Being Amber Rhea

2:45 p.m. - Does the Blogosphere Need an Intolerance Intervention?

Not sure how much liveblogging I’ll be doing in this session. I sort of want to take a break. But on the other hand this session sounds like it’ll be really interesting and I’d like to document it. Laina Dawes is talking about ten common things people do to stifle discussion of racism online. “You’re too sensitive” gets used and abused in so many conversations.

Anyway, my battery might die soon, and I might not bother to charge it.

They’re still having sound system problems. This seems to happen at a lot of conferences that are big and not free, so it makes me feel even better about how things went at PodCamp Atlanta (and also reminds me not to worry about that stuff too much).

Tish Grier says the local newspaper would not list her blog in their blogroll. They said she had to do something different to get listed. Okay, I missed what just happened there, I was talking to Rusty so I don’t know what happened with the newspaper. Also she says she goes to blogs of A-list male bloggers and disagrees with them vehemently, and sometimes it upsets them, but “they need to be.” ;)

The A-list blogs talk about how blogs are an echo chamber. But when you look at their comments sections, it’s all men talking about how blogs are echo chambers. There are no women’s voices. She says her purpose in life is challenging things and changing things.

Question to the panel (Liz Henry moderating): how do you know if an argument has been constructive? And for whom has it been constructive?

What Laina Dawes was saying just now makes it sound like she thinks “just stating your opinion” isn’t worthwhile. I think it’s very worthwhile. Maybe that’s not what she meant but that’s how it sounded.

There’s a Mormon girl on the panel (Kathryn Thompson) and she’s talking about writing about why she’s pro-life during Blog for Choice week. Hmmmmm. I don’t know. Maybe there are limits to civil discourse.

Tish asks rhetorically, “Are the A-listers gate-keepers?”

WTF is all this noise outside the door?? A guy went outside to tell them to STFU.

Question: What is the responsibility of the blog owner to corral the discussion? And how does it get more complicated when it’s a group blog?

Comment policy is needed when comments are deleted, says Kathryn. I think it’s a good idea to have a comment policy posted; but still, it is the blog owner’s discretion. Her blog, her rules. My comment policy is basically, “Don’t be an asshole.”

They’re bringing up Kathy Sierra again. This is the eternal debate about the fine line. It’s really hard and I don’t think there’s a good answer. I just wish people wouldn’t be assholes.

I want a snack.

Difference between writing a personal blog and writing on an institutional blog e.g. parenting.com - people feel like they can say much more horrible things on the institutional blogs because they don’t think of you like a person, they think of you as an institution or a company.

Tish says, “There is no credibility behind anonymous comments.” Totally agree. Fuck that noise.

Battery is dying. Snack break at 4:00. Then I need to schmooze w/ sponsors for Sex 2.0, but I don’t feel like. I’ll do it, though, and get it out of the way. That’s all for liveblogging this session.