a website, like CiF, which has no real sense of community, in part, because of the terrible design of the site
From Harry’s Place. Over to you Ben
no soup, no clouds
a website, like CiF, which has no real sense of community, in part, because of the terrible design of the site
From Harry’s Place. Over to you Ben
Well, it’s not the easiest thing to address, as I’m not sure what the pertinent part of the design is that makes it have no real sense of community. Plus, I’ve not had anything to do with the running of CiF in over a year.
However, I think the statement is half right – it has no real sense of community. That’s true. It was never designed to have one in the first place, in the way that Harry’s Place has become. So the complaint is a bit unanswerable. CiF also doesn’t make the tea, allow video uploads, or give commenters their own like profile page – we decided quite consciously not to.
As to why CiF is like it is, in terms of social behaviour, I’d hazard to say it’s because it grew too quickly. All of the finer online communities I know grew very slowly, and organically, and because of this the sites developed their own culture of self-moderation. CiF, just by the nature of it being part of the most successful newspaper website in the UK – and arguably the world – had no chance to mature gracefully from lowly blog origins (as Harry’s Place did, or even,say The Daily Kos). Instead it was instantly going to be a mix of an international stage for socially inept, a whipping boy for the American warblogging right, and a happy place for UK bloggers of a certain type to finally be able to argue with Polly Toynbee.
Pretty much every criticism I’ve heard about CiF, and as I say it’s not my job anymore so this is just my own opinion, has stemmed from a total misunderstanding of what the site was designed to be, and the legal, cultural, and editorial pressures that force it to be run as it is. Whether an internationall renowned newspaper could run a site like Harry’s Place is an open question. Whether they would want to in the first place is something to ponder as well.
Ben Hammersley
27 Jan 08 at 5:34 pm