The Purpose of My Vermin Series (Online Vermin, Part 4)

Before moving on to finish my discussions of the final three types of online vermin (people with poor online communication habits), I’d like to take a moment to clarify what I seek to achieve with this series…

I’ve been wanting to write this series for a long time (years, really), but I kept hesitating because I realize that the topic of online communication styles can be viewed in an almost infinite variety of ways. All of these perspectives are equally valid. Mine is no more, and no less, valid than anyone else’s.

That said, I know from long experience online (and from talking to many, many others who have dabbled with and dived into the internet) that my experiences of online communications are not unique. That is, I am not the only person who considers the behaviors I’m describing in this series to be a problem. In fact, my experiences are rather common.

For some, the vermin-like behaviors I’m describing are a minor annoyance, easily ignored. For others they represent a serious obstacle to online interaction. It all depends on the people and situations involved, of course. We all have our own sensitivities.

Also (as I mentioned in the series intro), even the nicest, kindest internet users act like vermin at some point. We’re all human, and occasionally we are all subhuman, too. Myself included.

Frankly, I’m thoroughly frustrated with seeing people who have a great deal to offer the online world, and who could reap considerable benefits from it, curtail their online interactions because of the routine rudeness they encounter there. Also, I don’t like the way this friction is typically addressed – with the haughty assumption that people who strongly prefer civility shouldn’t be online in the first place. (In other words, “Get tough, get used to it, or get lost.”)

I DO NOT SUPPORT CENSORSHIP OR GENOCIDE

I respect freedom of communication so deeply that I believe everyone has a right to communicate in whatever way feels right to them – even badly. Even disastrously. I do not think anyone should be forced to communicate in a particular way.

Therefore, trolls who truly enjoy baiting people are free to do so. Also, people who prefer to act like online porcupines are free to scatter their quills far and wide. And so on.

Others are free to respond as they see fit. That’s where this series comes in.

Every style of communication has its niche in the online ecosystem. Indeed, occasionally a bout of vermin-like behavior has the beneficial effect of revitalizing a moribund community. However, as in real-world ecosystems, when an aggressive or noxious species overpowers its environment it becomes a nuisance – and a threat to the health of the overall environment.

This series is not intended to censor anyone. Nor am I calling for the wholesale eradication of any of the “species” I’m describing. I’m simply suggesting some ways to restore balance when online communication goes disastrously awry.

THE POINT: OPTIONS

This series offers practical, how-to advice for people who dislike encounters with the online communication styles I’m describing.

In other words, people who prefer civility online (let’s call them online civilians) should be free to peacefully shield themselves from online vitriol and abrasiveness. They should have viable options for standing their ground online without compromising their own sense of integrity. They shouldn’t have to resort to responses they find wasteful or distasteful – cowering, fleeing, or counterattacking.

Unfortunately, many online civilians (especially internet newbies) lack the knowledge, experience, and skills to effectively respond to difficult encounters with online vermin. Hence, I decided to organize my thoughts into this article series.

This series is an optional guide that can help some people have a better experience interacting online, without impinging on the rights of others to communicate freely. These strategies offer online civilians more leverage in their online interactions. They need not feel overpowered by vermin. Both denizens of the online world can peacefully coexist.

If internet users adopt these strategies widely, it’s likely that some online environments will become less hospitable to predominantly vermin-like behavior. That is not censorship – it’s evolution. Online civilians have struggled to survive in inhospitable communication environments for a long time – it’s about time those tables turned.

YOUR WORDS, YOUR CHOICE

If my information and advice resonates with you, feel free to apply it to your online interactions. If not, then that’s fine, too. I expected a fair amount of criticism and ridicule for this series, and I got it – as well as a fair amount of praise, too. Also a fair amount of misunderstanding. That’s par for the course online.

Ultimately, we all make our own choices about how to speak and listen. The human urge to communicate is innate, but communication skills must be learned and adapted constantly. The more communication skills we have, the more options we have for achieving our goals.

Communication serves both outward and inward purposes – that is, we communicate in ways that affect our inner world as well as the outer one. Consequently, some communication strategies which seem outwardly ineffective or counterproductive offer hidden inner benefits, such as bolstering a fragile ego or shielding oneself from doubt.

Bearing that inner/outer duality of communication in mind, I’d like to toss out a “Dr. Phil” question to those onliners who contend that their vermin-like behavior is just fine:

How’s that working for ya?
What benefits are you really getting from behaving abrasively?

Be honest. Think it over.

TO LABEL OR NOT TO LABEL?

Believe it or not, I truly struggled over my decision to devise a series of labeled categories as the structural basis for this series. Labels are useful for grasping and solidifying slippery concepts. They’re useful for quickly evaluating a situation and selecting a course of action. However, labels also are inherently divisive, and prone to oversimplification and misinterpretation.

As Nancy White wrote recently: “There is a huge set of people who may be perceived as vermin from one perspective, and as important parts of the online ecosystem from another. I’d like to pick out the gems here, and leave the vermin terminology behind.”

Nancy’s point is very valid. There were definitely advantages and disadvantages to the way I structured this article series.

I selected “vermin” labels because they sound plain-spoken, intuitive, and humorous to the target audience for the series (online civilians). However, I am fully aware that they probably sound ridiculous to those who disagree with my view, or derisive to people who treasure rough edges and friction in communication.

I could have chosen a less confrontational route, such as describing online communication behaviors in the context of Jungian psychological type theory (as Nancy White suggests). Or I could have avoided labeling behaviors altogether and simply listed response options.

However, I felt that this topic was already slippery enough. Academic jargon probably wasn’t going to resonate with most people. And if I only described response options, how would people know which situations to respond to, and when?

My goal here is to provide practical information to help online civilians take constructive action toward creating an online environment which allows them to thrive – without impinging on others’ rights. I believe the labels I chose support that goal, and I am aware that they also have disadvantages. Welcome to the wild world of linguistics.

So I took yet another editorial risk. Hey, what do you expect from a weblog called CONTENTIOUS? It’s too early yet to tell how well it’s working. Will history judge this series as constructive or destructive? Seminal or irrelevant? Probably somewhere in the middle of all that is my guess. We’ll see.

OK, back to my vermin discussion…

NEXT: Skewers: That’s Not What I Said!

PREVIOUSLY: Zealots: Let Them “Win”

INDEX AND INTRO to this series

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This entry was written by Amy Gahran and posted on February 3, 2005 at 3:34 pm and filed under Content Style & Business, Net Effects on Society. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Comments are closed, but you can leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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9 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

Doug (who publishes the fabulous blog All-Encompassingly) wrote: “There is a reason that ‘unpalatable truths’ serve better as the spice of communication… not the meat and potatoes.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself (because, obviously, I didn’t). You’re a far better writer than I, Doug. Thanks for cutting to the heart of my sprawling analogical morass.

- Amy Gahran

1. Amy Gahran on February 4th, 2005 at 6:28 am
Few people will voluntarily go where the assumption of random attacks outweighs the assumption of civility.

Exactly.

There is a reason that “unpalatable truths” serve better as the spice of communication…not the meat and potatoes.

2. doug on February 4th, 2005 at 5:52 am
Roger wrote, “Everything of value that I’ve learned online in the last fifteen years has come from someone who was unafraid to call a spade a shovel.”

I agree that occasionally a slap in the face (which is how a rude or prickly online comment generally comes across) can be an effective and valuable wake-up call or reality check.

That said, imagine that you walk into a room where everyone assumes complete impunity to slap your face – and many of them often do, for no immediately obvious reason besides a blatant lack of awareness or concern for civility, or perhaps for sheer entertainment. All those slaps are not useful information or “unpalatable truths.” They’re just random slaps. If you feel pain or stress from them, it doesn’t indicate that you’re hypersensitive. Nor does it justify slapping back in vengeance – really, what would that solve? But it would explain your choice to exit that room and never return.

I deeply value unpalatable truths. I encounter them on a regular basis. (Joy!) However, the people who deliver them have a wide range of options for how they accomplish this. In other words, how that information is transferred and absorbed depends on both the sender and the receipient. In my opinion, that burden does not rest solely on the recipient’s shoulders.

Yes, it’s good general advice for people to always moderate and take responsibility for their outward reactivity in any situation, virtual or physical. This is why in this series I have consistently recommended the first step in reacting to a perceived online barb is to PAUSE!

…Still, that does not absolve anyone of the responsibility for civility.

Consider this: Civility is the very basis of civilization. That’s why those words share a common Latin root (civitas). The key to why most of us are no longer living in caves is not the mastery of fire, technology, military might, medicine, agriculture, transportation, commerce, or even homebuilding. Civility. It’s a simple, mutual assumption that allows people to gather and interact by any means — virtual or physical.

Few people will voluntarily go where the assumption of random violence outweighs the assumption of civility.

IMHO, of course

- Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS

3. Amy Gahran on February 4th, 2005 at 5:15 am
“How’s that working for ya?
What benefits are you really getting from behaving abrasively?”

Everything of value that I’ve learned online in the last fifteen years has come from someone who was unafraid to call a spade a shovel. They’ve been male and female, achieved different levels of education, and come from a dizzying array of social backgrounds, but they all had one thing in common.

They recognized that in cyberspace, the only thing more important than owning your words is owning your feelings.

So you say something that truly offends me… so what? Are you my friend? Do I respect you? If so, then I need to do a gut-check and figure out why your honest opinion upsets me. Maybe you’re having a bad day, maybe you’ve misunderstood something… or maybe I’m missing something important.

Are you a stranger? If so, then why am I giving your random, easily ignored words the power to hurt me? What is wrong with me, that I would give you the authority to wound me?

Or put another way: as a writer, the first thing I owe my community is my truth, whatever form it might take. As a reader, the first thing I owe my community is the ability to control my own sensitivities when faced with unpalatable truth.

4. Roger Benningfield on February 4th, 2005 at 12:38 am
Amy isn’t done with the vermin…not by a long shot.
Okay I jumped the gun, as Amy pointed out in a comment on my site, she isn’t done with her online vermin series. She still …

5. View from the Isle - Professional Blogging & Blog Consulting on February 3rd, 2005 at 11:54 pm
Thank you for responding to my comment and I can honestly say, in the 9 years I have been on the internet, not once have I ever been accused of trolling behavior. I have always in RL been considered a fair and honest person and was simply calling it the way I see it. I understand why some people have a problem with direct statements, but please don’t confuse a forthright statement with trolling. It gives an appearance of “thinskinned”.

6. Anniee on February 3rd, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Amy, I am appreciating the cross-linking and thought-provocation your series has evoked. This has been a recent thread on the online facilitation Yahoo groups as well, and it is one of those things that surfaces again and again in our search to use this medium and, for some of us, to understand and make sense of it.

It is interesting too, to think of the archetypes that some might see as positive, and others perceive as less useful in a community. Optimist –> “Pollyanna,” Civil –> politically correct to the point of no value, Tolerant –> lets others ruin the community.

It seems that we manage this tacitly and pretty well in smaller groups. The social ties are pretty strong, there is some sense of identity and accountability and over time, some self selection. Like F2F, we figure out as a group and individually “how to handle the situation.”

But once the size grows beyond, lets say, 30-50, the disruptive influences seem to resonate more. So in a group of 1000 on an email list, there will be more churn due to dissatisfaction with one type or another (to make a very gross generalization). Individual behavior, because it is VISIBLE to all 1000 (which it rarely is in F2F groups) takes up more attention. And there will be less inclination to intervene. The social ties are weak. So the disruption seems disproportional in many cases to the act that provoked the disruption. Hm, I’m not sure I’m making sense.

I have to throw in a few more cents worth. I work often in global groups where the issue of labels is far more volatile than in more homogeneous groups. Where interpretation of a post as a barb or a keen sense of humor can tip the scales from conversation to flames. Finding a way to TALK about this stuff, without inciting an allergic reaction, is hard. There are no easy words to help us get an handle on it. No matter what you pick, it can offend. So we make choices to try and communicate our thinking, knowing it risks condemnation because the internet is permeable, boundary spanning and thus inherently messy.

I’d much prefer the challenge of the messiness and the risk of misunderstanding over missing the chance to connect and learn. So it’s worth it. Gee, I’m on a soap box. Better step off and go get some chocolate!

7. Nancy White on February 3rd, 2005 at 7:20 pm
Thanks, Anniee, for reminding me of another topic I wish to explore in CONTENTIOUS at a later point: The common fallacy in our society that the only people who may legitimately discuss or comment upon a topic are people who are formally trained or degreed in that area.

Also, this series (in fact, this entire weblog) is about communication. I would say that journalism and communication are at least somewhat related fields.

I appreciate your effort to enhance this series by providing such a perfect example of trolling behavior.

(And yes, I am here deliberately demonstrating the risky, backfire-prone “ridicule response” to trolling.)

Always a pleasure,

- Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS

8. Amy Gahran on February 3rd, 2005 at 7:14 pm
With all due respect, your degree is in journalism, yes? Not psychology. I find it somewhat disconcerting the way journalists these days present themselves as experts in fields they have absolutely no training in.

9. Anniee on February 3rd, 2005 at 6:54 pm