Are you the Stephanie Strom who wrote the NYTimes article about Elie’s self-admitted sockpuppetry and the resultant punishment/fine? The one that was published on the 15th of January, three days before your “so far as we know to date” assessment? This one: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/us/15givewell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ?

You should also check out Beth’s Blog at http://beth.typepad.com. Beth tries to gently introduce social media tools to nonprofits.

Getting the private sector to update, and adopt technology is often not easy. Getting a nonprofit organization to see the value in updating or adopt a new technology is like fighting a boxing match!

Trying to move this sector into not only adopting but understanding new technology is an ever harder battle to fight. In the end though.. I think its important that it happens, and its worth it.

It’s important here to separate the community from the software that runs it. I don’t consider it censorship if everyone has pretty much the same access levels to creating posts on the site. Getting lambasted by your peers in the community may lead to opprobrium for you but it’s not the same as having the software prevent you from posting. That’s what I mean by online communities being fundamentally democratic in that the means to posting is equally accessible to everyone.

For the MetaFilter community, your assertion that democracy should not be “snobbish”won’t make any sense to them. The software pretty much allows everyone to be treated equally — assuming that everyone can read enough English to follow directions, they can post.

When I say lurk, it’s really a good idea. It’s a tactical consideration instead of a strategic one. If your end goal is to have your voice heard, lurking is a great preliminary tactic to understanding the folkways of the online community you’re entering. It doesn’t imply that you should be meek when you finally do post. However, lurking will give you an opportunity to phrase your initial posts in a way that is acceptable to members in that community. It’s really quite common and I don’t think it implies self-censorship.

Another point you make is understandable but not really of tactical use when engaging an online community:

“Seems to me that a true democracy would welcome the addition of ‘n00bs’ and their literary references as another perspective, not an annoying dissonance that should be shamed and harassed into compliance.”

I said fundamentally democratic, not wholly democratic. The platform for democratic action is there but Web-based communities have leaders and followers just like any meatspace community and there’s no guarantee that the Web will follow some platonic ideal of community any more than an offline one will. These communities are built on software platforms that guarantee access, they don’t guarantee people listening to you and the software will not protect you from getting harassed.

The point you make about MetaFilter’s demographic composition, their whiteness and their Asianness, their youth etc., doesn’t really apply to other Web communities. My comments on n00bism actually apply to many kinds of Web communities, not just MetaFilter. Simply put, you’ll be treated as a n00b by multiple communities if you fail to observe their customs.

For many communities, it might not be necessary to lurk but mature and large communities definitely have their own customs. I’m not a professional news person like you Stephanie, but were I to jump into newser or any of the host of journalism forums, I’d probably find myself running into a whole host of professional attitudes and jargon that I would have to learn about.

P.S. You really didn’t think Elie had a sockpuppet named Talia? I thought he had confessed to this and was assessed a fine?

Online communities like Metafilter may be “fundamentally democratic” — but only among their mostly young, mostly white and Asian, mostly affluent and mostly technocentric members. There’s a distinct us v. them tone to your post, which describes a system that requires new members to “lurk” on the sidelines and learn to censor themselves before participating. How is that democratic? Seems to me that a true democracy would welcome the addition of “n00bs” and their literary references as another perspective, not an annoying dissonance that should be shamed and harassed into compliance.

One of the definitions of “democratic” is “treating persons of all classes in the same way; not snobbish.” What you’re describing seems to me the opposite of that.

P.S. At least this nOOb knows that Elie did not engage in sockpuppetry, so far as we know to date.