When Someone Threatens Your Online Community
Robin Hamman has been covering a very interesting online community story brewing in the UK. Sadly, it's also a site that could find itself closed following legal threats made by solicitors acting for Gina Ford, a leading British baby and child-care expert. In a letter to the ISP that hosts Mumsnet, Ford's solicitors give several examples of what they feel are defamatory statements about their client. Unfortunately, mumsnet has, following Ford's legal threats, had to take the dramatic step of asking it's users not to discuss or even mention Gina Ford, even though "banning all mention of her on a website for parents is a bit like barring discussion of Manchester United from a football phone-in".Mumsnet is a site offering advice to expectant parents, support for those suffering bereavement following miscarriage, answers to obscure pregnancy questions, pushchair reviews and much much more.
What is interesting, particularly in Robin's second posting, is the huge groundswell of support for the community. Yup, this is a community indicator. People take their online communities seriously. They have meaning. And when threatened, like a bear with her cubs, members won't sit still and let threats derail them lightly.
Now, down to the details. The lawsuit from Gina Ford is around libel. For anyone who has hosted, managed or set up an online community that exists within a particular software platform, you know this headache. How responsible are you for what members say? How do you work with the issues? Read Mumsnets statement and think, what would you do in your community?
Then I think about Gina Ford. Why does she feel she has to do this? This past week the Seattle Times has run a series on glass artist Dale Chihuly around his current lawsuits and business dynasty. Why is he suing other artists? What are the reasons? I have a sense it is more than about money.
This ties in to a much larger issue that anyone who has a public identity has to ask today: if I put myself out there, what is the line for me when I won't sit and "take it." What are the techniques I can have to not let public criticism of me derail me? How can I listen to my critics in a generative way that makes me and what I do better?
All VERY difficult questions. As more of our lives have manifestations online, in communities, in our public faces and professional lives, the questions get more interesting and much harder to answer.
Tags: community_indicators, identity, usthem
posted by Nancy White at 8:54 AM
5 Comments:
Nancy:
Are you keeping a list of these community indicators somewhere? On a wiki perhaps? I'd love to see the whole list in one plae!
Yes, I've got a delicious tag, community_indicators where I am gathering both examples and my posts. They could easily go on a wiki.
Can you help me imagine how?
What a nightmare. (not the wiki - the destruction or potential destruction of the community)
Nancy,
Long time no see... Glad to see you're blogging. Think of your blog as a forum section where you get to say your peace with little interruption! ;-)
As for the Mumsnet ladies having to pull the plug-- it is insane.
You and I know you can't catch every post in a community forum all of the time. The only thing the "could" try is reviewing posts prior to letting them go public, but it is such a labor intensive drag. However they can delete or remove offensive postings and put them into a holding bin. I know this isn't the way most communities operate, but in this day and age it would help them throttle-in the online venom.
FWIW Gina Ford sounds like she's getting edgy about how the world perceives her personality and credibility. That or she hired some lawyer/PR firm to clean up her act. Pity she and her handlers have had to go completely overboard. It's obvious they are clueless that this type of heavy-handedness will come back to bite them and never go away.
'Wish the gals at Mumsnet could bill her for all the grief they're causing them.
I'm in the process of writing a paper/post about people posting too much online about themselves and the consequences. When I get it done, I'll make sure you know about it.
Mary Lu
Mary Lu Wehmeier
www.hellomarylu.com
this is quite insane--and very alarming.
one thing that upsets me here is that parenting blogs (mommy/mummy blogs especially) are a vital means to develop alternative ways of understanding parenting--outside of, and at times in conflict with the "received wisdom" of the manuals we all cling on to (I myself have written a pretty lengthy post on Dr Sears--and I shudder to think it could make me vulnerable).
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