I’ve been involved in online forums for years now. There’s one in particular where I have invested a great deal of time, where I recently crossed over the 5,000 post threshold. There’s a certain level of respect for seniority that is attached to longevity, but my reason for sticking around was more substantive. Three-and-a-half years out of the television business, I still go back occasionally – I like that it is a meritocracy.
When I was younger (and in that industry,) I had some thoughts and theories about how certain things worked and could be better. Like the vast majority of users, I had an online handle. The pseudo-anonymity gave us the freedom to say things that were politically incorrect without fear that search engines would attach our professional journalistic identities with ideas that might reveal bias. 
But it also fostered meritocracy – that one advanced in the pecking order by virtue of the power of his/her ideas. Had it been a truly transparent environment, many good ideas would have been bullied off the board. After all, how could a cub reporter in Billings possibly be right when compared to a reporter from Chicago? Obviously the one in the large market must be right… right? (Same holds true for blogs and rankings.)
Yes, anonymity was often a screen that allowed for bad behavior. In the midst of a wave of online congratulations about the birth of my daughter, one wiseacre openly compared her to a pile of… you get the point.
I’ve been on forums where there is anonymity, and I’ve been on forums that are wide-open. I’ve been a part of giant communities, and small intimate ones. I have a good understanding of the dynamics involved. And I am concerned… [Read more…]
