In an article in the New York Times today, Noam Cohen reports that Mike Godwin, the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, has a "law", which is:
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
Anyone who has worked with online forums knows this to be true. There seems to be inevitable collapse of any conversation online that goes on for a while. If it's interesting it has to be, in some sense, controversial. And controversy in a vacuum creates flame. That's my law for the day.
The solutions for this over the years have been to make people sign on with a traceable identifying name, to create a service that people pay for (they're less likely to swear in a room they own), or to moderate the conversation.
Monday, August 20, 2007
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