Blogosphere: March 2008 Archives
When the weekly market or bazaar opened in a town, the owners of the stalls who were selling their wares anticipated that people would come into town from all over the region, so they would have a large customer base. The last thing they wanted to do was to stand around and have coffee with the other stall-owners all day. It's the same thing with an online community. A NOLA community is not about a bunch of established bloggers reading and commenting on each other's blogs; that's going to happen anyway. A community site is like the market; the goal is to attract a wide audience.
A more modern metaphor to the bazaar would be the shopping mall. Even established stores with other locations will open up in a mall, because the concentration of options for the buyer means (hopefully) a lot of customers. Again, the store owners don't want their employees standing in the entrance chatting with the folks who work down the mall, they expect the location to attract a wide range of customers. A shopping mall offers a number of options for a business owner. You can open up a very small storefront, or lease enough space for this to become your primary location.
The "stall owners" in an online community site have the same options. They can maintain a minimal presence on the site, say one blog entry every couple of weeks. Perhaps they'll go further than that and post every few days, or even post the one-per-day blog entry maximum. Unlike the mall, there are no financial limitations here; everyone can post the maximum if they choose. The site's FP bloggers may even post more frequently, depending on scheduling.
Who will occupy the stalls in the bazaar? Initially established bloggers will share their content with the community. Think of this as the restaurant that opens up a small outlet in the mall food court. They cook everything up at their main location and bring it over for sale at the mall. If "business" picks up (indicated by the number of recommendations and comments received), a blogger will no doubt put more time and effort into the writing they do for the community.
The hope here is that others will come into the community to read and comment. There's nothing that says they have to blog themselves, just come in and participate. As a reader's interest level increases, no doubt they'll be inspired to start blogging. For example, if an established blogger does a post on Da Saints, a community member might realize that they have enough knowledge to chime in and be as credible as the blogger. Eventually we may even see Front Page bloggers who have "come up through the ranks" in this manner.
It's not about bloggers, it's about people. With a platform and structure that facilitate community participation, non-blogger users of Teh Internetz will discover that the community site is more attractive than the foulness of nola.com.
A more modern metaphor to the bazaar would be the shopping mall. Even established stores with other locations will open up in a mall, because the concentration of options for the buyer means (hopefully) a lot of customers. Again, the store owners don't want their employees standing in the entrance chatting with the folks who work down the mall, they expect the location to attract a wide range of customers. A shopping mall offers a number of options for a business owner. You can open up a very small storefront, or lease enough space for this to become your primary location.
The "stall owners" in an online community site have the same options. They can maintain a minimal presence on the site, say one blog entry every couple of weeks. Perhaps they'll go further than that and post every few days, or even post the one-per-day blog entry maximum. Unlike the mall, there are no financial limitations here; everyone can post the maximum if they choose. The site's FP bloggers may even post more frequently, depending on scheduling.
Who will occupy the stalls in the bazaar? Initially established bloggers will share their content with the community. Think of this as the restaurant that opens up a small outlet in the mall food court. They cook everything up at their main location and bring it over for sale at the mall. If "business" picks up (indicated by the number of recommendations and comments received), a blogger will no doubt put more time and effort into the writing they do for the community.
The hope here is that others will come into the community to read and comment. There's nothing that says they have to blog themselves, just come in and participate. As a reader's interest level increases, no doubt they'll be inspired to start blogging. For example, if an established blogger does a post on Da Saints, a community member might realize that they have enough knowledge to chime in and be as credible as the blogger. Eventually we may even see Front Page bloggers who have "come up through the ranks" in this manner.
It's not about bloggers, it's about people. With a platform and structure that facilitate community participation, non-blogger users of Teh Internetz will discover that the community site is more attractive than the foulness of nola.com.
If you've ever worked on a group project, you know how difficult it is to produce a quality product when everyone is an equal. Even on a jury, someone is elected foreman, to facilitate communication with the judge. Successful developments in many fields are solo efforts, dual-partnerships at best. Development by committee rarely produces a quality product.
This project will be a sole proprietorship from a business standpoint. That doesn't mean this is will be a top-down dictatorship, mind you; I see two roles of the site owner. The first deals with the legal/financial aspects of any business. Because I'm using my bandwidth (seashell software's business account with Cox), and my server, initial startup costs are small. This is one of the reasons I can move forward quickly. I'm going to continue to lay out the vision I have for the site in more essays, but the short version from the business side is that I'd love to see it make lots of money from blogads/adsense/whatever, as well as contributions from the community. The ultimate goal here is to generate the revenue to be able to do what Markos does, sponsor paid fellowships for FP bloggers and have a paid tech support person.
The second role is the whole buck-stops-here thing. Again, I don't see this role as a top-down dictatorship, but rather as an ultimate arbitrator for the community. There will be times when decisions will have to be made, and I'll be the ultimate court of appeal in those circumstances. The goal here is for me to be the ultimate appeal; hopefully the decisions will work themselves out at the community level first.
To return to the bazaar metaphor, I'm the guy who owns the property where the bazaar is set up. You own your stall, and the contents in side it. The rules of the bazaar are worked out amongst the various stall-owners. They also (for the most part) set the standards for conduct amongst themselves. When they cannot work things out, they turn to the owner of the property.
In terms of site management, I welcome input. The process will always be transparent.
Comments are once again turned off; go to the Forums to discuss, please.
This project will be a sole proprietorship from a business standpoint. That doesn't mean this is will be a top-down dictatorship, mind you; I see two roles of the site owner. The first deals with the legal/financial aspects of any business. Because I'm using my bandwidth (seashell software's business account with Cox), and my server, initial startup costs are small. This is one of the reasons I can move forward quickly. I'm going to continue to lay out the vision I have for the site in more essays, but the short version from the business side is that I'd love to see it make lots of money from blogads/adsense/whatever, as well as contributions from the community. The ultimate goal here is to generate the revenue to be able to do what Markos does, sponsor paid fellowships for FP bloggers and have a paid tech support person.
The second role is the whole buck-stops-here thing. Again, I don't see this role as a top-down dictatorship, but rather as an ultimate arbitrator for the community. There will be times when decisions will have to be made, and I'll be the ultimate court of appeal in those circumstances. The goal here is for me to be the ultimate appeal; hopefully the decisions will work themselves out at the community level first.
To return to the bazaar metaphor, I'm the guy who owns the property where the bazaar is set up. You own your stall, and the contents in side it. The rules of the bazaar are worked out amongst the various stall-owners. They also (for the most part) set the standards for conduct amongst themselves. When they cannot work things out, they turn to the owner of the property.
In terms of site management, I welcome input. The process will always be transparent.
Comments are once again turned off; go to the Forums to discuss, please.
(x-posted to Keyboard Networking and YatPundit)
Since the NOLA Bloggers Bazaar project is definitely moving forward, I want to lay out some of my thoughts on, as Bush 41 would say, "the vision thing."
Initially, I thought it sufficient to say that I wanted to start a community for New Orleans that was based structurally like Daily Kos, MyDD, or RedState. I was surprised to see how many experienced bloggers did not understand what I have in mind.
One of the ideas being floated by local bloggers was to build a site that would serve as an aggregater to make it easier for folks to read and comment on the blogs participating. It's an ambitious and worthy project, but it's not a community. It won't give those coming to the site a sense of ownership. That's the goal here, a dynamic community where members feel they're part of something.
One of the things that makes a community like DailyKos so successful is that the platform, the Scoop software package, allows members to do several things:
Comment on the "Front Page" (FP) stories.
Create their own blogs (called "diaries" on Scoop sites), including their own online polls.
Rate the quality of individual blogs by "recommending" them.
Allow site managers to "promote" individual blogs to the FP.
Rate comments posted by users, positively and negatively.
There are many Content Management Systems that have the first two features, but the others are crucial to building a solid community. If the only people able to recognize the good work of a diarist are the site's managers, the hierarchy created discourages participation. Invariably, personality issues will pop up, accusations of favoritism, etc. When a blog entry is positively rated by the community, it goes on the "recommended list," and becomes featured. (That entry can still be promoted to the FP as well).
Allowing community members to rate comments is also crucial. The nola.com website now has a number of blogs, and comments there are often pretty nasty. The levels of racism and personal attacks on that site are some of the reasons that many bloggers won't participate there. This has created a divide, though, between the non-technical user and the more tech/blog-savvy users. A community that contains a policing function that will remove comments deemed inappropriate by the community will catch on fast.
That's basically my vision for the structure of the community. To this end, I'm going to set up both the drupal and Joomla Content Management Systems on YatBazaar so folks can offer feedback.
Blog comments for this post are closed, to focus the discussion of the Bazaar project to the Forums.
Since the NOLA Bloggers Bazaar project is definitely moving forward, I want to lay out some of my thoughts on, as Bush 41 would say, "the vision thing."
Initially, I thought it sufficient to say that I wanted to start a community for New Orleans that was based structurally like Daily Kos, MyDD, or RedState. I was surprised to see how many experienced bloggers did not understand what I have in mind.
One of the ideas being floated by local bloggers was to build a site that would serve as an aggregater to make it easier for folks to read and comment on the blogs participating. It's an ambitious and worthy project, but it's not a community. It won't give those coming to the site a sense of ownership. That's the goal here, a dynamic community where members feel they're part of something.
One of the things that makes a community like DailyKos so successful is that the platform, the Scoop software package, allows members to do several things:
Comment on the "Front Page" (FP) stories.
Create their own blogs (called "diaries" on Scoop sites), including their own online polls.
Rate the quality of individual blogs by "recommending" them.
Allow site managers to "promote" individual blogs to the FP.
Rate comments posted by users, positively and negatively.
There are many Content Management Systems that have the first two features, but the others are crucial to building a solid community. If the only people able to recognize the good work of a diarist are the site's managers, the hierarchy created discourages participation. Invariably, personality issues will pop up, accusations of favoritism, etc. When a blog entry is positively rated by the community, it goes on the "recommended list," and becomes featured. (That entry can still be promoted to the FP as well).
Allowing community members to rate comments is also crucial. The nola.com website now has a number of blogs, and comments there are often pretty nasty. The levels of racism and personal attacks on that site are some of the reasons that many bloggers won't participate there. This has created a divide, though, between the non-technical user and the more tech/blog-savvy users. A community that contains a policing function that will remove comments deemed inappropriate by the community will catch on fast.
That's basically my vision for the structure of the community. To this end, I'm going to set up both the drupal and Joomla Content Management Systems on YatBazaar so folks can offer feedback.
Blog comments for this post are closed, to focus the discussion of the Bazaar project to the Forums.
Dates are milestones for each task.
1. Finalize domain name - 4-Apr
I set up yatbazaar.com so I could have something for the team to look at. I'd like to have a consensus on this by next Friday.
2. Acquire a dedicated server for the Bazaar. 4-Apr
Time for some eBay shopping for a 1U or 2U server that will host this thing. I'm using my big, obnoxious 4U Proliant at the moment, and it's going to kill my Entergy bill.
3. Choose a platform for the site. 11-Apr
I'm setting up drupal and Joomla so people can play with look-and-feel. My gut says drupal with the add-on "karma" module is the closest approximation we'll get to the comment-rating format of Daily Kos, but there are options for Joomla worth exploring. This project is more about the community and the commenters than the bloggers, frankly, so this is a vital issue.
4. Finalize the editorial staff. 25-Apr
I'm thinking 3 people besides myself will have admin access to promote personal blog entries to the FP, as well as to create "Open Thread" entries on the FP. The timing of promotions and thread creation is TBD.
5. Customize platform. 25-Apr
Once the platform decision is made, customize the theme.
6. Publicize site, solicit community members. 30-Apr
Solicit "charter members" to sign up before go-live date. A lot of people like to be early adopters, gives them a sense of ownership.
7. Go Live 1-May
I've disabled comments on this post. Please comment and/or follow-up in the Forums.
1. Finalize domain name - 4-Apr
I set up yatbazaar.com so I could have something for the team to look at. I'd like to have a consensus on this by next Friday.
2. Acquire a dedicated server for the Bazaar. 4-Apr
Time for some eBay shopping for a 1U or 2U server that will host this thing. I'm using my big, obnoxious 4U Proliant at the moment, and it's going to kill my Entergy bill.
3. Choose a platform for the site. 11-Apr
I'm setting up drupal and Joomla so people can play with look-and-feel. My gut says drupal with the add-on "karma" module is the closest approximation we'll get to the comment-rating format of Daily Kos, but there are options for Joomla worth exploring. This project is more about the community and the commenters than the bloggers, frankly, so this is a vital issue.
4. Finalize the editorial staff. 25-Apr
I'm thinking 3 people besides myself will have admin access to promote personal blog entries to the FP, as well as to create "Open Thread" entries on the FP. The timing of promotions and thread creation is TBD.
5. Customize platform. 25-Apr
Once the platform decision is made, customize the theme.
6. Publicize site, solicit community members. 30-Apr
Solicit "charter members" to sign up before go-live date. A lot of people like to be early adopters, gives them a sense of ownership.
7. Go Live 1-May
I've disabled comments on this post. Please comment and/or follow-up in the Forums.
In 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote a fascinating essay entitled "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," describing his experiences managing an open source software project. Raymond postulates two models for software development, the Cathedral, where access to development is restricted to just the programmers between releases, and the Bazaar, where everything is always out in the open. CatB works for illustrating a development philosophy, but the two models also apply to developments other than software. Let's talk about CatB with respect to blogging.
We all have our own Cathedrals, where we write about those things that interest us. We've also found that there is a great deal of value in coming together as a community, either on an ad hoc basis or as a regular group. For NOLA bloggers, the e-mail listserv has proven to be a successful tool. Maitri originally suggested that we develop some sort of aggregated site for the group. I'd like to carry that one step further and suggest we form a Bazaar.
Unlike the Cathedrals that are our blogs, a bazaar would be a true community effort. I propose we do the following:
1. Choose a new "brand name" for the community. This will help promote a sense of ownership amongst participants.
2. Implement a proven community-blog platform, such as Scoop, Drupal, Slash, etc.
3. Each member of the community has their own blog on the site. Members will be allowed to make one blog post per day. Site editors will choose blog postings to promote to the site's front page. Set up a phpBB-style forum to discuss the mechanics of this.
4. The community will be as self-policing as possible. Use a system where blog posts can be recommended by other members, and comments to posts can be rated, either recommended or "troll-rated," when a comment is deemed by the community to be inappropriate.
5. Set up an implementation timetable and stick to it. If we're going to do this, let's do it. While having coffee today, it was mentioned that today was the second or third discussion of this sort that took place. I'm willing to take some of the initiative here to get things going.
What say you? Will y'all participate?
We all have our own Cathedrals, where we write about those things that interest us. We've also found that there is a great deal of value in coming together as a community, either on an ad hoc basis or as a regular group. For NOLA bloggers, the e-mail listserv has proven to be a successful tool. Maitri originally suggested that we develop some sort of aggregated site for the group. I'd like to carry that one step further and suggest we form a Bazaar.
Unlike the Cathedrals that are our blogs, a bazaar would be a true community effort. I propose we do the following:
1. Choose a new "brand name" for the community. This will help promote a sense of ownership amongst participants.
2. Implement a proven community-blog platform, such as Scoop, Drupal, Slash, etc.
3. Each member of the community has their own blog on the site. Members will be allowed to make one blog post per day. Site editors will choose blog postings to promote to the site's front page. Set up a phpBB-style forum to discuss the mechanics of this.
4. The community will be as self-policing as possible. Use a system where blog posts can be recommended by other members, and comments to posts can be rated, either recommended or "troll-rated," when a comment is deemed by the community to be inappropriate.
5. Set up an implementation timetable and stick to it. If we're going to do this, let's do it. While having coffee today, it was mentioned that today was the second or third discussion of this sort that took place. I'm willing to take some of the initiative here to get things going.
What say you? Will y'all participate?
two posts on YatTravel (http://travel.yatpundit.com), one today and one yesterday, and two new ones today on YatCuisine (http://food.yatpundit.com)
Stuff White People Like
h/t to Alan for passing the link along.
Greenwald pointed to this post by John Cole, which Glenn describes as a real man's mea-culpa. He's right:
And I don’t say that to provide people with an easy way to beat up on me, but I do sort of have to face facts. I was wrong about everything. I was wrong about the Doctrine of Pre-emptive warfare. I was wrong about Iraq possessing WMD. I was wrong about Scott Ritter and the inspections. I was wrong about the UN involvement in weapons inspections. I was wrong about the containment sanctions. I was wrong about the broader impact of the war on the Middle East. I was wrong about this making us more safe. I was wrong about the number of troops needed to stabilize Iraq. I was wrong when I stated this administration had a clear plan for the aftermath. I was wrong about securing the ammunition dumps. I was wrong about the ease of bringing democracy to the Middle East. I was wrong about dissolving the Iraqi army. I was wrong about the looting being unimportant. I was wrong that Bush/Cheney were competent. I was wrong that we would be greeted as liberators. I was wrong to make fun of the anti-war protestors. I was wrong not to trust the dirty smelly hippies.Hat-tip to Mr. Cole. Not that his mea culpa is bringing any of the dead back to their families.
Yeah, I know I blogged about this on Wednesday, but somehow I ended up clicking through to Greta's blog and some of her comments got me thinking about the issue again.
Miss Pathologically Positive deviates from her usual course and writes:
Well, maybe y'all expect schools in Mandeville to raise your children, but the trend has swung back the other way, particularly in New Orleans. The pedophile priest scandals of the 1990s pretty much scared parents into not abdicating their parental responsibilities. I expect my son's teachers to teach him, not raise him.
She is correct, though, that there will always be pedophiles, but lumping the two teachers who were banging the sixteen year olds with the janitor who was playing with little boys clouds an already complicated issue. Greta makes it worse when she talks about college coaches:
What is more of a concern to me is the predatory nature of the behavior of the teachers, as well as the coaches Greta mentions. A case where we're talking about a one-on-one teaching situation that goes horizontal, it's all about intent. In the case of the Destrehan High band director, the story in Da Paper makes the guy out to be a predator, and predators have no business in schools. It's not about the sex, it's about the control.
Is the guy wired to be a predator? Now that's a tough one. If there's one thing I strongly believe, it's that we don't give Education majors much guidance as to what they're going to find when they're on their own in a high school classroom. My firstborn is currently a sophomore in Nuclear Engineering at Ga Tech. He's taking a very interesting ethics class that's raising a number of good issues for these kids. Prospective teachers need their ethics sharpened and challenged in the same way. Make it clear to teachers that they're not to treat students in their classes like low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking. Whether they're 16 or 22, it's wrong to exploit the relationship. When the temptation is put before a teacher, s/he needs to be able to think back to the warnings about how they'll never work in education again if they get caught.
Of course, Greta manages to remove the nuance from the entire issue as she closes:
For openers, as I mentioned earlier, it's not likely that either of the high school teachers will do time if they cop a plea. The janitor is a different story. Certainly none of them will ever work in a school again, if the system's background checking works properly. Greta's characterization of what they deserve should they do prison time is a concern, however. It's time we all acknowledge that this conservative view of incarceration simply does more harm to our society than good.
Miss Pathologically Positive deviates from her usual course and writes:
Are parents too trusting, too busy to care or has this always gone on and now we are just doing something about it? I think the latter. This has been going on forever and now we are taking action against those who prey on minors and children. Many may disagree with me on this one, and that is fine, you are entitled to your opinion. Yes, we expect schools to raise our children these days, but I personally do not believe that is the entirety of the problem. I think there have always and will always be people in positions of power that take advantage of children or those under them, whether children or not. There will also always be pedophiles and that scares the hell out of me.
Well, maybe y'all expect schools in Mandeville to raise your children, but the trend has swung back the other way, particularly in New Orleans. The pedophile priest scandals of the 1990s pretty much scared parents into not abdicating their parental responsibilities. I expect my son's teachers to teach him, not raise him.
She is correct, though, that there will always be pedophiles, but lumping the two teachers who were banging the sixteen year olds with the janitor who was playing with little boys clouds an already complicated issue. Greta makes it worse when she talks about college coaches:
When I was an athletic trainer for college students, I recall several cases of coaches having relations with players. The coach suddenly "left" their position and everything was brushed under the table (not going tabloidish on you here & will not give specifics). Even though these were 18-22 year olds, it still happened and it was WRONG!!!It's difficult for me to consider the teachers having sex with sixteen year old girls as pedophiles, and certainly the coaches who are having sex with adults are not pedos. The age of consent is 17 in Louisiana, so doing a 16-year old is considerably different than the adult male trolling the mall for 12-year olds. What is so hard to determine here is the level of consent involved. While there are some who will argue that no minor can consent to sex with an adult, 16-year old girls are considered consenting adults in the UK and many other countries in Europe. The two high school teachers are going to get probation if they plead out.
What is more of a concern to me is the predatory nature of the behavior of the teachers, as well as the coaches Greta mentions. A case where we're talking about a one-on-one teaching situation that goes horizontal, it's all about intent. In the case of the Destrehan High band director, the story in Da Paper makes the guy out to be a predator, and predators have no business in schools. It's not about the sex, it's about the control.
Is the guy wired to be a predator? Now that's a tough one. If there's one thing I strongly believe, it's that we don't give Education majors much guidance as to what they're going to find when they're on their own in a high school classroom. My firstborn is currently a sophomore in Nuclear Engineering at Ga Tech. He's taking a very interesting ethics class that's raising a number of good issues for these kids. Prospective teachers need their ethics sharpened and challenged in the same way. Make it clear to teachers that they're not to treat students in their classes like low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking. Whether they're 16 or 22, it's wrong to exploit the relationship. When the temptation is put before a teacher, s/he needs to be able to think back to the warnings about how they'll never work in education again if they get caught.
Of course, Greta manages to remove the nuance from the entire issue as she closes:
As for what should happen to these 3 sick individuals - I hope they get sent to the general prison population with a sign that says "I molested underage children." Unfortunately, that won't happen and we can all only hope that our justice system keeps them off the streets forever!
For openers, as I mentioned earlier, it's not likely that either of the high school teachers will do time if they cop a plea. The janitor is a different story. Certainly none of them will ever work in a school again, if the system's background checking works properly. Greta's characterization of what they deserve should they do prison time is a concern, however. It's time we all acknowledge that this conservative view of incarceration simply does more harm to our society than good.
