There's been a whole heap of meta -- conversation about the blog itself and the conversation on the blog -- flying around this place, and it's been getting a lot of response, as it always has. Many participate in the meta, many consider it worthwhile debate, others consider it a waste of time, still others believe that it's usually much ado about nothing. While I think all of these are valid points of view, I decided this morning that I should write a little bit about meta itself, which, I suppose, makes this diary a little bit meta-meta. My basic premise is that meta, far from being a bad thing in itself, is a necessary part of getting a large community of people together; there's just no escaping the need for hashing out how we relate to each other.
"But spit, I'm so tired of meta!"
I don't blame you. And if you can't be bothered right now, hell, just skip this diary and have a nice day, come back to comment if you feel like, go do something you find more productive. I have no problem with being ignored; as one of the wordier posters in this community, I'm honestly kind of used to it.
What the hell is Meta?
Meta is, simply put, conversation about conversation, or information about information, or, more loosely, the "how" part of the goings-on of something (in this case, a blog).
That makes it seem trivial; my argument is that it's not. I've been involved in enough organizations to know that underlying many disagreements is the hashing out of process: who has what role, how decisions are made, what forms of redress members may use, and who gets heard when. In fact, to use an admittedly imperfect analogy, the very constitution we're so vehemently defending in this country right now is essentially all about process. Around 200 years ago, some guys got together for months on end and had daily meta-debates about government, political philosophy, and natural rights; the document that came out of that provided us with the framework for how our government works, not the specifics of who is in the government. How laws are made, not the specifics of laws themselves.
"But spit, this blog is not a government, it's a private enterprise!"
Yes, you're right. That's why the analogy is imperfect. Unlike a country, we all have the right to opt out, to go somewhere else, to start our own blog without having to revert to violent revolution, or to escape from behind an iron curtain. We have free will, and some argue that the blogosphere operates much more like a marketplace than it does like a government. I don't entirely disagree with this point of view, but it doesn't negate some very fundamental questions that can be asked, indeed should be asked, and that are integral, if not obvious, within many of the disagreements that happen on this blog daily.
Let's go back, for a minute, to the governmental analogy, imperfect as it is. If Markos is essentially a benevolent dictator, a guy with ultimate control over his own private site -- true in the "private enterprise" model of a blog -- then it does not simply follow that he can do anything he wants without complaint or comment from the community.
"Why do you say this?"
It is often argued that if kos wanted to make a rule that we all have to post in iambic pentameter, then we would all have to post in iambic pentameter. It's his site, he makes the rules, live with them. Now, this is true on a direct level, but let's consider for a moment what would happen if he made such a rule. Many of us would complain loudly, in the proper rhythm and meter or no, and others would no doubt tell us to shut up because we don't make the rules and all this meta gives them a headache. Some would leave, preferring free verse. The site itself would become, frankly, irrelevant -- because nobody really wants to be forced to write in iambic, even people who like it just fine.
"Well, that would be kos's problem, wouldn't it?"
Well, again, on a direct level, yes, it would be kos's problem. But on an indirect level, it would affect a much larger world than just kos. Kos would see his income from the blog plummet (I don't think he cares that much), he would see himself mocked in the blogosphere (I don't think he cares that much), he would see his site become irrelevant (this is what he cares about, so far as I can tell). But we would lose, too -- we would lose a useful forum, a place we've used as a platform on which to organize, to make our voices heard. We would lose our community, networks some of us have spent multiple years crafting. In short, we would have a stake in the decision, too, and it can be seen as terribly, terribly unwise of kos, for the good of himself and us, to force us into particular styles of prose.
Dictators who don't consider their citizens don't tend to last forever, because ultimately humans have free will, and a dictator who doesn't consider the will of the people has to generally have a very large military to keep people in check. Here, of course, the analogous situation is that large numbers of us leave in a huff, rather than rising up in revolt -- but when that happens, it does have consequences to those of us who remain (a narrowing of the conversation) and to our relationship in the greater blogosphere (making unnecessary enemies out of folks we have to work with to achieve our goals).
Conversely, one of the strengths of governments that grant wide freedoms is that disagreements, while they happen often and sometimes loudly, tend not to boil over into outright revolt. Free debate often works as a kind of pressure valve in society, letting ideas be spoken and considered and morphed over time. Process itself is not outside the realm of debate, criticism of the people deciding on process, or of the outcomes of that process, is not outside that realm either.
At the very least, changing the rules of the site, he'd find himself with a particular kind of community that does particular things, and it would be very different from the one that's currently here. Process issues, more than specific rules, are what tend to define social structure, and social structure is in play as a force in any context, whether we're talking about a country, a company, or a political organization. To no small degree, it's the structure and process of the democratic party that makes many of us angry with the DLC, not necessarily the aims of the party or the policies of any group within it.
"Okay, so what's your point?"
To some degree, I think that most of the debate that's been going on about whether it's right to criticize kos's decisions is missing a valuable point in the first place, and that point is that kos himself, much to his credit, has always allowed wide, wide criticism to take place here. In other words, I'm frankly not all that sure that kos himself is all that worried about being criticized, about having his decisions questioned, about meta-discussion going on. In fact, he has long said that the actual rules of this blog -- the "process" stuff -- is something he would prefer to be set by the community; a community standard for how to conduct dialogue, for what is or isn't inappropriate discourse, has always so far as I can tell been a goal of his.
I suspect, but don't know, that he probably does get concerned/annoyed when those discussions turn verbally violent, when they spawn diary after diary arguing the same set of points, when they start descending into angry diatribes that suck the attention of the entire blog and lead to attack rather than discussion. I don't know how kos feels about these problems, but I know they bug me, and I suspect from reading that they bug most of us.
So wrapping up this longish navel-gaze, I wanted to outline some helpful suggestions for conducting ourselves in debate, and specifically in debates about process on this blog. They're simply my suggestions, and any can be accepted or rejected by any human with free will here -- but I hope you'll find them worthy of at least some consideration.
- Think about the big picture. This blog has purposes; it has a purpose outlined by markos, to get democrats elected. But it also consists of many community members who broadly share that goal but may have others. Sometimes those goals may come into conflict, and lead to meta. If you feel the need to meta, please do so thoughtfully, with full consideration of other valid points of view. Don't spew everywhere about how unfair some policy is, but do try to outline why you think it's a mistake for us to conduct ourselves in such a fashion.
- If you come across meta, consider the point that is being made without immediately writing it off as whining. Sometimes it is whining (see: delete my fucking account, kos!). Sometimes, it's trying to make a larger point about how we all relate to each other, and what decisions about the blog would be wisest for the good of the community and/or our goals.
- If you have criticisms to make, try to understand the argument you're criticizing. If you just don't care that much, then there's no loss to anybody if you just move on. If you're sick of meta and you want to complain about it, well, fine -- but be aware that your complaint is, itself, meta. That is, it's a debate/disagreement about whether process is worth debate. Tricky thing, the meta monster.
- If you feel you disagree strongly enough to post a diary on the exact same topic from a different point of view, think long and hard about whether that's really necessary. Sometimes, it probably is, if your point of view requires a large amount of space. But often, the diaries that result from a meta-battle wind up just being "I disagree with so-and-so" without giving a real refutation -- and could have themselves been comments on the original meta-diary. Just consider whether it's worth your time, our time, the space it takes. Sometimes it takes weeks or longer to really hash out a particular meta-issue; but most of the time, two thirds of the diaries involved don't make any new or stunning points, and simply feed what turns into a shitstorm of disrespectful disagreement.
- Please, please, please think long and hard before writing the snark diaries after every meta diary. Usually the first one or two are kind of amusing, and the next twelve are either a rehash of the first two or aren't particularly funny. Satire is a great way to make a point, sometimes -- but satire consists of much more than "I think you're a dumbass so I'm going to make fun of you and post eighty pictures of pooties with snarky phrases". They really don't usually add to the conversation, and they do usually wind up creating rifts where none were before, oversimplifying arguments, and making people angry. Yes, we all know you have a brilliant wit and a sharp tongue; but like any tools, those can be well used or misused.
I hope you'll consider these points and accept or reject them based on their merits, and if you have any more points for consideration -- specifically about what the best ideas for conducting meta-discussions might be -- please feel free to add them in the comments. If you'd like to complain about meta, well, this is a meta-thread, so feel free. If you want to throw pie at me, I like banana cream.
I also hope that in coming up with some generally agreed upon loose ideas for what makes good meta, we can start to refine the concept so that not every meta debate on this site turns into a gigantic mess.
Because make no mistake, y'all, whether we like meta or not, whether we think it's worthwhile or not, the only way to get rid of it would be to clamp down so hard on more-or-less free expression and free will on this site that we would lose the very thing that makes us strong as a community -- the ongoing debate and dialogue between fundamentally different points of view.
Happy saturday to all.