Lisa Stone introduces the panel. Invites people to come up and use the mic when participating in discussion. and to introduce themselves and their blog before they talk.
Tiffany Brown blackfeminism.org, wine blog,
Melinda Casino Sour Duck, anger and feminism. blogher.org
Barb Dybwad blogging since 2001. weblogs inc. assoc editor
Lisa Stone founder of blogher.org
Why affinity groups. Kind of the question "Why do all the black kids eat at the same table at lunch every day. "
Barb: We seek affinity groups. We don't want to feel alone, we want to share goals, solve problems. People with interests like scuba diving, cycling, etc. share interests. What is so peculiar about it? Yet it ticks people off.
Melinda agrees. It's not like it's new. What is new is that it's online, geographically dispersed. Net allows connection. Validation. The feminist rage page produces the most excellent feminist writing around. In the blogging context - people can produce longer essays. More ownership. Usenet... blogging gives more communal space. (I think she means authors have more space to stake out their own identity.) It's revitalizing, leads to action. For example, the book "Our Bodies, Ourselves". Started from consciousness raising, anger at medical establishment, led to channeling to constructive action. It impacted the medical industry.
Tiffany - the "why" comes in because your race, your gender, sexual orientation are not things you choose, they're things you're born with.
[well, not always. I can choose my sexual orientation and gender...]
Tiffany - sense of cameraderie - starting movements.
Al Cheng. no blog . Race, gender.... pushing that out of public life. Part of ourselves in the public sphere that people have been avoiding. Maybe that's why people feel weird about it... it's out of the workplace.... etc. Where else to talk about it?
Barb - Because those conversations aren't happening in public discourse.
Melinda - Once you're out of college there is no path to have those conversations other than online.
Lisa - The Indigo Girls... started their own scene, moved into the mainstream. Spike Lee... mule film... then was able to move into the mainstream. [like a greenhouse, a protected environment.]
Lisa - question she gets is "forming private club" - is it a negative thing, exclusionary
Melinda - Self-segregation is incredibly useful. Different strands of feminism -all forming a community that's supportive and educational. The risk is that things get stale, become uninteresting if group is too insulated, too much of a closed circle . We all need ideas from outside. More importanly it's bad when groups don't introduce their ideas to the outside. frex, radical feminism, hitched its star to separatism. which killed it.
Lisa - I get the same question, whether it's BlogHer or women's colleges.
Tiffany - we saw this last year at blogher. When you have woman-centric space, black-centric... queer-centric - you lose the chatter. You don't have to spend all your energy educating people. You can focus on what you can do as a group. The energy is different. You don't have to defend, compete, you can invent an agenda, figure things out, get more done.
Ruby: The assumption of the question is that we have to get power from hanging onto white men.... I hang out with them, in fact am in a committed heterosexual relationship... it's not like I never talk to men...
Marshall - also in a committed heterosexual relationship. He disagrees. Imagine he works for a national magazine. Readership is about 95% white upper class. We want it branded as a site for well educated wealthy people. Even gating the site. How this plays out?
Liza Sabater — Culturekitchen - the assumption being that only white people are rich. Not.
Marshall - I'm not making that assumption at all.
Liza - Did you hear what you said? The assumption is that whoever buys your magazine is exactly this demographic... this is something that happens over and over with product launches, with Web 2.0 products - everyone speaks English, everyone upper class, etc. When actually the huge online communities right now are in Brazil, Latin America, etc. Well duh, of course, it's on the web, people are going to come from everywhere. From tech perspective, American companies are shooting themselves in the foot, they don't look at diversity, there are rich people all over the world.
Marshall... blah blah blah. Gated. We know our demographic.
Barb - the issue of power. Those rich white people, they can make those spaces already. We have them already. Like, Congress. (general laughter) Whereas if i'm making a space for dykes on the web...it's much harder...
Joe... with the army. Soldiers... they're out blogging. the dynamic they're bringing... to their letters home in email or blogs, has caused a lot of stir at the level he's working at. Do you close that off? And put it on an in-place system for soldiers to talk amongst themsleves w/out it being a public discussion. What do you take away from that online conversastion? What are you doing to that population by doing that?
Tiffany - you get an echo chamber. That's what happens. When you close it off, when you only read liberal blogs, or feminist blogs, a lot of agreement going on. You never see other perspectives. That's the danger of having a private space. It may not matter for a magazine, but for political movements you need to step outside. Understand your enemies... hate to put it like that but...
Joe - In your organizations, have you set it up for actual private sites? Or private in that only people going there can post?
Tiffany - Mo, not for my site. But when you come to my site, blackfeminism.org you know the focus will be on race and gender.
Lisa Stone - You need to be a registered member on blogher to comment or post. We have a policy of civil disagreement, all public, all readable. But with regard to our own brand, transparency has been a real value for blogher. segue... We've been talking about a continuum. At some point I needed to incubate (as a single mother) and talk only to other people in my position. Then increasingly concerned about ways single parents are stereotyped and typecast. Then began to talk more widely... For soldiers, you're just putting it off. They're going to do it anyway. You're just deciding whether you want to deal with the soliders and their families now, or later.
Joe - [I missed what he said. Damn!]
Grace Davis - On blogher advisory board, mommyblogger, etc. for Blogher space, having rules of engagement is important. ways of moderating. Grace talks about woolfcamp.
JW Richard - digitaldrums.net african american-, african- influenced podcasters. Leave it open to interpretation. African-influenced. Open on purpose, in and out of the united states, and I never said it had to be all black.
Elisa Camahort - blogher — to your point about influence. We are focused on a certain area. Come hang out if you want to look at that. You don't have to be exactly like me. Self-selecting, and people self-select themselves right out when they could perfectly well be involved in something.
Tiffany - on blackfeminism.org it's about topics. "Blackness" to distinguish between inside and outside. If you've experienced being the other. That's what blackness is about. Everybody can relate to that on some level.
Paul Cheney - radiant marketing group. I was around when blogher got going. I am typical white male guy and I think this rocks.
Lisa - We want people to feel welcome etc. But what happens when angry things happen...
Dybwad - We need balance in these approaches. Just because we want to have an exclusive space doesn't mean we aren't open to other communities. We all have to live in the world, interact with people. With people who are not like us. Goals to accomplish is a good time to open it up. "We've identified these problems, these are the goals" then, "can you help us with that?"
Andrew - How many of you have been on a private mailing list in a space/topic that you also cover in a more public space. How does that work?
lisa - i don't.
[I do - in poetry and also in SF, two feminist lists. And what happens is that people who see both see a depth of information... layers of information. And anyone who thinks about that should try to give other people's groups a bit of the assumption they have the same depth of information without it being hypocrisy.]
Tiffany - Not necessarily on same issues, but the more closed off, the discussions are deeper, more heated. You don't want to risk being flamed, set off a blogger fight. level of politeness. civil discourse.
Lisa - Is anger to be avoided then?
Tiffany - I try to... sort of? I try to be careful... I really have to be careful, because if you are a woman and a black person your anger tends to be dismissed as hysteria, separatist, etc... so, I try to avoid those kind of battles... ranting... makes you look foolish.
Me (interrupting ) Makes you look foolish to who?
Tiffany: It hurts your credibility.
Jory - to Marshall... affluent white didn't bother me at all, but gated did.
Ron Crose - works with professional athletes - anger, diff levels of exclusivity with athlete - access to content. What are your suggestions... when someone like that becomes irate. Or influences others against your web site.
Lisa: Do you mean you had someone who was angry....
[Sounds like Ron had someone who was a member of a group, who then attacked it... I lost the thread. But this was interesting!]
( I think anger and ranting can be useful and productive and in fact is necessary.)
Lisa - Question to panelists: how to tell someone i think this is sexism, etc.? What role should anger play or not play?
Tiffany - Don't respond to anger with anger. The internet makes people brave.
Melinda - Rage can be constructive. feministrage page, feminist action sister page.
[ What if the problem is being framed by those in power in such a way that politeness and civility is not the appropriate response. That is a trap especially for women. In fact it breaks the frame to respond in a way that is irrational or angry. We need it. And, anger is not the end of the world, and is not the point that should stop a conversation. Physical violence or its threat is the end of conversation. ]
Guy up front : Control, does there need to be policies, guidelines?
Barb - [missed it... dammit]
Guy up front: Is it more likely to be flame wars when talking about race, gender, etc
Barb - are you kidding, have you seen the mac vs pc wars...
Lisa - [I missed this]
Paige - blogher CE - on livejournal, feminist rage page - when they first began it you would not want to mention it to anyone. They had to put controls on it. LJ rep taken into consideration, moderators delete comemnts. Paige thinks it's destructive to have the moderation. Melinda - disagrees. [I note that this is the same fundamental political disagreement I have with Ide Cyan]
Me- What I said above in brackets... and good thing Lisa called on me because i was about to burst.
Nancy White of Full Circle — Having a safe space to work through anger makes it possible to have better conversations. It's easy to run away. We have to invest in working through anger. Online is real life. Offline it's not a set rule of anger/no anger. Negotiating within the group of what will happen. Site for babies in the nicu. Their babies override other political issues. They are fighting hard for the nicu care. In another context they would be fighting over abortion or religion.
Liza - thinkking of mike karpanski - (??) Little green footballs - conservative women bloggers with open comments? Are there any? Michele Malkin doesn't have open comments. Is it this deal of dealing with anger? Is it a progressive/liberal thing? What? More so than in the more conservative right wing communities?
Lisa - has covered politics on both sides, must disagree... women on both sides have open or closed comments. mrs. greyhawk, lisa metnions other bloggers, get them later....
Belinda: These comments on anger have got my brain reeling. One of the simple things - tone thing. I am a writer and get a lot of hate mail and email. When I gets hate mail I respond in a civil manner. And they usually appologize... like "Well I'm sorry I called you a spic." (general laughter) Like, if they're reading me, that's kind of a cool thing, even though you're an asshole. One time I let myself lose control and responded very sarcastically and he missed the tone. (something about the idea of exclusivity. )
[I'm thinking that... in a closed group, there is more room for disagreement, because people aren't going to attack you from outside on that disagreement and exploit it.]
Belinda - Being insular, isn't that a problem, but... no that problem isn't on the blogosphere [it's in the real world]. We need to teach our children about it. I'll watch Fox news for 15 minutes... and go, "well shit. now i know what those people are thinking."
Simon - tech industry. Several people said this space is a projection of human society. You can't solve any problem there you can't solve elsewhere. You can't fix trolls any more than you can stop public speaking on corners. 10,000 person community, 650,000 person community, full time community manager, hired to go and be a human being to go and mediate when a problem breaks out. That's the only thing you can do. The way I run my tech site, people may regard me as excluding different languages or whatever... seems to me that transparency and dialogue are the ways to help situations.
Lisa - are there policies laid out...
Simon - No we don't have them laid out. But we've never needed to kick someone out of a community. each time a bad situation arises... we talk... [I missed some stuff, was thinking intensely about my mudding experiences]
Lisa - Interesting you decided that ... a lot of us feel that community guidelines are useful and helpful...
Lisa - bonus question... for panel. Turning the tables on ourselves. We do consistently work to evangelize ourselves. Name a person or group you think you should work to get to know and understand.
barb dywad - Scoble. I think he means well, somewhere in there. (laughter)
Melinda - my first reaction was "screw this." For example, the panel tomorrow, "whose butt should be we kicking? " This slides too well into whose butt should be be kissing? Anyway, read blackademic.
[I'm on that panel and I hope Melinda can come! Because that isn't what we will be saying.]
Tiffany — blackademic, courtney is so great. Everyone should read it. for me, i have two people, La Shawn Barber - black xtian conservative blogger. And i'd like to have a chat with her, to understand where she is coming from. Also Dave Winer. (laughter) Blogging from the outside... someone how she [i missed who this was about] changed the power dynamics... and dave winer was super angry... i think he missed the point
Lisa Stone - I should have a little sit down with tony perkins. (laughter)
Lisa - there are discussions like this.... with so many people in the room... please everyone in this room, all go one place and list your blogs. Tiffany, can we all go to one of your posts and leave our urls in the comments?
Tiffany - Sure, i'll create a post and you can do that. give me a few minutes...*applause*
Afterwards a bunch of people talked with Marshall about the "upper class gated site" and got what he was trying to say. Because (to me, certainly) during the panel he came off as... it was like he was saying "but we elitist people get to have our own groups too". But actually... he is a very liberal/progressive guy, and was trying to say, what happens that's not good when, say, wealthy super-educated people have their own private groups? How to do that for what they need it for, that's good, and have it not be "bad"? What to look out for? How to have that privacy they need to talk about their own issues w/out having to defend themselves (like any affinity group) without being jerks? I understood then he was saying that it is hard work to cross class boundaries. For example they want to talk amongst themselves about philanthropy. I can see that... Anyway!
Then for quite a while a group of us talked with Lt. Col. Joe ... oh hell I forgot his last name. But he was a very well-spoken guy. Nancy White says she thinks used to be part of his company command online group... a community of practice group of company commanders. Anyway. Joe talked about it and also talked about general policies and politics and ethics of the army, of blogging from the army, of what you agree to when you sign up to be in the army, and why, and how it's enforced. It was extremely interesting. I got into it a little bit with him that no matter what you sign and no matter the usefulness and goodness (sometimes) of nationalism or patriotism, there is still a basic point of humanity where individuals must make moral decisions to obey an order, or keep a secret, or not. He had a very good answer for that which was that ... keeping a lid on 20 people like me in the army would be more trouble than it was worth, which is why we don't have conscription anymore. (I countered with economic arguments... which he countered again.) We had a lot more discussion, that was very good... and I really liked Joe. I noticed he did not deny what I said about individual ethical responsibility. A very cool dude and I had a lot of respect for him!
technorati tags: sxswi, blogher, sxsw2006, privacy, public discourse, blogging, communities
on reading this over i can see all these ways that it was a reallly hard conversation and a lot of us missed what the other people were saying. because everyone was being so careful, partly. the whole panel, i thought, started out very slow. but then got intense. I have way more to say about this!
Posted by: badgerbag | March 11, 2006 at 09:17 PM
I need to write a whole other very angry conversation that didn't happen, between Solanis Dworkin, radicalesbian separatist Straw Feminist, and Fortune 500 company CEO Mr. Manly White III, rich sexist Straw Dude. Because that conversation that didn't happen would illuminate the one that did happen or started to happen.
Posted by: badgerbag | March 11, 2006 at 09:34 PM
Wow, totally fascinating. Found myself reacting and wanting to chime in constantly.
Posted by: Jo | March 12, 2006 at 06:26 AM
During Ariel Sharons peace expedition to the Temple Mount in 2000, several Palestinian rockets were fired at the Dome of the Rock. In the rubble of the Palestinian induced violence against the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon Her, a portrait of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon Her, was recovered. This portrait clearly shows that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon Her, was a Jewish woman.
Posted by: the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon Her | March 12, 2006 at 01:06 PM
Um, yeah, Mo. If you say so.
This all (not the comment from Mohammed, but everything else) reminded me of some post you (or maybe Grace) linked to several months ago, about online communities and how they all follow the same pattern of destructive comments, infighting, etc. Because there are certain laws of groups and societies, and they play out over and over.
Posted by: elswhere | March 12, 2006 at 01:22 PM
Hi Liz,
You did a pretty good job liveblogging - many many thanks for doing this!
I've given it an initial skim and just want to add that when I read Blackademic out loud, near the end, I also included the following blogs:
Woman of Color Blog
Marian's Blog
Slant Truth
Plus I said that I thought the question was one step away from begging for a link from A-list bloggers - and why were we using the panel to publicize them more? They don't need more publicity from us. Etc. Something like that.
You did a good job, though. I'm writing up my SXSW notes and will be publishing them soon.
Best,
SD
Posted by: Sour Duck | March 21, 2006 at 05:08 PM
Thanks SD!!! I should go back and clean this post up.
Posted by: badgerbag | March 21, 2006 at 06:11 PM