Why not turn off the comments on this blog? Or on any blog? I’m stunned more people don’t do this.

“I’m interested in how people manage social contexts and adjust their presentation of self accordingly; i’m particularly fascinated by the tension between the social and technology that supports it. This blog is my attempt to collapse a lot of my contexts in a public way. More precisely, it operates as a collection, revealing the variety of topics that i’m invested in thinking about, from social software to drug policy reform to gender theory.”

I’ve never felt welcome to join in the discussion at Misbehaving.net and the reason why is probably because of the overtly academic tone of the discussion. They bill themselves as ‘highlighting women in technology,’ when in reality they only highlight…

I’ve never felt welcome to join in the discussion at Misbehaving.net and the reason why is probably because of the overtly academic tone of the discussion. They bill themselves as ‘highlighting women in technology,’ when in reality they only highlight…

But, as enough of us come online, create blogs (LiveJournal, blogger, MoveableType, whatever), we are creating new spaces, new links, new communities, opportunities where nothing existed before.

Bad exists, yes; but it must be seen in the context of all the good that happens, the serendipitous moments who you find something (or someone) you need (or didn’t even know you needed until that very moment).

My experience coming out in Winnipeg was a lesson for me. Thre was little going on outside the private house party networks and the bar scene. So I helped start up an arts and entertainment group, and a sports and receration group, both as a way for likeminded queer peope to get together events likes concerts or floor hockey, and as a new way to make some new connections in the process. Both have been running successfully for a couple of years now, and I have made many new acquaintances and friends from the initiative.

The thing is, if you don’t act, you’ll never know what you can accomplish. Sometimes you have to take that deep breath and put yourself out there. Don’t forget you IRL friends who are your support group, and other offline things you do to recharge.

The point I am trying to make is, making a community from scratch sometimes takes work, even hard work marked by periods of pain and self-doubt, to create something new, something different. Something that may lead to benefits that you never dreamed of, or may never even know.

And if all else fails, go to the MoveableType support forums to find out the latest in managing unruly anonymous commenters on your blogs.

To equate a legal definition of permissable (i.e., a restaurant is governed by laws and the owner can kick anyone out) with ‘acceptable’ (“I’m not really here, so you can’t kick me out, so I can say whatever I want”) is to miss the point. If someone creates a space online in which they invite people to discuss certain topics in a particular way or within particular boundaries, they have a right to make that choice. They aren’t appropriating public space, like a park, to the exclusion of others who may want to yell and scream and otherwise reveal their ignorance. People who don’t respect that space are not necessarily trespassing in a legal sense, but using that argument to justify the peurile desire to insult or demean someone is childish and serves no purpose.

When people visit my political rant blog and send me emails about what an idiot I am, that’s fine because that’s pretty much expected within that genre. I have created a space where that sort of behavior is (unfortunately) expected. I don’t necessarily like it, but the rules were established and understood before I showed up, so I don’t have a problem with the digital spew.

Finally, as an aside, your statement that African-American culture is dying because of African-Americans’ unwillingness to surrender to the dominant culture is completely circular and ridiculous. If a minority culture’s only hope is to subsume itself within the majority culture, then we shall all be happy, one-star Sneetches in no time.

Ark — you and I will have to agree to disagree. We will not find common ground at this rate in this forum. And I’m not white. I “pass”, one of those so-called integrated into host culture. In Hawaiian: hapa.

I’ve never felt welcome to join in the discussion at Misbehaving.net and the reason why is probably because of the overtly academic tone of the discussion. They bill themselves as ‘highlighting women in technology,’ when in reality they only highlight…