Tom, my experience isn't statistically significant, but I really don't see any evidence for your hypothesis that communities stabilize around snark rather than generosity; not at ilX or anywhere else. Not at poptimists and not at Popular, for instance. Which doesn't mean that those places attract a diverse crowd, since by and large they don't. But in fact ilX was no less snarky/no more nonsnarky when I joined the convo than it was seven years later, when I drifted away. It was generally stupider later on, however.
I think Rolling Teenpop kept outsiders away despite not going anywhere near snark; rather, we used long thoughtful paragraphs, and backed our opinions up with reasons, and so forth. This kept participation way down, since flippancy didn't seem to play well. Thoughtful discussion can be as off-putting as flippancy, for people who are better at the latter than at the former, or for people who are insecure about how their thoughts play.
Dorian
· 2 months ago
Can't agree with this. Flippancy/in-jokes are one thing but being a dick - which is what I understand by snark - derails threads and alienates other contributors, reducing the discussion to a hardcore of zing-lovers. Thing is, Nitsuh is always a thoughtful and generous contributor so maybe his definition of snark is rather cuddlier than mine, ie a certain degree of knowing humour rather than playground abuse. The community in question is certainly much more pleasurable for the majority (albeit maybe less fun for the hardcore in-crowd) since its snarkiest member was banned.
hautepop
· 2 months ago
I would think that the more closed the community (LiveJournal groups would be an example) the better it is able to stablise around generosity. Very open ones (the Guardian comments being a prime example) will tend strongly to be dominated by either flamewars & trolling or in-group snark unless there's a lot of energy input by either moderators or established commenters' social pressure. Of course community size and impediments to access tend to inversely correlate, and perhaps it's essentially a tribal issue: the more outsiders come into a community, the more you need effort (rather than osmosis) to socialise them properly.
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I think Rolling Teenpop kept outsiders away despite not going anywhere near snark; rather, we used long thoughtful paragraphs, and backed our opinions up with reasons, and so forth. This kept participation way down, since flippancy didn't seem to play well. Thoughtful discussion can be as off-putting as flippancy, for people who are better at the latter than at the former, or for people who are insecure about how their thoughts play.