I don’t spend a whole lot of time on many mailing lists (okay, maybe too much time in aggregate, but not that many lists). I spend most of my “list time” here – for the company, for the questions (which keep me sharp!) and for the interesting viewpoints and examples many of you bring to the surface.
My colleague David Dylan Thomas wrote an interesting blog post: http://www.daviddylanthomas.com/blog/better-commenting-through-design/ which refers to the brouhaha about Popular Science discontinuing comments on their articles because climate-change-deniers and other pseudo-science folk were using them to post frankly ridiculous claims and launching ad hominem attacks on their authors.
Reading this article, and listening to the abbreviated version of the SXSW talk (still going to listen to the whole thing when I get a chance) it got me wondering why we have so little of that sort of thing here. I’m not trying to pat my own back for building a Web interface that keeps the worst of the spam-bots out – that’s not a very hard wall to climb for the motivated. I don’t think it’s the relative obscurity of this list among many others like it, although I’m sure that plays some role. But year after year, post after post, people here are just plain nice.
Well, even the Off Topic discussions here aren’t that off topic. Meaning, they are still usually web, internet, graphics, etc. related, so not a lot of controversial subject]s come up.
Nobody asks for people’s thoughts on bigfoot, aliens, climate change, 911, or other very opinionated subjects.
Kind of nice, I think since there are dozens of other places to discuss these subjects.
This place remains “clean”, for lack of a better term.
If that’s due to your expertise, then I thank you!
Nobody asks for people’s thoughts on bigfoot, aliens, climate change,
911, or other very opinionated subjects.
If you go back in time, I can remember a few very heated discussions
related to webstandards and table v. html layouts.
But that’s all been settled, the winners were very clear. Holdouts keep
mostly to themselves (unless they have their own board and we just weren’t
invited). Besides, I know several of you through Twitter and Facebook,
where I can experience your shocking political beliefs and cute kitten
photos.
So maybe spammers view us as low-value targets… but I kind of think
Walter’s to blame for most of it. And I think we are some of the nicest
people ever - and not just extra polite knowing that sometimes we come here
with our hats in hand, looking for help.
I am of the opinion that nice people beget nice people. If there was somebody on here who really wanted to stir up some messes, they would be ignored and shunned out of the community. This community was founded by nice people with good motives, and that shows.
There is also a mutual respect on Freewaytalk that I’ve yet to find elsewhere on the web. We’re all in this ship together, trying to extend a helping hand in the belief that what goes round, comes round.
I don’t know exactly how we did it, but I would say that we are the most friendly community on the web. And it’s awesome.
Bob’s right, it’s funny the off-topic list isn’t really that ‘off’. There have been may times when I’ve wanted to post something about my other interests (audiophile stuff) but haven’t. Not sure why. I do know the reason I don’t post to dedicated audio forums is because the overall vibe of many of them are way too uptight. Folks be trippin’. I can find crazy anywhere. FWT people are so very nice, and by a very wide margin. Maybe I should try posting other stuff here, I’m sure some of you would participate in my off-topic … topics.
