Categories
Just Shelley

Road trip and spring break

Saturday I’m off on a road trip where I have no intention of weblogging, or even accessing the internet. I decided that this would be a good time to take a longer break, and focus on matters outside of this weblog. Besides, Spring is a good time to try new things, don’t you think?

I had a couple of other posts I wanted to write, but I don’t think I’ll have time to finish them, I’m so far behind. If I manage to catch up and they’re half way decent, I’ll post them before I go.

I am closing down comments on all of the weblogs, starting tonight.

You all take care of yourselves. Behave or be interesting.

See you, soon.

Categories
Just Shelley

Swivel stick

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Loren, who has been sharing tales of courage and horror from his fearsome youth, recounted one incident with a slippery log and a fall into a swift stream. Ever since, he’s hiked out of his way to avoid having to use logs to cross streams.

(He and I also shared a five year old fascination with matches, oddly enough. I wonder if the cause and effect associated with ‘matches’ and ‘uncontrolled fire’ is an epiphany all five year olds undergo?)

I share his wariness of log crossing, but mine is based less on specific event than ongoing experience. Not only do I avoid logs, I also avoid ledges, unsteady hillsides, icy paths, and any form of roller or ice skating. I am a klutz, you see. A rather good one, at that. In a parking lot, I can manage to slip on the one and only wet pinecone; I can climb down rocky paths, only to slip on a bit of gravel at the end. I trip over unseen roots, and knocked myself out trying to chase a ball during softball when I fell into a tree. I even fainted at a wedding once, when we were required to stand for part of the service and I locked my knees, and caused myself to pass out.

When I am in prime physical condition (yeah, that will be the day again), I can move like a panther, all supple strength. But then, something always seems to get in the way.

For instance, Sunday I drove down to Bollinger Mill to film it and the Burfordville covered bridge. It was a perfect day, in the 30’s, excellent weather and the mill and bridge are extremely well maintained. Crossing the covered bridge to the other side, I started down the hill towards the White River in order to get a better shot at the mill and the spillway. I didn’t pay attention to the signs of recent flooding, until I started slipping on the wet mud that covered the hill. Not wanting to slide down on my butt into an icy cold river, I dug my stick into the ground and held on for dear life, twisting and turning to maintain my balance.

“Oh my!” “Watch out!” “Wup!” “Damn, this is slippery” “Youwillnotfall Youwillnot fall!” “Ahh!”

Eventually I managed to stable myself until I could find firmer footing on a bit of rock and from there, pull myself back up the hill, dignity and camera intact. That is until an older man who had been across the way walked over to me and asked me if I was alright. I thanked him and said it was just a slight slip, and nothing much to worry about.

“Well, we were worried that you were going to fall in. Glad you didn’t.”

Then out popped a huge smile.

“I shouldn’t say this, but you sure were funny.”

So much for the panther.

Categories
Burningbird Weblogging

This is a disclaimer

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

This is the only disclaimer I will issue from this site. It reads:

I will never issue a disclaimer at this site. Again.

The discussion rages around us about how we’re in danger of losing our credibility, or our ethics are in question. However a more serious issue is at stake: we are in danger of becoming bores.

Somewhere, somehow, along the way we began to take ourselves seriously, and now it’s difficult to read original writing that doesn’t have a caveat or a disclaimer attached. Multiple weblogs have popped up with people appearing out of nowhere, demanding that we all conform to a certain set of beliefs and practices, and the rest of us, who at one point in time used to have fun nod our heads and say “Yesir” or “Yesmam”, because no matter what, we want to be seen as ‘credible’.

What is it that we’ve been doing the last several years but establishing the authenticity of our voices? What more credibility do we need than that?

I used to frown at sites where the webloggers would use pseudonyms, not the least because I have a god-awful time spelling that word. Actually, it was because I thought that if our words meant anything, we would attach our name to them.

What I’ve found as I’ve grown up from babe to toddler to fresh young thing, to old and tired woman in these very pages, is that names don’t matter, because it is the words themselves that have to stand out naked in the light. It is our writing by which you know us, or don’t. At this point in time, either you know me or your don’t; you trust me or you don’t, and no disclaimer is going to make my voice more authenticate, or real to you.

I also used to mouth about this standard and that: one shouldn’t delete or edit a writing once posted; or one should note when there is a possible conflict of interest; or, in the case of something like Marqui, one shouldn’t write about a product in our space unless one has an interest in same.

What a pompous prick I was.

Frankly, if another opportunity comes along like Marqui (but not Marqui, itself) I plan on taking it. Why? Because it allows me more dignity than to have to pass the hat, an act that nibbles away at my confidence. And I will most likely write once about how I’m being paid by the company, but I’m not going to circle the entries in red ink and paste on “I’m getting bloody paid for this”, with each entry. Neither will I write anything I wouldn’t normally write, but you’re going to have to take my word for it, because I’m not going to post a notarized notice on my site that I Am Not Lying for Bucks. In fact, you might as well assume that everything I will write is a lie, but it will be an authenticate lie, because I will never write anything that I don’t want to genuinely say.

So if a company wants to pay me for upping their Google rank,rather than sneak it in through my comments, I will. And I’ll do so in my own immutable way, which will probably frighten away all of the right-thinking companies anyway, leaving me the interesting ones, and we’ll proceed to possibly have some fun. Because if I don’t promise not to lie, I do promise to do my best not to bore you, but no guarantees: what I may find interesting may not interest you.

(You don’t like my gnomes?)

I was asked in my post, The Other Shoe on Nofollow, the following:

Really now. Do you have a citation for this conversation with Dave Winer or did you just make it up?

I answered:

I make everything up at this site.

I’m really a haberdasher in New Jersey. My name is Stan, and I’m bald, 85, thin as hunger, sad as regret, but with big black eyes that once twinkled wickedly at saucy ladies who would show too much ankle.

Oh, and I walk with a limp, every other Sunday.

That is my disclaimer: *I make everything up on this site. It will then be up to you to read me, or not; to believe me, or not. You will have to make your own judgment whether to regard what I say about the Google nofollow attribute, or Jeff Jarvis, or the Harvard Conference of the Week, or especially, the existence of Missouri mountain gnomes. Basically, you’ll have to read what I read, and then read what others read, and you’ll have to form your opinion and act accordingly, because I’m not going to do it for you through the use of a bloody disclaimer! Sorry, there is no ‘get out of thinking’ free card at my site.

(By the way, I lie, but I do not lie about gnomes.)

I read something in Rebecca Blood’s weblog that brought me up short this morning and made realize how far we have fallen in our effort to be polite and proper and credible and ethical.

I’ve noticed a slight problem with the Technorati tagging system. For every tag, Technorati is pulling an indentically tagged photograph from photo-sharing site Flickr. Unfortunately, for a few hours this morning the most recent tagged photo under MLK was a picture of a protester’s sign that read “Setting aside our differences to focus on our common goals: peace, love, harmony, killing Jews, and tolerance.” Nice. [more…]

Now, that photo is perfectly appropriate on Flickr as part of an individual’s collection, and as documentation of Sunday’s rally. It’s perfectly appropriate as an illustration for ‘protests’, or even ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’, even though it surely will offend some people wherever it appears. But it is not appropriate to illustrate a category tagged ‘MLK’. I personally was offended–these sentiments reflect the polar opposite to those espoused by Dr. King. More to the point, such an illustration is inappropriate–that poster has as much to do with Dr. King as would a picture of a banana peel.

I called Technorati to register a protest, but was informed that Technorati had no mechanism available for removing the photo other than turning off the entire Flickr feed. Worse, I was met with polite protestations that Technorati is not in the business of editing the Web, just delivering it. I was also given some vague heebee-jeebee about “community standards” and how “the community would decide”.

Well, I’m here to tell you that community standards vary wildly, and in the case of an aggregator mean nothing at all. An aggregator like Technorati only provides a succession of individual posts, it doesn’t summarize or codify the content it serves. Furthermore, “community standards” do not, indeed, can not defend against abuse of the system–only design can do that.

I will write more on Technorati Tags later, because they have very serious consequences to semantic web development, but for now, I read Rebecca’s reference to ‘appropriate’ images and enforcing ‘community standards’ and I wanted to put my head down and cry. What is sadder is that Rebecca has enough power within this community, and hence Technorati, to possibly force her opinion of what is ‘proper’ through, and that scares the bejeesus out of me.

If this is what you want from a ‘credible’ weblog, or an ‘ethical’ one, than I can guarantee you now: I will never be credible, I will never be ethical, and I sure as hell will never be appropriate. And you may stick your ‘community standards’ where the sun don’t shine in my mountain gnome’s gnarly little ass.

*I even stole that phrase from Dave Rogers, who I think is telling us that what’s real is shared spit and cat babysitting. But I have seen a gnome, Dave.

Categories
Media Writing

Give onto Harvard that which is Harvard’s

According to the Wikipedia article on citizen journalism:

Citizen journalism usually involves empowering ordinary citizens — including traditionally marginalized members of society — to engage in activities that were previously the domain of professional reporters. “Doing citizen journalism right means crafting a crew of correspondents who are typically excluded from or misrepresented by local television news: low-income women, minorities and youth — the very demographic and lifestyle groups who have little access to the media and that advertisers don’t want,” says Robert Huesca, an associate professor of communication at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

The phrase, Citizen journalism usually involves empowering ordinary citizens is, I think the key to this statement. I doubt there’s a one of the those in the forefront of the new citizen or ‘grassroots’ journalism efforts in weblogging that wouldn’t agree with this, and most likely enthusiastically. Yet it is the demographics shared among these supporters that casts doubt on the nature of our new journalistic corp. One only has to look at those representing weblogging at the Harvard conference on Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility to see the truth in this. Of those who have been weblogging for any appreciable time, most, if not all, are white, affluent, generally male, and usually middle-aged. In addition, all but two, as far as I can see, have been or are professional writers and/or journalists.

Additionally, rather than help to empower those who have little voice, the majority of these people of the new ‘citizen journalism’ tend to link to each other more frequently than they do the misrepresented among the rest of the weblogging population. A search of Jeff Jarvis’ weblog finds mention of David Weinberger 964 times, while a search of David’s site shows a mention of Jay Rosen 81 times, while a search of Jay Rosen’s site… well we could go one. Even with Dan Gillmor’s new weblog, which just started in January, I found seven references to Dave Winer.

This perpetuation of a specific norm among participants isn’t unusual, though. I remember from my own studies in sociology that we are most comfortable with those whom we share the greatest number of important characteristics, such as economic status, color, nationality, and religion. So it’s not surprising that white males from a similar socio-economic background read and hence link to those who are similar. When discussions about the imbalance of sex in regards to exposure is raised in weblogging, and the men say, “But this is an equal environment, and I don’t let sex impact on who I read and why”, this is probably very honest: the men don’t let sex impact on them. Consciously. But who better understands and knows how to write for the white, middle or upper class, intellectual mind than a member of the same group?

This understanding of the inherent pull of ‘like to like’ is really what forms the basis of affirmative action. It isn’t that we think everyone is an active bigot or racist or sexist; it’s that people tend to view those who share a sameness more comfortably over those who do not. In our professional or social lives, which can include weblogging (and that’s fascinating when you think about the virtual nature of this environment), comfort extends to more favorable impressions, and hence can influence hiring, linking, as well as other positive social actions. It takes an effort, an actual breaking away of natural preference, to cure this bias in our viewpoints. Even with increased exposure to the other sex or other races or religion, the tendency to ‘like’ remains.

Within professional journalism, editors and publishers are aware of the influence of ‘like to like’ and have made efforts to bring in at least token representatives of the underrepresented–for economic reasons if not for reasons of fair representation. For instance, if a journal on Linux has 97% male readership, while 20% of Linux users are women, and it wants to increase the number of readers, it wouldn’t be unusual for a publication in this position to seek out women and get their viewpoint on the issue; or even actively recruit more women in editorial or writing positions. Why? Because all things being equal, there could be more bang for the buck going after a ‘group’ of people, rather than the ragtag among those non-participants in the dominant group.

So it’s not surprising, though perhaps is ironic, to see that there is actually better representation of women and blacks and other racial minorities in the professional journalist circles than there is in the so-called ‘citizen journalistic’ ranks of weblogging, because there is no economic or social incentive for the citizen journalists to look outside of their ranks. At least, not at the moment.

An odd thing about all of this is that the practice of ‘like to like’ is so entrenched in business and journalism that it also forms part of the sphere of comfort even to those who are adversely impacted by the effect. For instance, women grow up to see primarily white, male journalists, politicians, and business and community leaders. Though some women may applaud seeing women in any of these roles, others may actually be made uncomfortable–it upsets what is known and what the women have reaffirmed about the role they perceive for themselves in their environment. Because of this, you’ll find women among those who speak out against affirmative action or acts such as the ERA. Or, since we’re discussing weblogging, who speak out against those who make an issue of the lack of representation of women in most weblogging and other like events.

(Based on this perception of role conflict, when women do appear as journalists, they tend to be co-anchors rather than lead anchors; and cover more social rather than political or economic events. However, as my favorite sports reporter and weather forecaster demonstrate — times, they are a changing.)

To return to the conference: ultimately, it is primarily a celebration of ‘like to like’ even though ostensibly it is bringing together ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. However, this type of seemingly ‘open but not’ event isn’t unusual for Harvard; it is a bastion of ‘like to like’, as witness stories in the recent past of wealth influencing grades and admission, as well as claims of discrimination in hiring practices. I’ve always found Harvard to be mildly fascinating with its ability to get away with the most outrageous ‘good ole boy’ club practices, as demonstrated so beautifully with the current flap from a recent conference having to do with lack of women in the sciences and engineering. In this case, the President of Harvard told to be ‘provocative’, does make a mistake that could have negative reprecussions–not so much by encouraging the myth that women are inherently not as good with math and science, but by ignoring the many studies, which have proven this to be false. You are allowed bias at Harvard, but not public ignorance.

As for Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility, what comes out of the conference, this position paper that has been touted, will be heralded as an important document by some, of mild interest by others, and with indifference by the majority of webloggers. Why the latter, especially considering that it represents many who are dominant within this environment?

The reason, in my opinion, is because the conference is so specific as to audience that even those who support the status quo won’t be able to find a common point of reference. Though we may be comfortable with the dominance of white, affluent, males, we are less so with the sheer, rather overwhelming scope of dispassionate intellectualism inherent in the roster. There are, literally, too many 5+ percenters in the crowd. We can’t identify, except for perhaps feeling as if we’re being placed into an inferior position, i.e. “this here group of really smart people are going to tell all of us how we’re supposed to do things, and it pissed me off.”

Case in point: Zephyr Teachout has received much press about her recent writings on the (failed) Howard Dean campaign. I have no problem with what she wrote on her experiences and perceptions of what happened during the (failed) Dean campaign, because a) I wasn’t there, and b) it’s old news. However, I am interested in one statement she made in her FAQ:

I started this blog recently because of an upcoming conference on blogging, journalism, and credibility at Harvard’s Berkman Center. I wanted to write about my own experience, to illustrate some of the thornier issues that come up with conflicts of interest, consulting and blogging. My continued purpose is to engage in the broader debate about how to build a credible medium.

This is where I take issue with Zephyr: she comes into this environment via a political weblog originated during a political campaign–an exception, not the norm for this environment–with no prior exposure to weblogging before, or frankly after, and then she wants to tell us all how we should do what it is we do. Frankly, in my opinion–writing as one of the outsiders who really make up the majority of the webloggers, though we don’t know it yet and lord help the rest of you ‘insiders’ when we do–Zephyr doesn’t know blogging from beans.

If one were to extrapolate from Zephyr to the rest of the attendees, one could say the same about all of them: even the other webloggers, who are, perhaps, too caught up in the mystic of being the new ‘journalism’ to remember that rebels move against the flow, not with it.

On which note, I conclude this first, and last, post on Harvard’s Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility.

Archived, with comments, at the Wayback Machine

Categories
Just Shelley

Spoke too soon

I spoke too soon on not needing anything. I was working with my laptop on my lap, when a thin line of color streaked across the monitor. I can’t get rid of it, even when I re-boot, which means it’s a hardware problem – probably to do with the casing and the problem I’ve had with the battery.

I’ve created a photo of the effect, using Jonathon Delacour’s white background to highlight the line. It has faded to an almost white line at one point, and actually disappeared for a second or two another time–all having to do with pressing on the frame of the laptop, which doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy.

After reading the nightmares about getting these fixed, I don’t need this now. If anyone recognizes the problem, please, if you have an effective solution, let me know. I need this machine. And I really need not to pay huge repair fees.