🤝 how to build and maintain communities - @visakanv's blog

I had a habit back then – whenever I saw someone fall in the moshpit, I’d rush to help them up. It seemed like a decent thing to do. I was mocked for this, by some ‘tough guys’. They called me the Moshpit Medic, and said it like it was bad, uncool, dorky, etc. I felt shame then.

But looking back now, I feel pride. I saved others from being injured, sometimes badly!

I realize now that the tough guys had a belief: that moshpits are supposed to be violent, and that getting hurt is a rite of passage. They believed that Moshpit Medics were ruining the fun.

This generalizes to a lot of things. It shares the same root as the idea that consent is unsexy. “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen”. That any sort of attempt at kindness kills the vibe, etc.

I honestly don’t want to kill the vibe. The vibe is what drew me in!

I suppose you could say we have philosophical differences about the nature of the vibe, and how to nourish it. I think the tough guys suffer from a lack of imagination, an overly narrow conceptualization of what is fun, what is sexy, what is good. That’s half the problem.

The other half of the problem is that the rest of us fail to stick up for each other. We collectively live under the tyranny of tough guys, in all sorts of contexts. I get private messages about this sort of thing all the time – but for things to change we need more public action.

The tough guy selfishly thinks of the moshpit as a place that he can go into and flail around violently w/o looking out for others. This is toxic. A healthy moshpit can only support so many tough guys (& requires medics to clean up after them) before it effectively becomes a riot.

This is the general problem of assholes in public commons. They make up 1% of the group, cause 74% of the damage, and ruin everybody’s experience. And we let them, because we still haven’t learned to do better.

How do we begin to solve this problem? A mental image of herd animals comes to mind. We need to learn to communicate with each other, build consensus, coordinate collective action. When you see a bully, don’t fight him 1v1. Don’t be a martyr. Coordinate with others! You aren’t alone. And don’t be quiet.

— 2 —

I created a “safe space for brown friends” group on FB, and I worried that it would end up being an echo chamber. But the folks in there question+doubt+challenge each other a LOT. In fact, they get to do it more effectively when they don’t get distracted by noise. Makes me think.

It is my experience that, if you create a “safe space” for a minority group, sparing them the stress of having to explain themselves to clueless outsiders, the level of criticism, argument, discourse, etc inside the group INCREASES. People challenge and spar with each other.

For eg, feminists arguing internally about how to best achieve their goals have much more rich, interesting, thought-provoking conversations when they don’t have to be interrupted to explain “women are people too” to newbies every 20 minutes.

In response to “If all they do is talk among each other they aren’t doing anything really except producing feel good hormones. Glorified tea time small talk.” – This would be true IF all they did was talk amongst each other. Which absolutely isn’t the case. In practice, all of the people I associate with live and operate in the real world, and being real experience to the table.

“So what conservatives do all the time?” – This is an extremely unproductive statement that tars an entire outgroup with the same brush + disincentivizes outgroup members from aspiring to be better. If you expect the worst from them, that’s what they’ll give you.

It’s correct that a safe space is limiting- but what people don’t seem to realize is that the world outside of it can be even more limiting because of the problem of abuse. Folks understand this intuitively re: children.

It’s true that not all outsiders are clueless. The problem is that it only takes 1-5% of clueless outsiders to ruin the experience/atmosphere for everybody. People appreciate this intuitively in the context of house parties, which typically aren’t open to public

Re: ideology-specific challenges, I think this is a function of the quality of the people you have in the group. I make it a point to only invite people who are skeptical of being overly ideological. Which is another example of how a limit on one variable can open up discourse

It’s also likely true that a lot of safe spaces coddle more than they nourish, but this is a function of how you manage the place rather than anything intrinsic to the place itself

Most brown people I know would much prefer to never have to ever even think about their skin color, let alone talk about it. The problem is that the world will keep reminding you of it, in ugly and painful ways. So it makes sense to get ahead of the issue

“you are only creating an echo chamber, reinforcing the view of the people there without any counter argument, you are weakening their ability to Think outside the box, you prevent them to face difficulties. Basically You are not creating a safe space, but a more dangerous place.” – This mistakenly assumes that everybody inside the box lives there 24/7. Look at me, I’m right here out in the open engaging with strangers. Stepping out for a breather at a noisy party clears your mind and lets you reengage productively.

If you live in a home with locks on the doors where you don’t let strangers in, if you’ve had private conversations with friends, if you’ve ever said “let’s go somewhere we can talk”, then you already intuitively understand the utility of creating a shared private space

If you use an anonymous account that doesn’t have your name or face attached to it, you already intuitively understand the value of a safe space

If you believe in having restrictions on immigration (I do) then you already intuitively understand the value of a safe space

I can also say that in my experience, people who feel nourished and respected inside the group feel supported and energized to go out and have constructive conversations with outsiders in public (as I am doing now)

Of course, creating and maintaining an effective safe space that is nourishing but not coddling is A Lot Of Work.

— 3 —

I realize it might be worth taking some time to articulate what I’ve learned about how to run and manage a community effectively, particularly for those of you who are newer and don’t know my style. It’s a lot more painstaking and involves a lot more work than most people realize.

Any group of people – even 2 people – has a culture. It has norms. It has rules about what is acceptable and what is not. If you’re going to start one, it’s very, VERY important to be super-deliberate and precise about what they are.

Creating lots of different groups from scratch and growing them carefully with different groups of people has taught me a LOT about what people are like, and how different people operate.

Real talk: Most people are quite ignorant about the effect their words have on others. This is also true for groups and communities in meatspace.

No matter how carefully you articulate your principles, when you meet new people, you’re going to see them violated them in all sorts of unexpected, unforeseen ways. This is because your principles are shaped from your experience, which contains assumptions you aren’t aware of.

— 4 —

There was a time where Quora was the 1st and last thing I’d excitedly look at whenever I turned on my computer, but over time it got noisier and junkier, the quality of questions dropped, and I started checking in less and less. These days I drop by maybe a few times a year.

Seems like communities either have to be extremely gated and heavily moderated to keep a good thing going well, or they have to accept that the price of free-for-all entry means an inevitable evaporative-cooling effect (A’s attract B’s, B’s attract C’s, C’s drive A’s away).

Because most people don’t have the stomach for strong moderation (except in specialized contexts, eg /r/askhistorians), every open-ish community has a half-life of sorts. My advice to people seeking good spaces is to find them early, then build personal/private 1-1 relationships.

–

I think a lot about how online communities almost always have to be seeded in the start by the pioneers. Quora was a lovely place in 2012. I know this is veers close to a sort of rose-tinted romanticizing, but there’s something in here that I think needs considering.

Most people want the fun of participating in an already-great community without having to do the work of making sure that their participation is net positive to the group as a whole. It’s ignorant and selfish. We have never properly solved this problem.

Some will say, well that’s human nature and you can’t solve human nature. But if we don’t make an effort then Good Things periodically crumble, which is Sad. People keep starting New Things, rarely salvaging or learning from the old; the cycle continues. Can things be better?

— 5 —

If you don’t keep out the riffraff (however YOU define that), they will use their position in your community to drive out whoever THEY don’t like. Inescapable.

The thing is – it’s ridiculously difficult to predict what the fault lines will be. It’s very revealing to examine how private groups splinter into factions of in-fighting. Women’s groups over race. Women of Color groups over ideology, tactics, strategy. Every group splinters.

You know that scifi quote about how the author’s job is not to explain the automobile, but the traffic jam? An interesting thought experiment is to imagine some sort of group – literally any kind – then consider how it might fracture internally.

— 6 —

As I get older I feel this subtle-but-strong pressure to become more “professional” – more “civil”, more “mature”, more even-handed. Most of the time this is a good thing. But I’ve also discovered that sometimes this impulse can mean tolerating things we shouldn’t tolerate.

There’s no nice way to say it: some people are assholes. The mature thing to do is to focus on the behavior, not the person. But regardless, asshole behavior is real, and it’s a problem – a huge problem, actually, because assholism has a way of hijacking and derailing good things.

Tolerating asshole behavior is a choice that can seem neutral – by refusing to intervene, we can perpetuate the myth that we’ve kept our hands clean. And intervention is often messy, and often very costly to the interventionist(s). It’s also sometimes the right thing to do.

Of course, it’s not ALWAYS the right thing to do. This is partially what the stereotype of the rude, disruptive & unproductive SJW is rooted in. I’ve met self-described SJWs who are total assholes. It’s *complicated*. Reality often is. Let’s try and tease it apart layer by layer?

The other part (whether it’s the bigger or smaller part depends on your context) of the stereotype of the shitty SJW is invented by assholes who use character assassination to avoid accountability for their actions. Lots to consider when trying to make sense of what’s up.

In my experience, lots of people (most?) want quiet, not justice for others. Here’s a depressingly common scenario: something bad is happening, and nobody notices… until someone draws attention to it. The fastest, easiest way to solve the scenario is to get rid of the *person*.

“If you see something, say something”

Person: *sees something, says something*

Boss: Ah, well. I don’t see anything. Does anyone else see anything?

Everyone else: *silent*

Boss: Seems like you need your eyes checked, mate! Maybe you’re not cut out for this environment?

There’s a non-zero chance that the person might’ve gotten a false positive. That said, in my experience (which is limited), most serious people who decide to report something *agonize* over it. They second-guess themselves, cross-reference with friends and peers. “Am I crazy?”

Circling back – let’s talk about assholes and civility. Most people recognise that Prof. Umbridge in Harry Potter was a polite asshole – and this often made people hate her even more than Voldemort, who was more of a sincere asshole. It’s easy to get into a semantic mess here…

Simplistically, I think there are two variables:

Power – the ability to influence the outcome materially. Withholding someone’s paycheck. Pointing a gun in their face

Language – the words you use, but also the format, the theatrics, your outfit. It’s the whole package

People with power and privilege have the luxury of being able to be infinitely civil, and to demand it of others. (Sometimes powerful people still manage to be utterly disrespectful, coarse and uncouth in their language. I feel embarrassed for them. But they’re easy to deal with)

People who are disenfranchised are often understandably unwilling to expend time and energy keeping up the appearance of civility. If your child was wrenched from your arms, I think most would agree that you deserve a few swear words at the people who took her from you.

Just got reminded of a quote that’s thematically relevant:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay

There’s another quote somewhere about how non-violence resistance movements work – they work because violence doesn’t, and violence doesn’t because the moment you’re violent, those with more power are justified in using MORE violence to clamp you down, detain you, beat you

Do you see the game here? If you have power, you can maintain a veneer of civility while using your power (or even the implied threat of it!) to contain your victims in a difficult scenario – push them (legally, civilly) until they slip up. Then politely unleash hell on their ass.

This is the same game that allows someone to be a robber-baron of sorts, amass wealth through maybe-unscrupulous means, then white-wash their reputation through subsequent acts of charity. I’m not calling out anybody here, just the game itself.

The game is also extremely… gameable. It‘s not hard for a powerful asshole to earn public sympathy by doing a PR campaign focused on the worst of his enemies. People are terrible at coordinating actions. Somebody’s going to say something overboard (eg threatening children)

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.”

I find myself thinking about the CNN town hall where the Stoneman Douglas shooting survivors – *kids* – were grilling their representatives with hard questions about funding.

Correct me if I’m wrong (I might be!) – it seemed to me that the kids were asking harder questions than journalists usually do. Is this true? If so, why? My guess is that it’s because the kids are freer than journalists, who may have to worry about maintaining relationships.

— 7 —

I’ve found myself returning to the word “contempt” a lot this year. The word “hate” has gotten diluted (“i hate my husband lol” can be a statement of affection, for example). But *contempt* is something vicious. Contempt is the #1 predictor of divorce.

I think it’s very important to be able to discern & identify contempt, bc it is noxious & destructive as hell. Contempt isn’t mere criticism, or disagreement, or dislike, or distaste. Contempt is wrath. Contempt is a deep, fundamental vicious resentment that borders on murderous.

“I can tolerate anything except intolerance” sounds cute, silly, paradoxical, like a parlour game. “Tolerate anything except contempt” seems like a more intuitive directive to me. Contempt justifies abuse. Contempt is the stepping stone to all kinds of dehumanization.

The devil of course is always in the details, & people will argue over whether some particular statement is contemptuous or not. Hatefuckers who are moderately intelligent are masters at gleefully wrapping up their contempt in plausible deniability, jokes and bad-faith questions.

But we should at least be able to agree on the following premises:

1. Some people are contemptuous towards others.

2. This should not be tolerated.

Some Americans at this point tend to get wrapped up in Free Speech, which is kind of a boring point of contention to me.

From what I understand, #1A means ya’ll can’t make laws against contempt, because anti-contempt laws will inevitably be abused by federal authorities. That’s understandable. But that doesn’t mean you should tolerate contempt as private citizens!

“Congress shall make no law against hatefuckers, for Congress itself is always at risk of being hijacked by hatefuckery.” 😬

Incidentally, there is actually no need to be contemptuous towards contemptuous people. This is a confusing, complicated and emotionally-charged point that might take a few attempts to get right, bear with me…

Here’s the optimal response to people being contemptuous to you. It’s HARD, it’s PAINFUL, it’s A LOT TO ASK, but it’s optimal:

Cold, calm indifference. Dump his ass, cleanly, calmly. No explanation necessary. This is the nuclear option & requires nerves of steel, exhibited here.

Of course, not everybody has this option. Contemptuous, manipulative abusers often design their abuse carefully to make their victims powerless, angry, upset, emotional, overwhelmed, “irrational”, etc, then use all of that against them. Hideously cruel.

What are isolated, disenfranchised individuals to do? Build coalitions. You can’t act alone against someone who has power over you. You need to find others who can help you. There is a science to calmly ejecting assholes and hatefuckers from communities.

The important thing is to be extremely calm while you do it. They want you to get mad. They want to use your ‘overreaction’ as fuel to recruit and inspire more hatefuckers to rally and assemble against you. It’s annoying and unfair, but that’s the game.

Imagine a cool, collected bouncer, saying “you need to leave” in a neutral but firm voice. Imagine a roomful of people all coordinating that response in reaction to someone who’s absolutely losing their shit. That’s basically the skillset that we need to collectively develop. (Relevant bit from audience member at a live show of Nanette)

— 8 —

one of my recurring talking points to anybody who’s willing to listen:

any small group of people loosely-but-truly aligned on something can create powerful vectors by producing public-facing work that’s directed at each other

talking about the creation of scenes, basically

a lot of scenes falter bc the alignment isn’t sufficiently “true”, and bc there aren’t enough good people to hold it together

this is my unhappy assessment of the problem with many arts scenes

music & literature scenes are full of ppl who care about neither music & literature

what’s a minimum viable scene?

if you have two sufficiently obsessive people who are trying to impress and outdo each other in public, two is enough

but usually it seems that it takes a broader/wider scene to generate 2 such obsessive people

in reality scenes seem to need like, idk, 2 dozen people

you need the conflict and collaboration and one-upmanship to push people far out of homeostasis

I beat this drum periodically to find the others

sad thing is that there aren’t actually very many others

few people have any real creative vision, any real ambition

I’m not trying to be mean, it’s just true

reason to stay optimistic nevertheless: we only need a few people

an additional confounding factor:

not only do most people not have any real creative vision or ambition…

many people entertain themselves by PRETENDING that they do

most people want their lives to be sitcoms that pretend to be adventures

but if you can make the leap and decide that you’re an adventurer,

and then, by going on small adventures, find the other adventurers,

then you can pool your energies and resources and go on BIG adventures.

I always suspected this to be true, and my knowledge of it has grown.

— 9 —

A truth that makers seldom dare to say, because the optics are bad: entitled “fans” can often be worse than haters.

eg people who go “you know, i’ve been following you for a long time, and I like most of your stuff, but you should really do less of this and more of that”

I’m not capturing it perfectly. I mean, you can totally make requests and suggestions, like “I’d love to hear your thoughts on X” – but I think most creators would much prefer to receive “fuck u your work sucks ass” than mindfucks like “can’t believe I used to take you seriously”