Acronym

Here's a single q&a from today's wonderful WashingtonPost.com chat with professor and author Jonathon Zittrain:

Pot Falls, Va.: Now that more people than ever can make their voice heard, are we doomed to listen to partially informed, bitter, angry vitriolic rubbish the rest of our online lives?

Cynical in Va.

Jonathan Zittrain: I don't think so. (Lee Siegel has written a lot about this, by the way, in his book Against the Machine.) Theodore Sturgeon, the science fiction writer, was once told that 90% of SF was crud. "Yes," he said, "90% of everything is crud."
So there's a lot of stuff out there that isn't that inspiring -- or that's downright hurtful or deceptive. But our technical architectures for letting people express themselves online are all over the map, and those attached to natural gathering points like online newspapers are (with apologies to WaPo) primitive. That's why I'm intrigued (but not cyberutopian) by Wikipedia: it's a genuinely new technology that makes possible a culture of discussion and moderation that's today often vitriol-free.

For those who haven't done so yet, check out an article of your choice on Wikipedia and then click on the "discussion" link at the top of the page. Chances are good that you'll like what you see. (Mileage may vary, of course.)

This is an old debate on Acronym, and I'm not really trying to reopen it here... at least not in the same form. I wanted to use the quote to talk about the idea of what I refer to as centralized vs. decentralized content. Associations have long been purveyors of centralized content—that is, content that goes out with the stamp of approval from the association. It's a book or a magazine article or a committee report, etc.

We've actually been in the decentralized content game a long time, too, with chat boards and listservers (not to mention the infamous "hallway conversations," which associations seem to universally point to as a prime reason for attending a large conference). However, members—and those who would be our members—are increasingly expecting more outlets for decentralized content. In some ways, those associations on the forefront who are able to capture this content are creating their long tail. The main argument against putting resources behind fostering decentralized content and its capture is that if it is not good, it will make the association look bad.

I think people are realizing that 90 percent of everything is crud. I think associations should continue to produce centralized content, and work hard to turn the crud ratio on its head (make 90 percent of it good). But open up and strongly encourage decentralized content—being sure the two kinds of information are apparent to those who access it—and let the crud come with the good. Find the 10 percent that is good, and use it. Tomorrow, I’ll write some thoughts about what this might look like.