The Ethics of Online Journalism Correction

People make mistakes, especially writers. They use the wrong word sometimes, or they don't realize a sentence came out meaning the exact opposite of what they meant to say.

Reporters can be the same way, of course. Maybe they got a fact wrong, or further revelations make something they claim in a story untrue?

In the era of print journalism, corrections would have to be made in later editions. They would have a corrections box that would say something like "in yesterday's story on President Obama's speech, he was identified as President of the United Kingdom. He is, of course, President of the United States. The Journal-Post-Picayune regrets the error."

They didn't report every error, and accusations of getting the story wrong (intentionally or unintentionally) could still be leveled at a newspaper, but the fact that the story was written in a certain way would be indisputable. Somebody could grab yesterday's edition and show what was actually written.

With online journalism? For some reason, journalistic institutions don't seem to feel the need to do that anymore.

Sometimes it's relatively harmless, changing a misidentified person or the spelling of a name. Other times, though, it's particularly egregious and could easily be seen as the outlet attempting to cover its tracks.

Take the Associated Press story about the hostage stand-off in Alabama, where a man shot and killed a school bus driver and took his 5-year-old son hostage.

As shown on Bob Owens' blog, one term keeps getting changed.

When talking about what the man was known for in the neighborhood, the article originally said that he had patrolled his yard with a "flashlight and shotgun." It was later changed, with no notice, to "assault rifle." Hmmmmm. Think that might have something to do with the discussions currently going on in the United States?

Owens then notices them quietly (and again, without notice) changing it back to "shotgun," and then how it was subsequently changed to "firearm." He has a screengrab of the article stating it's an "assault rifle," however.

Commenters have pointed out that it was then changed to "long gun" with a statement that the gun had not been identified.

It's actually quite confusing, with one of the links mentioning a change now going to a more recent article that doesn't even mention how he used to patrol his yard.

No matter whether it was error or bias, where's the accountability? Why don't news organizations append the correction at the bottom of the article when they update it?

Even worse, I've seen some update or re-write whole articles at the same links without any notice whatsoever. If you receive a link to a news story where a friend of yours says "Can you believe the government did this?" and you can't see what your friend is getting upset about, it's very possible that the reason is because the article was edited between your friend sending it to you and you actually reading it and the offending issue is no longer there.

I'm not saying that every misspelling correction should be mentioned. If your article mentions the "Untied States of America" and you correct that to "United," fine. You don't need to tell the reader that the article has been changed. But when you get a fact wrong, or further information is added to the story, I believe it's the responsibility of the news organization to alert their readers to the change.

Something to the effect of "the above article originally said the man patrolled his yard with an assault rifle. Since there is conflicting information about what type of gun he used to patrol his yard, this has now been changed to 'long gun.'"

Perfect! Yes, they can still be accused of bias for using the original term ("yeah, sure it was a 'mistake'!"), but they can't be accused of trying to cover their tracks.

The number of people who trust the media is falling further and further all the time. Accusations of bias fly hot and heavy (and yes, full disclosure, I agree with a lot of the accusations). Actually noting corrections and changes to your articles won't change those accusations, but it would inhibit any accusations of them trying to hide what they're doing.

It would be a start.

I'm not letting bloggers off the hook. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air always notes when he's made a correction or a change (I think the other bloggers over there do too; I just can't remember any specific instances). I try to also (though that would require an actual readership to hold me accountable).

Whitewashing your errors (or your bias) is never a good thing. It makes you look sneaky and just adds to the horrible reputation that journalists and journalistic organizations have.

"Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along" is a running joke on the Internet in regards to trying to get people to ignore something.

It's funny because it's true. Too often, that's the reaction of people in power trying to cover up their mistakes or their biases. Not acknowledging your changes is an excellent way to do that.

Edit (2/5/13): The LA Times gets it right in this story on how people don't want autographs anymore (something I may blog about later this week). Assuming that they don't change the article again at some point.

Is venting online really a professionally good idea?

I think it's safe to say that none of us like criticism. If it's constructive criticism, we can accept it and use it to make ourselves perform better. But it still sucks to hear it.

When you get what seems to you to be unfair criticism, it must be very hard to bite your tongue and go forward with the "everyone's entitled to their opinion" attitude. It can be even harder when the criticism is on the Internet, where you feel just a little bit removed from everything even if the criticism isn't from some anonymous troll.

Is it really a good idea to respond to it, though? Other than a "thank you for your thoughts" or something like that? And if you do respond (say the person criticizing actually gets something factually wrong in the course of expressing their opinion), wouldn't it be a good idea to be professional about it?

If you're a volatile chef in a fancy-shmancy restaurant (yes, that is a cut above just a fancy restaurant), then the answer to that question is obviously "no."

According to the Telegraph newspaper in the UK, a Milan chef vented his wrath at what he thought was a stupid review by food blogger Samantha Wood of his new venture in Dubai.

Probably not a good idea.

"For more than a century, Giannino restaurant in Milan, with its three Michelin stars, has drawn the great and the good, with its rustic charm and sepia-tinted photographs. But when a British food blogger reviewed the restaurant's new offshoot in the newly-opened exclusive Meydan Beach Club on Dubai's Jumeirah Beach, she felt the full force of the Milan restaurant's chef, after complaining about the prices and service."

She thought it was vastly overpriced, may not have been authentic Italian food, and thought the prosecco wasn't served properly (and if you're wondering what the proper serving is for prosecco, or even what prosecco is, join the club!).

The chef, Andrea Brambilla, replied by telling her to put a condom on her tongue to "contain the orgasm of your ignorance".

Ouch! I don't think any of my book reviews have been met that harshly, though I sometimes wonder what Harry Turtledove would say if he ever read one of them.

Anyway, he proceeded to correct her on the correct way to serve prosecco (who knew?) and then vented about her reaction to the prices and whether some of the food was authentic.

Most of that was nice correction of fact, but then it turned ugly. I encourage you to go read the article for the full force.

Commenters on her post were appalled, of course, and the head of the restaurant said that "His opinions are his own and are in no way representative of our team."

Of course he'd say that. And it's probably true, too.

I just don't get these people. You're supposed to be a professional. There are paying customers out there who pay attention to you. Why would you be an asshole about something like this?

Authors have to put up with bad reviews all the time. Some of mine have been pretty scathing. I've never received an email from one complaining about what I said (or least nothing that was anger-filled like that). You're driving away business, and the Internet is forever.

Don't think you can just delete what you said and it will all go away. It's out there, and it's permanent.

I guess we all let things get away from us at times. It would just be nice if when that happened, we were far away from the keyboard.

Something tells me this guy has too much pride to apologize, but we'll see whether anything comes of it. This story is almost a week old, so maybe that's happened by now.

What do you think? Would seeing a reaction like this cause you to not patronize an establishment, even if it wasn't directed at you?

Internet Hate and Why It's So Prominent

On my way home from work today, I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts, the Lasertime show put on by a bunch of the guys who used to do Talk Radar. (For those of my fans who don't read my media/pop culture posts, please keep reading. I only use some of those for reference points in order to make a larger point)

The subject of this particular episode isn't important, but as usual they all went off on tangents anyway, and one of them was on the incessant need for some people on the Internet to hate things. Especially popular things. And to hold onto this hate beyond any sense of rationality.

It really is a phenomenon that I have seen from time to time, though thankfully not too much recently. The reason for that is more where I hang out than because it's quieting down. Because it's certainly not doing that.

I feel your pain, Benny

You find this a lot in relation to various pop culture things like movies, games, books, television, and things like that. People have this irrational need to get into long, pointless arguments about things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Who would win in a fight: Galactus or Darkseid? Did Han Solo really shoot first when he killed Greedo, or is Lucas lame for making that change? Which Star Wars movie is the worst one? Just how many women out there would love to date me if I wasn't already taken? (Believe me, those arguments are legion and have gone on for fourteen years or so. It's also been responsible for a catfight or two)

I've graduated beyond these for the most part, and I've never taken part in them. Now I read (mostly) civilized debates on policy and stuff like that. I still occasionally check out game fora and the like, and you've never seen Internet hate until you've seen the comments in a post about Activision's Call of Duty franchise. The anti-Activision rants can reach legendary proportions.

So why do people on the Internet hate so much?

I think a large part of it is the anonymity that the Internet offers. On most fora that I visit, you can put whatever you want into the profile page. You don't have to use your real name. You can just go by "hist" like I do (well, not exactly like I do, or I may sue your ass off...or the system software just won't allow duplicate accounts. One of the two). You don't have to go by Dave Roy. You don't have to say anything about yourself.

Ok, some things I can go along with

So when Craigslistfan36533 starts ripping on those fans of Twilight or Star Trek or whatever, he can do so with complete confidence that nobody will ever come to his house and beat his face in. He can go to a Trek forum and say anything he wants. He would be different from a troll (as I described in a previous post) because he's not going there just to get a reaction. He honestly believes that whatever he's discussing sucked. He honestly can't believe that somebody likes it.

He just likes to get the hate on and not let it go.

Which brings us to another symptom of this phenomenon. The irresistible attraction to commenting (and hating) on something that really isn't aimed at you in the first place.

Chris Antista on this episode talked about this, and it resonated with me too, partially because I'm guilty of some aspects of this. He mentioned the backlash against things like Twilight (a book series that is obviously not aimed at 30-year-old men) and, more pertinent to me, Justin Bieber. I admit, I have made my share of "Bieber is the sign of doom!" jokes, but they're mostly jokes. I certainly don't hate the kid, and I would never go to a site devoted to him and trash him.

But he is an easy target, and maybe I should lay off those a little bit. I promise I've made my last Bieber joke on this blog.

May the worst demon from Hell strike me down if that is not so.

Ok, that was my last one.

C'mon. Breaking an addiction is hard!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Internet hate.

One last aspect of Internet hate that I just find really odd, and I believe either Chris or Brett Elston also mentioned this on the podcast is the fact that arguments on the Internet seem to be never-ending.

If you and your buddies are at a bar, having some beers, and you get into a discussion about which ship would kick ass in a fight, the Enterprise or the Millenium Falcon, you'll debate it for a bit, get a bit drunker, start ogling the ladies at the end of the bar, and the argument will be quickly forgotten.

Not so on the Internet (maybe that's because there are no ladies at the end of the Internet bar?). That argument will go on for days and days. It may die down for a brief while, but somebody will always resurrect it. It may be an unsuspecting third party who, by saying something totally innocent, will step in it and look at his shoe like it's covered in dog shit. But something will happen. And the argument starts all over again.

Can this phenomenon be explained? I honestly don't know, because it completely mystifies me.

Just like most Internet fan-hate does.

Which is probably why it's a good thing I'm not a practitioner of it, isn't it?

Have you seen this sort of thing around before in the Internet environments you frequent? Or even where you don't frequent?

Inquiring minds want to know.

A Great Way to Meet People!

Sometimes it feels like we're living in an increasingly closed society where the only friends we have we've never met. Or we only communicate with them online because somebody's moved away. I may be jaded, though, as that seems to be the type of person I am right now. That being said, I think it is becoming more of an issue as time goes on, with people shutting themselves away.

Do you have trouble meeting people, like I do? I recently discovered a great new site that many of you have probably already heard of called Meetup. (Many thanks to an author and incredibly nice woman I met at V-Con last year and who I talk to on Twitter a bit, Sandra Wickham, for pointing me to this site). No, it's not a site for clandestine rendezvous or anything like that. Basically, it's a site where groups of people can find others with similar interests and get together socially. It can be for activities, or just discussing common things.

(Thanks to Egreog's Place)

Sandra pointed me to the site because there is a Dr. Who group on there she thought I might like (my Twitter handle is whovian223, so she figured I was a Who fan). However, given the writing class I just finished, I decided to look and see if I could find a writers group too. As I mentioned the other day, I did find a group called the Vancouver Independent Writers Group, and I've had a blast at the last two meetups.

Funnily enough, both of them have been at coffee houses (though one served beer, thankfully). I'm looking forward to many more great conversations with my fellow writers. It looks like we typically meet every two weeks. One time for something purely social (the karaoke nights apparently haven't been that successful) and the next for just a sit-down discussion where we're also welcome to read some of our work if we want to.

The best thing about Meetup is that it's worldwide, but it always takes into account where you are, though you can find meetups elsewhere by just typing in a new location when you're searching. When I type in something, it will only show local things unless I tell it otherwise. If you live in the heart of Texas, you will find things local for you. It's genius!

How does Meetup work?

Just go to the site and type in something that you're interested in. Are you into knitting? I just typed "Knitting" into the search engine and found a bunch of different groups in Vancouver. Joss Whedon fan? I know there's at least one group in Vancouver, and I think there are more.

Find a group that looks interesting and join it (after creating your Meetup account, of course)! Some groups may have to approve members first, but others are open. They may request a bio so that they can be sure that your interests meet the groups (the Vancouver writers group asked things like "what do you write?" and "favourite author?")

The group organizer (members can suggest meetups) can organize a meetup and post it to the group. Maybe you want to organize a meet up at the local pub to have some beers and talk about your dating life (if you're in a dating group). Set it up! Members will RSVP officially on the site, so you'll know how many people are planning to attend. Of course, you may get people who don't RSVP but just show up, or something might come up and somebody who did respond may not come. The good thing is that you have an idea of who you're going to be seeing when you show up.

I haven't attended a meetup with the Dr. Who group, though I'm looking forward to seeing everybody there. I'm really enjoying the writing group, though.

You can even just see what's trending locally to see if there might be something that you didn't even realize you might be interested in.

As an example (though it's not an example I'm interested in, obviously), currently trending in Vancouver is the Vancouver Women's Newcomers Social Club, a group for women new to Vancouver to meet some people here. I can see how this would be a valuable group for a woman who's new to the city and doesn't have many (or even any) friends here.

It's a great site if you like to socialize but you're having trouble finding people to do it with!

Is the word "lurk" a Bad Thing?

What do you think of when you hear the word "lurk?" Does it give you the willies as you imagine some dark stranger hiding out in your house? Or do you think of somebody who reads, but doesn't post, to a discussion forum? People who read discussion forums but don't bother to contribute to them are called "lurkers."

Merriam-Webster actually has both definitions.

Yesterday I was in a discussion where somebody used the term "lurker" to mean the latter, to be a member of a site but not actually contribute to it, at least right away. He said that she would be "lurking" on the site. It made a couple of the women in the discussion uncomfortable, and a mini-discussion about the word started. I came out and said that, having been on the Internet almost since its inception, the word "lurker" doesn't mean anything bad to me, unless the context of that use demands it, of course. If somebody tells me that an evil-looking guy is hanging around the school lurking in the corner, then obviously that's bad.

But just the word itself? Especially used in the context which it's been used for the Internet for years?

It just struck me as odd.

I was even told by one of the women that "if you were a woman, you'd understand."

That may be, but I don't think so. Who knows? Maybe I would.

So I'd like to throw this out there to all of you.

Is the word "lurking" a bad thing, in and of itself? With all context removed? (Even though I think the context was plain anyway)

Now, if you've never heard of the Internet "lurking" definition, then your opinion may be skewed. I'd still like to hear your viewpoint, though.

It's weird how we can be completely blind-sided sometimes, discovering the weird permutations of something that we've been doing or saying for years.

(edited to clarify that I'm mainly talking about the *word* "lurk," not the act of lurking in general. Sorry for the confusion!)

Doctor Horrible Leads into the Guild - My Intro to Webseries

One of the first things I did when I went to V-Con 36 this year was agree to be interviewed for a documentary on web video series and their audience. Web video series used to be niche products, watched by very few people, but they're becoming more and more popular as a way to get around the usual bureaucracy of dealing with television networks. Even big name stars are doing them sometimes. The added attraction for the viewer is that each episode is generally 5-10 minutes long, so there's not a lot of time invested. Yet the story quality can be quite good.

I spent some time talking to the couple behind the "Mind My Brains, Darling" webseries, Mary and Paul Higgins, and Mary interviewed me for the documentary. She asked me if I was familiar with webseries and whether I watched them. I had to answer that while I knew they existed, I never watched them. One of the prominent webseries people, whose name pops up whenever webseries are discussed, is Felicia Day, and Mary asked me if I had ever seen "The Guild."

I was familiar with Day from Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, but I hadn't heard of The Guild.

Now, it's three weeks later, and I thought back to that meeting, that interview, and that comment. I went looking for The Guild, not realizing that it was a webseries (I'm not sure why that took so long to sink in, considering the setting of where I found out about it). When I discovered that it was on Youtube, I decided to watch the first season and see whether I'd like it or not.

All I can say is, wow. My inner nerd is on fire.

The Guild is about a woman named Cyd (Codex), who is immersed in an online gaming world. So immersed, in fact, that her therapist "fires" her because she won't work on breaking her addiction to the game. She's a member of a guild of six characters who go adventuring in the game world together, and who all know each other through the game but have never met in person. Until Zaboo shows up at Cyd's door, that is. And he's in love.

The series is completely written by Day, and she's gathered a great set of actors to play the other characters in the guild. They have wonderful comic timing, and it's simply a hilarious series. Day is a big-time gamer, and the love for gaming really shows through.

Here's the first episode of the first season, introducing the whole thing.



The first season is great, and there are three more on Youtube, with a fifth that hasn't made it to Youtube yet but is available on Zune and Xbox, as well as The Guild's home page. It's well worth checking out.

In fact, Day is quite prominent in the webseries world, as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Web Television.

She's also makes a hot elf.

Day is starring in a webseries that's based on the Dragon Age 2 game, called "Dragon Age: Redemption," as the Elf assassin Tallis. The first two episodes are out and I've watched them too. Really good stuff.

I will be catching up with the Guild over the next little while, and I know I'll enjoy every minute of it. If you're a gamer, you will love this series, and possibly recognize people that you know.

If you're not a gamer, you will probably still get a laugh. Check out the first couple of episodes.

Hell, it's only seven minutes out of your day to do that. And even if you decide to watch the full season, that's only an hour.

That's one of the great things about webseries.

Consider me a new devotee.

Classmates.com

Hello to the Davenport West High class of 1988!

I joined Classmates.com a few years ago, but first sprang for a paying membership last year. It's a great way to keep in touch with your old classmates, whether it's high school or college (or any other schooling, actually, at least older than high school). You can post pictures (old and new), keep people up to date on what you've been doing since graduation, all of that good stuff.

Well, it is if people actually use it.

That's the funny thing, though. There are currently 397 members listed for the class of 1988. I think we had 535 graduates in that class. That's a pretty hefty percentage! (66% for you math geeks).

So why is nobody actually there?

My last guestbook signature was in December 2009, the message forums are almost dead. I know the 2008 reunion was handled largely through the site (I think, but somebody who knows better can correct me if I'm wrong).

So what's the deal? Is the site as popular as it's supposed to be? Or do people go there to "register" themselves but then pay no attention to it whatsoever?

Has Facebook taken over this function for people? I know I'm Facebook friends with a lot of my old classmates.

Guess what?

It's poll time!






I'd love to know what you think. Especially those classmates of mine who might be stopping by this blog (or regular readers that I don't know about).

Is privacy the same as anonymity?

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has recently been quoted as saying that anonymity on the Internet is "dangerous" and that it will soon disappear. In an article on the International Business Times web site (though there are articles about this all over the web), it says:

"Arguing that anonymity on the Internet is dangerous, Schmidt had reportedly said, 'In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you.'

He also said governments may eventually put an end to anonymity. 'We need a (verified) name service for people," he said. "Governments will demand it.'"

He goes on to say that this is different from privacy, and that privacy is crucial on the Net, and that people's private information should be secured. (Given their recent issue with private data, I think he's partially covering his ass there, but who knows?)

I think I see what he's getting at, in regards to the difference between privacy and anonymity, and it's something that I kind of share, at least in an ideal world.

The relative anonymity of the Internet gives a lot of idiots out there the empowerment to be assholes without having to account for what they say. As somebody recently said (I think it was on the Ricochet podcast, actually), it allows them to yell at and insult the 250-pound football player when they wouldn't say any such thing to the guy's face because they know they'd get a beating. Or throw out gratuitous insults, race-baiting, or any other kind of vulgar stuff without having to actually face up to the person they're saying it to.

In that way, anonymity on the Net is really bad.

On the other hand, I think it's a treasured institution for a couple of other reasons.

Of course, there's the old standby of whistle-blowers, damaged and abused people who don't want to be found by their tormentors, and the like. Those people should be protected.

But there are also those people who are doing totally legitimate things but that just "look" bad to other people, like your employer or potential employer.

The recent "RealID" kerfuffle around Blizzard and World of Warcraft, where Blizzard was going to force users to use their RealID names if they wanted to post to the Blizzard forums, is a perfect example. (Blizzard has since backed off on this plan)

In this day and age, potential employers are going to do more than just interview you. They're going to look you up on the Net too. It's one thing if they find that you posted a bunch of racist stuff on the Net somewhere. Of course it's a good thing that they found out before they hired you.

But what if your potential boss just thinks spending all of your non-work hours playing WoW and posting on its forums is a complete waste of time, and he doesn't want to hire anybody who would do that?

Why should you be penalized for that? Yes, it's wrong for a boss to think that. But there's nothing illegal about it. There are laws against not hiring people because they're disabled, but there's no law that says they can't refuse to hire you because you spend 8 hours a night playing World of Warcraft.

This is my roundabout way of saying that yes, there should always be a way for somebody who absolutely needs to (like law enforcement) to find out who's behind activities on the Internet. In that way, anonymity should go away.

But basic anonymity, which would require work or official authorization for somebody to find out who you are, that should be a bedrock of the Internet.

There has to be a better way of dealing with douchebags on the Internet than requiring *everybody* to be totally open about who they are.

As I said. In an ideal world, it would be really nice if people had to be public and had to own up to their words.

But we don't live in a perfect world.

The elusive, but very common Internet beast - the troll

What do you think of when you hear the term "troll?" I guess it depends on your mindset, but almost universally in modern times people know it's referring to those irritating Internet idiots who post intentionally provocative comments on blogs, discussion forums, or whatever. They are loathsome beasts, and like the trolls of the Fantasy genre, they regenerate so easily that even a killing blow doesn't put them out of our misery.

Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz have an interesting one-question quiz on CNN, "How to tell if you're a comments troll."

It's an interesting question, but doesn't really delve into the psychology of the troll.

"So you're surfing along on your favorite website when you see something that gets your plasma boiling -- so much so that that pulsating vein above your eye is about to burst.

The cause of this Web-induced stress could be an opinion that just doesn't jibe with yours. It could be that author's pompous head shot. Either way, your twitching fingers scroll to the bottom of the page -- past whatever useless garbage you have just consumed. You're going to the comments section -- that oh-so democratic zone of the internet."

The options they give to answer the question they ask are interesting, and give a good indication of what kind of Internet information consumer you are.

But the brief article doesn't really get across just how horrible trolls actually are.

To me, they are down almost to the level of the Spammer. The only reason they don't quite reach that level is that, generally, they're not invading your email inbox (unless they're on a mailing list you are subscribed to). These people post outrageous things just to see what kind of reaction they get (the term "troll" was originally coined because these people were "trolling for reactions" just like fishermen troll for fish).

The most recent example I saw was for somebody who had posted a Youtube video of Rob Thomas' excellent song "Her Diamonds." The user had lovingly included the lyrics in the video. The song is about Thomas' wife and the illness that she has to live through every day, and how helpless he feels when she is held hostage by it. Her tears are like diamonds.

Anyway, some troll in the comments field started spouting off about how racist Thomas is because this song is clearly about the diamond trade in Africa.

WTF?

What's worse is that so many people took the troll bait and responded to this guy that he kept it going and the comments section of this nice little video became a flame war of massive proportions.

Attention people:

Yes, that means you.

The worst thing you can do to a troll is ignore them. Their very purpose in life is to provoke reactions. If no reactions are provoked, they won't have any sustenance and they will go on to greener pastures. Too often, though, enough people react that they get their fun and games in.

Their lifeblood is controversy. Sometimes, they come back and add fuel to the fire, while other times they drop their turd like a dog in the middle of the room and then waltz away to go on to their next yard.

Wikipedia has a great history on the word and what they truly are. Despite the fact the mainstream media is just becoming aware of this phenomenon, it has been around since the dawn of the Internet (if not longer). Hell, there used to be a couple of "good" trolls on the Star Trek newsgroups I read back in college in 1991.

Getting back to the CNN article, trolls are much more than the authors let on. Perhaps they didn't have the room to really expand on it, but if you only read that article, you would think that trolls are *reactive* to something they read on the Net. That's far from the case. Trolls are actually *proactive*, going from site to site, forum to forum, and spewing their nonsense to trap the unwary. They may be inspired to troll an article after reading it, but it's not because they had a negative reaction to it.

Not all trolls are inherently evil, though even the most benign are annoying to no end. Back in college, I had a Prodigy account (wow, that really dates me, doesn't it?) and I frequented the Star Trek forum there. There was a guy there who regularly trolled the group blasting Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was very obviously an Original Series fan, but his comments about TNG were obviously just trolling. A non-troll might chime in occasionally, but would probably restrict his discussion to topics that he *is* interested in.

We got to talking in private conversation and I discovered that he lived in eastern Iowa somewhere near Davenport, and I asked him if he wanted to go shoot pool at Miller Time Billiards one weekend I was home. He was a pretty cool guy in private conversation, and we had a great time shooting pool. We were there for 4-5 hours. I discovered that he actually liked a few episodes of TNG. While he didn't like the show itself, his feelings were nowhere near as strident as he portrayed them on Prodigy. When I asked him why he was like that, then, he said "it was fun."

The troll is elusive to pin down, but he's easy to spot (though I suppose there are female trolls, I haven't seen any that I've noticed). The best thing you can do is ignore him. No matter how provocative they get, deny them the food of controversy and they'll go away.

Sadly, not enough people follow that rule.

Do you Google yourself?

Or better yet, do you have a Google Alert set up for your name to see when it comes up?

I do. Of course, anybody who posts stuff online, like reviews or articles or whatever, should probably do this just to see where their work is showing up (Amazon reviews show up on a *lot* of Amazon partner sites, for example). But increasingly, "regular" people are doing this as well. One of the pieces of advice given to those starting a relationship (advice especially given to women, though it's good for both parties) is to "Google the guy" before doing anything more than meeting for coffee (or even before *that*!).

Mashable has an article about this, "Majority of Adults Now Google Themselves [STUDY]". Most of the article is about online privacy, which is surprising given the headline. However, it does say that "57% of adults have used search engines to find information about themselves online," which doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, I'm surprised it's not more (though the article does say that this percentage is increasing).

So what about you? Do you check yourself out online? If you have an unusual name, like Joe Shlabotnik, it's probably easier. My name? "David Roy" doesn't show anything about me for at least 5 pages. "Dave Roy" is right there on the front page.

That will probably change when I become rich and famous.

I think it's time for a poll.

Online Communities - Pulled in Multiple Directions

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about blogging communities and how some bloggers band together to form their own little social circle, as well as the best way to attract new people to it.

But it didn't start out that way. I went off on kind of a tangent. While I did like what I ended up writing, that was not the initial inspiration for my post. I'll post the beginning of it again:

"As human beings, we strive to organize ourselves into communities, whether they're actual ones (a town or city, for example) or social ones. The Internet has done much to foster the social communities we form, but even before that, we would have our own little groups of friends and fellow travelers, be it in high school, college, at work, or at play. We strive to be with people of similar minds, or those who complement our own personalities even if they aren't similar.

Some of these communities we form out of necessity because we are all forced together, such as in school. We form these communities because that's how we deal with shared situations. A group of people trying to handle the same situation all as individuals never really accomplishes much.

Other communities we seek out on our own, to give us another place to belong or because we have a certain inclination and we want to share it with others who feel the same way. You join a club, or a gaming group, or whatever. And sometimes you blog."

The reason the idea of community came to mind wasn't necessarily blogging, however. It was actually the wide array of online communities that we often become a part of that are apart from blogging.

How many forums do you go to and regularly read? Do you go to a Lost fan forum and discuss last night's finale with fellow fans? How about your favourite football/hockey team? Do you go to a fan site and hash out your arguments on whether Roberto Luongo is overrated or Patrick Kane has an awesome chest? How about a hobby? Do you go to a scrapbooking forum and discuss the latest techniques with other people who do the same thing? Or do you subscribe to email lists?

Before web forums, there was Usenet (various newsgroups that discussed anything and everything, depending on the name of the group). Before that, there were bulletin boards.

Ever since humans starting getting online and interacting with their fellow man (and woman) around the world, they have taken their sense of community that they carry in the real world and translated it to the Electronic Age. Humans seem to have a need to connect with like-minded people, and in this way communities are born. In real life, you can't usually choose your neighbours (though you can decide whether you are going to interact with them), but online, you can to an extent.

Sure, you can't choose who joins a group after you, but you can choose to leave the group and find another one. It's a lot easier (not to mention cheaper!) to find a new online community than it is a real one.

If you have joined various online forums, do you find yourself feeling a bit fragmented if you join too many? Are you like me, reading a bunch of different ones but not really feeling a part of any of them? I post to a few, but with nowhere near the regularity that others do. I sometimes feel more like an observer than a community member. I see the "regulars" post there and realize that I will never be like that. Whether it's the lack of time or the lack of desire, or maybe it's my inherent shyness that is still with me 30 years after it first manifested itself.

I don't know what it is. It's been a while since I've felt a part of one of those. Part of me would like to get that feeling again, but every time I start to get a little close to it, I draw away for some reason. I tell myself I just don't have the time, but is that really it?

I'd be interested in your thoughts. Have you joined any forums online? What types of forums? And do you participate or just read? What do you think?

Here's a poll for you, but I'd love to see a comment as well. Blogging communities aren't the only communities out there, you know.





Please note: In this post, I'm not talking about social media, like Facebook or Twitter. I'm talking about discussion forums.