stick to the code
i picked up this link for a blogger code of conduct a few months ago - and then more recently this one on corporate blogging. i think they are both great documents.
as part of the technology team supporting our church, i've played the role of moderator of our message groups (e.g. a theology pub). even without being duly sanctioned for such a role, i stepped up to do the job because i cared about the groups, i cared about the people in the groups, and perhaps most significantly because i believed in the groups.
to care enough to do this extra work, i think i needed to subscribe to a few tenants, such as--
since i was never deputized in this role ... and thus without any real authority, the very fact i was playing this role could have been disputed (let alone my calls, conduct, standards, etc.) and elevated to our leadership and/or then our congregation as a whole. but they never were. and in the end, I only ever banned spammers.
but i believed in the groups and wanted to see the groups succeed. i believed the groups supported who we were and what we said we were. ...but along the way we got more than we bargained for. ...along the way, we learned, as a community, to return hurt with grace ... and a group identity formed ... able to weather these storms. and eventually i saw my role diminish. i don't think i've had to make a call in a couple years.
the most likely sources of hurt were folks that had all the right answers and didn't have anything to learn from us. often enough, this was folks right out of seminary - and not just young buck twenty year olds... at least one old timer remains in my memory. they could raise a ruckus, that's for sure - and they were great at sticking people in well-labeled boxes. but the art of dialog was missing... as was apparently the practice of grace from whence they matriculated.
the most disturbing sources of hurt were the people who wanted to own the conversation with their pet topic/issue - and then progressed to wanting to literally own the place. in these extreme cases they would lobby individuals separately - trying to swing people onto "their side". eventually their presence would force the air out of the room - it would become suffocating. people would try to contact them directly off line to address this psychosis - but to no avail. they would play games - literally telling different people different things - and would say different things in public than in private. they were manipulative.
at some level they had to be feeling the conflict - perhaps an evidence of this is they would pop out of the room (missing valuable, often grace-filled responses) - and then back into the room (thinking the worst) to throw a grenade that proved their very point about us (so they thought) - but then pop back out of the room rather than stick around do the work of dialog. i don't know how they managed to maintain a coherent internal position in the midst of all this - but i don't doubt they did. we're amazingly good at creating a coherent reality. it's one of evolution's little gifts.
as one of the moderators (the leadership were also moderators at the time), we could see when they popped in and popped out - but the majority of the people were left even more bewildered than we were - unclear when it was safe to breathe. "gun shy" doesn't cover it. the moderators would try to narrate a little of what was going on to add perspective... but it could get pretty... well, insane.
Eventually I hit upon changing the group settings so that someone needed to simply write why they wanted to be a member of the group to join... and this small little step stopped the discontinuities in its tracks. they wouldn't fill it out. i could watch them come right up to this point and then leave.
i would've approved anyone who wanted to come back in who could write an answer to that simple question, "why do you want to join?". and I'm sure the leadership and the congregation would have held me to that.... but it never got that far.
we've always said we would welcome anyone back. where trust has been fractured - that may need to be repaired... but the heart remains. however this has never gone any further than a thought experiment. no one has tried to come back. strangely, i can't see that it was ever about dialog for them - we were all trying to dialog - but at some point it became more like a dialog with a hornet's nest than anything coherent. it was, i fear, really about something else...
while in this position of moderator, i took some hits. i once was told, "fine pete! you win! you're alpha male!".
what?
excuse me?
lol dude.
you think this is a battle of wills?
and he never answered me...
and he never came back....
and - the room changed.
the sun comes back out.
the birds start singing again.
and suddenly we were reminded how pervasive the darkness had become...
because it had been creeping in for so long...
and suddenly you realize the hubbub was only about one bub...
it wasn't the whole pub...
i've recently friended one of these guys on myspace - but there are limits to our relationship in place - limits to intimacy, limits to realness, limits to dialog. limits i can't do anything about. because he has chosen to limit the dialog. by whatever method of manipulation. and for whatever ends. congrats bro. you "win".
it certainly sucks. because i never had anything against this guy. and i still have nothing against this guy to this day. and i still don't have a reason to have anything against this guy.
but we've seen this before. we'll see it again.
each time it gets harder. and easier.
each time, we know better what to expect. and learn something else unexpected.
each time, we learn how to better practice grace.
i hate this kind of growing though.
as part of the technology team supporting our church, i've played the role of moderator of our message groups (e.g. a theology pub). even without being duly sanctioned for such a role, i stepped up to do the job because i cared about the groups, i cared about the people in the groups, and perhaps most significantly because i believed in the groups.
to care enough to do this extra work, i think i needed to subscribe to a few tenants, such as--
- these newfangled virtual groups are indeed "real"
- that what happens in these halls of cyberspace "really happened"
- and finally an idea(l) that our conversations ought to look a little different than the norm...
don't ask me why i think we ought to be a little different from the normwe had some ideas that were ideals:
- cause i don't have a good answer.
- "this is a safe space to share", meaning - you won't get flamed... or more directly don't flame someone just for sharing a thought that is different than your own
- "everyone is in a different place in their journey" which hopefully provided some useful perspective
- and the benediction / blessing "may all thoughts be seasoned with grace".
aye, but they're more like guidelines really.turns out not everyone thinks these codes are enforceable as a system. many think that ultimately the blog owner (the moderator) is responsible for setting the tone for his space ... an idea i think i/we resonate with. turns out that i mostly called the plays as i saw them by simply shining some light around when my gut said something was over the line. don't ask me what the hell that means :)
since i was never deputized in this role ... and thus without any real authority, the very fact i was playing this role could have been disputed (let alone my calls, conduct, standards, etc.) and elevated to our leadership and/or then our congregation as a whole. but they never were. and in the end, I only ever banned spammers.
but i believed in the groups and wanted to see the groups succeed. i believed the groups supported who we were and what we said we were. ...but along the way we got more than we bargained for. ...along the way, we learned, as a community, to return hurt with grace ... and a group identity formed ... able to weather these storms. and eventually i saw my role diminish. i don't think i've had to make a call in a couple years.
---
the most likely sources of hurt were folks that had all the right answers and didn't have anything to learn from us. often enough, this was folks right out of seminary - and not just young buck twenty year olds... at least one old timer remains in my memory. they could raise a ruckus, that's for sure - and they were great at sticking people in well-labeled boxes. but the art of dialog was missing... as was apparently the practice of grace from whence they matriculated.
the most disturbing sources of hurt were the people who wanted to own the conversation with their pet topic/issue - and then progressed to wanting to literally own the place. in these extreme cases they would lobby individuals separately - trying to swing people onto "their side". eventually their presence would force the air out of the room - it would become suffocating. people would try to contact them directly off line to address this psychosis - but to no avail. they would play games - literally telling different people different things - and would say different things in public than in private. they were manipulative.
at some level they had to be feeling the conflict - perhaps an evidence of this is they would pop out of the room (missing valuable, often grace-filled responses) - and then back into the room (thinking the worst) to throw a grenade that proved their very point about us (so they thought) - but then pop back out of the room rather than stick around do the work of dialog. i don't know how they managed to maintain a coherent internal position in the midst of all this - but i don't doubt they did. we're amazingly good at creating a coherent reality. it's one of evolution's little gifts.
as one of the moderators (the leadership were also moderators at the time), we could see when they popped in and popped out - but the majority of the people were left even more bewildered than we were - unclear when it was safe to breathe. "gun shy" doesn't cover it. the moderators would try to narrate a little of what was going on to add perspective... but it could get pretty... well, insane.
Eventually I hit upon changing the group settings so that someone needed to simply write why they wanted to be a member of the group to join... and this small little step stopped the discontinuities in its tracks. they wouldn't fill it out. i could watch them come right up to this point and then leave.
i would've approved anyone who wanted to come back in who could write an answer to that simple question, "why do you want to join?". and I'm sure the leadership and the congregation would have held me to that.... but it never got that far.
we've always said we would welcome anyone back. where trust has been fractured - that may need to be repaired... but the heart remains. however this has never gone any further than a thought experiment. no one has tried to come back. strangely, i can't see that it was ever about dialog for them - we were all trying to dialog - but at some point it became more like a dialog with a hornet's nest than anything coherent. it was, i fear, really about something else...
---
while in this position of moderator, i took some hits. i once was told, "fine pete! you win! you're alpha male!".
what?
excuse me?
lol dude.
you think this is a battle of wills?
you may want to turn it into that... but this isn't a battle of wills. because i am unwilling to engage on that level. but i remain very willing to engage on the level of dialog.I asked him - "bro, why are you even talking about 'alpha male'? what does that have to do with anything? we're friends here. on the same side. right? why are you making it about that?"
and he never answered me...
and he never came back....
---
and - the room changed.
the sun comes back out.
the birds start singing again.
and suddenly we were reminded how pervasive the darkness had become...
because it had been creeping in for so long...
and suddenly you realize the hubbub was only about one bub...
it wasn't the whole pub...
---
i've recently friended one of these guys on myspace - but there are limits to our relationship in place - limits to intimacy, limits to realness, limits to dialog. limits i can't do anything about. because he has chosen to limit the dialog. by whatever method of manipulation. and for whatever ends. congrats bro. you "win".
it certainly sucks. because i never had anything against this guy. and i still have nothing against this guy to this day. and i still don't have a reason to have anything against this guy.
but we've seen this before. we'll see it again.
---
each time it gets harder. and easier.
each time, we know better what to expect. and learn something else unexpected.
each time, we learn how to better practice grace.
i hate this kind of growing though.
Labels: community, relationship
posted by P3T3RK3Y5 for meltingearth
1 Comments:
I remember those exchanges. I don't have anything against him either. I would still call him a great thinker. albeit a provocateur and even downright rude and maybe even mean (not intentionally, I don't think). An axe to grind? yes. Intentionally hurtful... probably not-- in my opinion.
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