Netroots: Building a Community vs. Censorship

Chris Bowers of OpenLeft today announced the banning of a chunk of commenters, in response to a rather unsurprising, though particularly heated candidate flame war. I cringed at first, like I imagine most did, but ultimately I agree with his move. In fact, I applaud it.

I have enormous respect for Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller. Their collective wisdom surrounding the Netroots, the meta therein, and general philosophy of the blogosphere provided the tracks for my thesis and my personal political development, frankly. My lovefest disclosed and aside, Chris made one particular point that really rang with me when I let it settle in (and browsed some of the absurdness responsible for the action):

"... Freedom of the press does not mean I am obligated to publish whatever you want to say on Open Left, which happens to be my (and Matt's and Mike's) press. I didn't get into blogging to engage in anti-social discussions that lead to nothing but pointless flame wars. If that is the sort of thing you enjoy, there are many forums to engage in that sort of behavior. However, as long as I am here, this will not be one of those forums."

A forum of discussion, be it present or digital, is only as strong as its community. Editors have the power to influence that community towards their own ends, both subtly and (in this case) with a heavy hand. Intolerance and ignorance are reasonable things to try weeding out, and given the extend to which OpenLeft commenters had allowed themselves to get caught up in their loyalties, I can't imagine a better way for Bowers/Stoller to have handled them.

One of the premises I strongly push as the power of the Netroots is the power of an open forum. The ability to have deep and meaningful conversation with other activists remotely, especially on the higher-traffick blogs, creates intellectual stimulus, a livefeed for communication, and an opportunity for improvement (and a tap into community interests) for the writer.

A drastic change in focus and unfiltered development can obliterate that sort of community, however. Case in point, MyDD. Once upon a time, my homepage and go-to source for a political fix. Even after my man-crushes split, I didn't get hooked to OpenLeft; I preferred my constant. The community took a nosedive from 30,000 feet though, when they introduced the candidate diaries. In true Drink The Kool-Aid fashion, MyDD's editors allowed passion to pass the line of decency when they stuck individual weekly diaries supporting each Democratic candidate on their frontpage - during a situation (Uh, Primary Season?) in which passion and opinions are both high and fragile, no less. The result? The nigh-obliteration of what was a reasonably collaborative community, into a mosh pit of candidate support, accusations, and an otherwise perfect example of the Internet Anonymity Theory.

Every blog with a large enough audience is suffering from this sort of battle, including the Great Orange Satan itself. In Kos' case (and MyDD's, for that matter), their readership is large enough that such a wholesale banning would likely reverberate through the community like dynamite. OpenLeft is picking up steam, but the amount of dedicated commenters is still low enough that Stoller/Bowers can get away with trying to shape the direction of the community in the face of blind ignorant zealotry.