome).
What I really want to do is strip out all the contrived areas of private control that plague sites like DA.
Wait, that sounds bad! Hang on, give me a minute here.
You know wikis? The main attraction is the articles. They're publicly-editable, yes, but ultimately they're only each put together by a fixed set of people. Sometimes, only a few people. Sometimes, just one guy.
Every article has a talk page, where people can talk about issues with the article, and occasionally stray a bit and talk about the content of the article itself.
But here's the thing: nobody would ever claim that the talk page is owned by the people who worked on the article. That's ridiculous. The talk page is public space. If you make a scene on the talk page, you're making a public spectacle of yourself, and inflicting it on absolutely anyone who comes by.
Forums are much the same. Some people may lay claim to big threads they created and upkeep, but they don't own those threads or generally have any power over them. If someone's being a douchebag, he's being a douchebag to the entire forums, not to the particular thread, and he's punished appropriately. Or, should be, whatever.
Now consider deviantArt.
User X posts some art. User Y comes along and comments on it.
Not only does X have the power to remove Y's comment-thereby preventing the entire general public from also seeing that comment-but X has the power to prevent Y from ever commenting again in the future.
Worse, say X comments on something user Z owns. In the case of dA, the block leaks across, and Y cannot reply to X's comment. So now this power has infected Z's space, as well.
This all seems silly. These are art galleries, are they not? Do brick-and-mortar art galleries have the artist standing next to his/her work with a tranq gun, ready to silence any commentary they don't like?
And so the most radical thing I want to do is thus, which I'm not sure has ever been done before on a community-ish site.
No blocking.
If you have irreconcilable differences with someone, you can instead push a button and ignore that person. Comment threads started by that user will vanish entirely. His/her art won't show up anywhere. Nothing an ignored user does will trigger a notification to you or otherwise be visible in any way, ever.
Rationale:
1. Ultimately, the comments aren't yours. The art is, of course! But the comments are just the input of passers-by. This isn't your blog or Facebook; it's a shared art collection. Having a complicated system of prohibitions around who can talk about the art just strikes me as fundamentally backwards.
2. If some guy is inflicting enough distress on the site, then he should be banned. (Possibly temporarily. Possibly not.)
3. Your judgement is not necessarily perfect or even very good. Maybe you have an itchy trigger finger. Maybe the guy was having a bad day. Maybe you're an asshole, who knows. Let your viewers gauge for themselves whether they want to see what this person has to say.
4. Blocking doesn't make you less mad; it just stops you from getting more mad. You can still see the existing comments, and you can still stumble across the person elsewhere. It'll scab something over, but you're free to keep picking at it.
5. The absolute most reliable way I've ever seen to defuse an internet argument is to stop replying. Blocking is a slap in the face to the other party, which breeds resentment and bitterness that I do not need on my amazing website. Ignoring (and subsequently going quiet) lets the whole thing fade away.
6. Whose blocklist should take precedence in the case of e.g. collaborations? Ignore circumvents that problem entirely.
7. USENET did it, and just look where they are now!
Of course, there would also not be comment deletion. And to compensate for the shift in "ownership", I'd think people should be held far more accountable for what they say in public. You shouldn't need to be a prick to 200 different people before attracting administrative attention.
Crazy? Brilliant? Vociferous?! Let me know!
I haven't spoken in a while about my core idea for floof, and it's sort of gelled a bit, so I want to try to express it again. It's not about anything technological, really; nor is it just about categorization (though that's always awesome).
What I really want to do is strip out all the contrived areas of private control that plague sites like DA.
Wait, that sounds bad! Hang on, give me a minute here.
You know wikis? The main attraction is the articles. They're publicly-editable, yes, but ultimately they're only each put together by a fixed set of people. Sometimes, only a few people. Sometimes, just one guy.
Every article has a talk page, where people can talk about issues with the article, and occasionally stray a bit and talk about the content of the article itself.
But here's the thing: nobody would ever claim that the talk page is owned by the people who worked on the article. That's ridiculous. The talk page is public space. If you make a scene on the talk page, you're making a public spectacle of yourself, and inflicting it on absolutely anyone who comes by.
Forums are much the same. Some people may lay claim to big threads they created and upkeep, but they don't own those threads or generally have any power over them. If someone's being a douchebag, he's being a douchebag to the entire forums, not to the particular thread, and he's punished appropriately. Or, should be, whatever.
Now consider deviantArt.
User X posts some art. User Y comes along and comments on it.
Not only does X have the power to remove Y's comment-thereby preventing the entire general public from also seeing that comment-but X has the power to prevent Y from ever commenting again in the future.
Worse, say X comments on something user Z owns. In the case of dA, the block leaks across, and Y cannot reply to X's comment. So now this power has infected Z's space, as well.
This all seems silly. These are art galleries, are they not? Do brick-and-mortar art galleries have the artist standing next to his/her work with a tranq gun, ready to silence any commentary they don't like?
And so the most radical thing I want to do is thus, which I'm not sure has ever been done before on a community-ish site.
No blocking.
If you have irreconcilable differences with someone, you can instead push a button and ignore that person. Comment threads started by that user will vanish entirely. His/her art won't show up anywhere. Nothing an ignored user does will trigger a notification to you or otherwise be visible in any way, ever.
Rationale:
1. Ultimately, the comments aren't yours. The art is, of course! But the comments are just the input of passers-by. This isn't your blog or Facebook; it's a shared art collection. Having a complicated system of prohibitions around who can talk about the art just strikes me as fundamentally backwards.
2. If some guy is inflicting enough distress on the site, then he should be banned. (Possibly temporarily. Possibly not.)
3. Your judgement is not necessarily perfect or even very good. Maybe you have an itchy trigger finger. Maybe the guy was having a bad day. Maybe you're an asshole, who knows. Let your viewers gauge for themselves whether they want to see what this person has to say.
4. Blocking doesn't make you less mad; it just stops you from getting more mad. You can still see the existing comments, and you can still stumble across the person elsewhere. It'll scab something over, but you're free to keep picking at it.
5. The absolute most reliable way I've ever seen to defuse an internet argument is to stop replying. Blocking is a slap in the face to the other party, which breeds resentment and bitterness that I do not need on my amazing website. Ignoring (and subsequently going quiet) lets the whole thing fade away.
6. Whose blocklist should take precedence in the case of e.g. collaborations? Ignore circumvents that problem entirely.
7. USENET did it, and just look where they are now!
Of course, there would also not be comment deletion. And to compensate for the shift in "ownership", I'd think people should be held far more accountable for what they say in public. You shouldn't need to be a prick to 200 different people before attracting administrative attention.
Crazy? Brilliant? Vociferous?! Let me know!