How we interact here, please

This is a different blog than This is My Blog. Why it is a different blog is a pretty good question, I think, but I also think it’s for another post. The important thing is that this blog has different rules, different procedures, and also different topics. I’d like to detail the rules and procedures that I hope to follow. We’ll see how they work out. It’s basically just like playtesting (future topic: game design and community design).

First, I’m going to hold myself to one post a day maximum. I can write as many posts as I like in a day (so far, today, this is my fifth), but I can only publish one per day. As long as there is a backlog, I will publish one every day, but if I run through my backlog and have nothing to say it might fall silent. I don’t think that’s going to happen for a while, because of some of my other restrictions, but it might.

Second, I’m not going to respond in comments threads. If your comment provokes a reaction in me, I’ll respond privately if I know how to (so leave your e-mail in your post if you want a response from me!). If I think that a comment deserves substantive discussion, I will elevate it to a new post and respond there, which will then be my one post for that day. For archival purposes, I’ll put a link to the continuation post. So conversations can happen, but they must happen slowly, one day at a time, and I won’t move on to a new topic until I’m done with the first one. My hope is that we’ll have some long, thoughtful, weeks-long conversations on certain topics, and that other things will pass by in a day or so. I have a big old stack of index cards, 17 in all, each one outlining a topic to write about. I’m hoping that, altogether, they’ll last about 1-3 months at a post a day.

Third, I would ask that everyone else also only post one comment on this blog per day. I have no way (that I know of) of mechanically enforcing this*. But it’s more of an exercise in self-control and self-restraint and getting the fucking internet noise out of our thoughts and conversations.

Apropos of the third rule, I would like to ask for specific things to happen if I piss you off. Given my history, I imagine that I will probably piss some people off. And for that matter, my stack of index cards, well, has some which indict specific people for personal failures (wrt game design and promulgation). So, uh, chances are high that this will come up.

I would like to avoid entirely “You made me angry therefore you are wrong” posts. Of course, this is an ideal state, and I doubt it’s going to happen. So I’ll accept people being very angry and denouncing things I say, not respond (or respond privately if I just can’t bear it), and move on.

If you are, after a day, really hurt, please contact me privately to hash it out.

I would also like to avoid “You made me angry and also you are wrong.” I’m sure that I am wrong, and overlooking some things. But take a step back, please. Realize that, being angry, you are likely not thinking rationally. Wait at least half a day and see if anyone else points out the wrongness, then if not post a cool, rational, point by point dissection of why I am wrong. That’s the sort of thing I want to engage with, either privately or through graduated comments**.

Also there are other basic internet courtesies, which do not count as rules so much as baseline human social behavior: If I link somewhere else, please be a good citizen and follow the rules and tenor of that place. Do not impersonate other people. Check the dates on anything linked to before responding. Do not be such a huge dick that you would be incapable of sexual intercourse without harming your partner. Don’t direct a bunch of other people over here only as “back-up” when you disagree with me. Be willing to be correct but silent, or to be correct but not acknowledged in this space.

Please, if you’re going to comment here, at least attempt to follow these rules. I am unable to enforce the rules (since I’m not using my one post a day to point out that someone broke the rules and ask to please kindly knock it the fuck off), except through placing them in my header bar and asking people to abide them. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

Comments about this are welcome at the original post.

* I’m toying with the idea of having an “internet jar,” like a swear jar, where we would drop a paltry amount of money any time we screwed up and posted more than once a day. Not yet, though. My primary problem is “what to do with the money?” Maybe donate it to UNICEF or something?

** I just realized that there’s an interesting “penalty box” effect here. Since I try to acknowledge publically when I’m wrong, but I can only post once a day, if someone conclusively shows I’m totally off-base, it will take a day’s post for me to just graduate their comment and go “yes, this person is right, I am wrong, I’m sorry.” Huh. We’ll see how that works out.