Interoperability vs. Preservation of Site Culture

[charmian]

Recently, there was a suggestion about crossposting to Facebook Notes. In general, public opinion was against the suggestion, and in the comments, there was some discussion about whether this option might create problems for DW site culture or not.

For example, this comment by damned_colonial:

2) I dislike Facebook culture and the style of interaction that happens there. I fear that making it easy to crosspost to Facebook would result in lots of people coming here from Facebook and bringing Facebook social norms, which are at odds with the social norms I enjoy here on DW. (For instance, things I enjoy on DW include: lengthy, thoughtful posts and comments, a respect for pseudonymity, and the ability to segregate one's journalling from one's "real life").

In response, there was an interesting comment left by matgb, who said:

More of my readers come to read my stuff from Twitter and Facebook than do from LJ or DW. Even more come from a UK politics aggregator (or at least did when I was posting regularly). I'd like them to be able to comment effectively. I'd also like to 'push' to those sites I make use of to aggregate my stuff.

Essentially, who are you (or anyone else) to determine what sort of culture I want in my personal journal, and why should a whole site be tarnished because some people don't like the bits they've seen?

[......]

I didn't sign up for a fandom blogging platform, I signed up for an LJ fork that would take the good idea and make it genuinely interoperable. Refusing to deal with other sites because there are "normal" people there and they have a "culture I don't want to see here" is, well, annoying.

I don't think that an influx of FB users is likely destroy the culture of pseudonomity at DW. (Especially since a lot of people on DW already are FB users) The culture of real name usage at FB is something which exists mainly because it is the policy of the site, and enforced by FB itself. It's explicitly against the rules at FB not to use it under your real name. In contrast, there are no such rules at DW prohibiting people from using pseuds or from having multiple accounts or personae. The culture at FB is something that is developed by both the technology and the ToS, and at DW, both are different and don't reinforce those aspects of the FB culture.

In general, also, I am sympathetic to Matgb's desire to use DW in a highly interoperable way. IMHO, one of the reasons behind LJ's decline is that in an age where interoperability is becoming more and more important, it's still lagging behind. Tumblr, Posterous, WP.com, all of these allow you to easily push your updates to other platforms. I think it is highly desirable that DW also become an open platform in this way; however, if outside readers/commenters are considered a negative force, then this openness will be decreased.

Or is the site culture of DW really is that fragile? May be better for DW to differentiate itself from other blogging platforms by avoiding interoperability with anything but LJ, by making interoperability only possible by the technically inclined who are able to mess with APIs etc in order to crosspost? What do you all think?

UPDATE: foxfirefey has alerted me to the fact that an earlier suggestion about crossposting to FB was already accepted into the bug database. So the point itself may actually be moot.

Comments

[niqaeli]

I prize interoperability from an ethical standpoint and I -- am sort of surprised to find how vehement my reaction to the notion that DW site culture will be damaged by making it possible for people to use the site to their best interests. But, wow, I am at some seriously irritated how about no.

Frankly, I'd always seen Dreamwidth as moving towards being a sort of dashboard site -- a convenient, usable space to gather all the content you want to interact with on the internet to. That's what I want it to become for me, anyway. And increased interoperability is obviously necessary for that. I mean, I'd be really happy if I could do everything with facebook that I want to do via Dreamwidth. The interface here is so much more usable for me.

I feel like... ugh. I love Dreamwidth culture. And I'm kind of annoyed to be told that my participation in it should be in some way contingent on not bringing 'the wrong sort' onto the site. The site culture's not that fragile (and, honestly, for the long-term health of the service? I'm pretty sure it needs to be more complex than a single culture). And, frankly, it's my space. If you don't care for the space I create, awesome. The unsubscribe button's right there.

[foxfirefey]

And I'm kind of annoyed to be told that my participation in it should be in some way contingent on not bringing 'the wrong sort' onto the site. The site culture's not that fragile (and, honestly, for the long-term health of the service? I'm pretty sure it needs to be more complex than a single culture).

Hear, hear. DW culture could use a good influx and shake up.

[charmian]

Really? In what sense? (Not disagreeing w/ you, just curious)

[foxfirefey]

In a selfish sense? DW could use more nonfandom. I'm not saying there's a dearth of things for me here, I manage quite well. But I'd appreciate a more flourishing ecosystem for that.

Secondly, I personally think Dreamwidth needs to have a bunch of users from places that aren't LJ (or at the very least, people who ditched LJ years and years ago, before the brouhahas). I want some dilution of this damned obsession of what LJ's done wrong. Am I as guilty of that as anyone? Yes. I mean, hell, LJ meta is a hobby of mine and has been for years, and while I do less of it, I haven't stopped. I just think less of it would be a Good Thing™.

And ironically, having a bunch of users not from LJ would make the place more attractive to LJ users, too. Because right now the equation is all wrong for it. Sure, there's some technical features we have that LJ doesn't, but that applies visa versa too. But when it comes to content? Heck, almost everyone cross posts to LJ, so an LJ user doesn't really have anything interesting to gain content-wise by coming over here since only a few people stop cold turkey. And if people do stop cold turkey, there's often hurt feelings about it. But Dreamwidth people that didn't come from LJ wouldn't have that kind of baggage associated with them, and they'd hopefully be more likely to make new content on Dreamwidth that wasn't on LJ.

[charmian]

Yeah, I wish that DW did have actually more communities on fiction/movies/games/w/e from a non-fandom perspective.

Heh, I try to obsess less about what LJ's doing wrong too, because really, it's not like my opinion on whatever LJ Be Doing WROOOONG Today really matters to LJ anyhow, or will accomplish anything. (It's why stopped commenting on LJ news) But yeah, I think that is what people on the site do have in common. For example, my posts here on LJ get more attention than my posts on non-LJ matters.

But yes, I do agree that it would be good to get more non-LJ users in. And your point about it becoming more attractive to LJ users/DW users as well is important. As LJ continues to create more new technical features, it can also become more competitive with DW. However, I think marketing DW to non-LJ users will demand an entirely new kind of 'talking about the site.'

[foxfirefey]

Yeah, I don't think my meta on LJ Antics accomplishes anything, and I'm not trying to swing it as a cudgel to make people leave (which gets real old real fast), so I think I'm a-okay in those respects.

I don't think LJ has to worry about competing with DW. But I do think DW has to work to implement new, distinguishing features. I admit I still twitch with pedantry every time Dreamwidth gets called a "clone", and the more we can shake that off, the better we'll be, I think. update page update page update page drafts

[charmian]

Urgh, spoke unclearly there. What I meant is that if LJ creates super-compelling new features, whatever competitive advantages DW has could lessen.

(BTW, speaking of FB, it seems that LJ is doing something called 'Facebook Integration,' but it's not really clear what this will consist of)

http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8786234.html

[niqaeli]

I agree that, ironically, yeah: it would help make Dreamwidth more appealing to LJ users if there were more non-LJ users on Dreamwidth. Because it'd be unique content and there wouldn't be the same kind of history to it.

I know I do try not to go on about how DW relates to LJ when I talk about why I love it. Because I don't think it's actually particularly useful to anyone at all. I am, in fact, a rather bitter ex-LJ user. But I recognise that that's not a very appealing thing to listen to -- it's not what I want to focus on myself, why would people who don't even have that context or whose context for it is very different than mine want to hear about what amounts to an LJ rant dressed up in "ooh shiny DW!" clothes.

I think a lot of people need to just let go of LJ which is, I know, really hard. I haven't really managed it, myself. But if we've bailed on it, if it's not our future... then why are we stuck on comparing Dreamwidth to it? Dreamwidth might have its roots in LJ, but its future's ought to be its own. And yeah, if it establishes itself as a unique thing all its own, with lots of unique content, it's more appealing to everyone.

tl;dr summarised: I agree!

[charmian]

Why are we stuck comparing DW to it?

The biggest reason is because of the audience for the comparison. It's natural to compare DW to LJ when speaking to LJ users. Viral growth means that the new users have ties to the existing ones, and usually these ties were formed on LJ, so the pattern simply reinforces itself. The amount of crossposting going on further means that people who see DW for the first time are likely to be LJ users.

[matgb]

Heh, I agree with this. Oh, and thanks for pointing out that it's already planned for interop, don't care if it takes years to happen, but it's nice to know it's planned.

[morineko]

I think it's too late; I'm actually surprised that users like matgb and thorfinn are still around, but apparently other things are trumping their lack of involvement in media fandom.

(If charmian and another friend didn't blog here, I'd be gone.)

[foxfirefey]

It gives me half a mind to just go and implement Facebook connecty stuff myself, except I know I'm kind of a ditz with no stamina, so I'm not sure I'd have enough follow through.

[charmian]

Out of curiosity, how hard is it technically speaking? (Whatever you mean by FB connecty)

Also, there is the question of whether that is in the development plans.... Or is it?

[foxfirefey]

Dunno! Probably not too ridiculously hard.

And yeah, that suggestion's technically already in the bug database.

[charmian]

Eh? But it's untagged. If I understand correctly, that means that it hasn't been either rejected or accepted for inclusion as a bug.

[cesy]

I'd give a points bounty for it, if that would help.

[charmian]

Well, I guess new things can always happen, but I think this relies a lot on 'marketing,' as viral growth is kind of difficult to do when targeting a market dissimilar from existing users.

[matgb]

I'm here for the interoperability, a functioning feeds system, the ability to hack around with my layout using well marked up/commented code that makes sense to a novice, and because the UI is better than LJ.

I don't read a huge amount of DW content, but what I do read I like. I was never on LJ for the comms, nor am I here for it. For a personal journal, the privacy functions on LJ/DW platform sites are useful for the rare times I want to write about stuff locked, but DW is actually improving things, ergo it's better.

Important to me is allowing anyone that wants to read/comment to be able to. While the UI on OpenID on DW still stinks, it's so much better than LJs that it's silly. I want to substantially improve it, and have been asked to contribute to that.

That means a lot to me; the site wants to be better at the stuff I ned it to be better at, and is already good at the stuff I like.

DW's still in beta, and still improving. When it formally launches, I can start pushing it to others that'll make use of it, there're already a number of senior-ish party types on here, I can push for more when the site's ready.

[thorfinn]

I can't speak for matgb, but for me, what trumps the lack of involvement is the software engineering practice and quality.

I've been a professional unix systems admin, software engineer and architect for 17 years now. The engineering practices of the vast majority of open source projects out there are, frankly, from my professional viewpoint, just awful. The long term code quality and functionality of most of those projects suffers badly as a result.

I have absolutely no desire to maintain a personal blog using some horrendous piece of software written by a bunch of poorly organised non professionals. I'd rather hand code something myself than do that. It'd be much quicker and easier and safer.

DW is very well set up from an engineering practice standpoint, including being set up to encourage the development and retention of quality people, and I'm very happy to support and pay for the software as a service as a result. :-)

[charmian]

Hmm, why from an ethical standpoint? Personally, I'm for it from a pragmatic standpoint: for a small site, it becomes less of an opportunity cost to use it if it can push notifications/allows users from other sites to interact w/ it more easily.

That does sound like an interesting idea: there was also a discussion in that post (lower down the page) about DW and APIs, and whether DW should simply only support standardized, widespread APIs (or popular non-standardized ones) or build the interop features themselves. I think that if DW simply supports APIs w/o providing an interface for users to use them, it's going to be the dashbordee rather than the dashboard (not that that is necessarily a bad thing: it all depends on the vision of the developers). /tangent

Yeah, I also agree: I don't think it is necessary for there to be a single culture, and I think multiple cultures can coexist. I'm pretty sure that on LJ there are groups where it's the norm for people to blog under their legal identities/write short posts/whatever, and that doesn't make it difficult for there to be large groups where the opposite norm prevails.

[niqaeli]

I don't think that any service should try to hold my information hostage -- I've chosen them to host it at this time, nothing more. So, forme interoperability's an ethical issue when it comes to OSPs: it's about treating their customers respectfully and acknowledging that they don't have the right to keep your information pent up on their servers and impossible to retrieve or to push to other OSPs.

And, yeah. I know people who use LJ to blog professionally. One of my favourite blogs, actually, is la_bricoleuse. It's a professional costumer's professional blog and it's great. I read it here via RSS feed, because hey: the beauty of RSS means I don't have to read the content where it was originally posted. (Which is good because I Really Don't Like LiveJournal, personally.)

[charmian]

I guess personally I feel more strongly about data portability than interop per se (defining data portability as the ability to extract my info from the service in a readable format). Pushing data/login to me is more of a convenience issue.

Indeed: I think in these discussions people do forget the people who use LJ/DW as an open (unlocked) blog, rather than as a locked form of communications.

[niqaeli]

Data portability's higher ranked, but interoperability ties into it for me. They're not quite the same, but they're definitely linked up.

Interoperability is something I desperately want more of, ethical opinion aside, because I really kind of hate having three social media networks to deal with, all with very different interfaces. And that's really not very many at all to be managing, given all the choices out there. RSS definitely helps, some, but not fully.

I'll be very curious to see how many people bail on LJ when CARL goes live here. I can't begin to guess, to be honest, but I think whatever the result is it'll tell us something about the value of interoperability to Dreamwidth. Maybe not everything, because LJ is one pretty smallish fish in the sea for the English-speaking blogosphere, but I do think it'll tell us something.

[charmian]

Yeah, it is a problem. RSS helps with reading somewhat, but for commenting and other things, the protocols simply haven't been developed yet and the tech isn't there.

I don't think it'll be much of a difference. The feature is only available to paid users, which inherently limits it, and also, it depends on what the definition of 'bail' is. You'll still need to have some kind of LJ account to be able to comment on the posts and interact socially w/ the people on LJ, so is that considered 'bailing'? I'm also not sure what it would tell us about the value of interoperability: I'd be far more curious to what extent crossposting to WP or Tumblr gained adoption.

[niqaeli]

Probably true -- and I'd be really happy to see WP or Tumblr cross-posting implemented from either direction. Not particularly useful to me, personally, the cross-posting in and of itself anyway. But I know there's a lot of stuff on Tumblr that interests me but I just haven't felt like fighting with Yet Another Interface (TM) to actually follow. So any kind of interop there would be interesting to me personally.

And I really do think it'd be better for Dreamwidth as a service. It's a great product, but it's awfully niche. Niche can work and be profitable, I just really don't want to see the site fail in the long-run because it got locked into a Certain Site Culture and was unwelcoming to the greater internets.