Civility

 

Preamble

Like many others, I have watched the Kathy Sierra saga unfold. Before this, I had no idea who she was. I cannot recall reading an article of hers, and I certainly wasn't subscribed. I have no idea who is right and who is wrong in this sorry tale, and this essay will have nothing further to say in respect of that but I do want to acknowledge the origin.

The proximate cause of this essay is the proposal by Tim O'Reilly for a Bloggers Code of Conduct and, in particular, his draft code.

For reference, the 'agile manifesto' version is:

1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.
2. We won't say anything online that we wouldn't say in person.
3. We connect privately before we respond publicly.
4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
5. We do not allow anonymous comments.
6. We ignore the trolls.

My intention here is not to take a stance on the particulars of this nascent code of conduct. Rather, I was interested to see the reaction to it. I suspect that many will be able to sign up to some points, but not all. For example, anonymous comments seem to be an issue, as Scoble says I'm not able to currently sign this, either. First I allow anonymous comments.. I wonder how many other "A-List" bloggers have similar concerns?

This set me to thinking. As I thought about it, I gravitated towards the following guiding principle:

A community problem should have a community solution.

Using this principle, what might a solution look like? Here is my concept.

Rating Civility

Who has the right to rate content? I think that two groups do:

Publishers

Of course, publishers can take the nuclear option and prevent publication. But if publication is permitted, publishers clearly have the right to make a claim as to the civility of the content. For Scoble, this claim might be 'anything goes'. For others, this might be 'moderated against hate' - I think that Iain Dale probably falls into this category as he proactively turns comment moderation on/off depending on the current temperature. As I read it - Tim has focused on this aspect.

Readers

For me, rating by readers is the other side of the coin. Who defines what civility is? On the one hand, a reader might be a regular slashdot reader who probably has a thick skin for the 'rough of and tumble of debate'. On the other hand, a reader might have certain religious sensibilities and take offence to comments that the secular consider reasonable. In other words, civility is in the eye of the beholder.

So, having identified two groups - what should the rating model be?

Publishers

The appropriate model for publishers is declarative. That is to say that the claim is published as content.

Readers

The appropriate model for readers is collaborative. Think "birds of a feather flock together".

Declarative Rating Model

The simplest way to make a civility claim on content is to follow embed the claim in the same way that Creative Commons licenses are embedded. You can see a practical example on my HTTP/1.1 diagram.

Collaborative Rating Model

This model is less straightforward than declarative rating. What is needed for this to work are browser extensions. To illuminate, I have prepared some simple user stories:

User browses to content with "my rating group" information available

An indication is shown of the collective opinion of "my rating group" of the civility of this content.

This is considered to be civil content by "my rating group"

This is not considered to be civil content by "my rating group"

This may or may not be considered civil content by "my rating group"

User browses to content with no "my rating group" information available, but with a publisher claim

An indication is shown of the publisher claim of the civility of this content.

This is considered to be civil content by the publisher

The publisher permits any kind of content

The publisher moderates this content

User browses to content with no "my rating group" information available and no publisher claim

An indication is shown of the lack of content rating or claim.

User provides feedback on the content

A menu of options is displayed.

Please note that I have used text for clarity, but I imagine that someone better at graphics than me can come up with icons and push the text into a tooltip.

These user stories are intended to be illustrative, rather than normative. I decided against mapping out an application architecture or design but I would like to make the observation that I imagine this to be based on a standardised message format and application protocol so that different groups would be able to host 'rating services' independently.

Conclusion

By providing a community-based solution in this fashion, I believe that there will be more buy-in. Furthermore, by making the civility models optional - free speech is not impeded.