It looks like the plague has struck again.  Trolling the discussions opened by various UM related communication agencies,  some rather conservative brothers pounce in upon discussions relating to homosexuality and other hot button issues.   Of late,  that “hot button” is usually about the anti-Muslim rhetoric and reactions to the “Ground Zero Mosque”.

It seems to be the working policy of these organizations to post a story,  and then let things fall where they will.  To a point,  this sometimes works,  if what they want is visits and clicks and eyeballs.   I have yet to see any discernable presence of those organizations in the form of actual people moderating.  This is a failing strategy, it seems.  I remember overhearing a consulting firm telling people in an organization who were responsible for “social media strategy” that they had noticed that the Facebook discussions had been “left to their own devices”.   I don’t see much evidence that this was ever taken to heart.  I have yet to see any actual person show up as a facilitator , moderator, enabler,  or any other such “representative presence”.

It bugs me that there is this vanilla, almost lifeless (i.e. “neutral” ) stance by church organizations about their online communities.  It is clear tome that church agencies,  particularly denominational ones,  have “stances” they want to put out there.  The UMC has statements by bishops and heads of various agencies.  They clearly promote and encourage a particular stance on some rather sticky issues (i.e. the “Ground Zero Mosque”),  Iraq and “the war on terror”  etc.  And so the question comes to us:  Do we want to actually invite the debate into our online silos?  I say “silos”,  because this is the way the approach to online communities has run.  There is ,  in practice,  a resistance to actually hosting any arguments that become uncomfortable.  They want to have only the conversations that they can control.  This is well before any such debates cross the line into theological flaming.  The problem of “flames” and “trolls” is another issue,  apart from this.  What of the conversation itself?  Is that worth protecting?  The usual result of troublesome communities is to simply shut ‘em down.  It almost seems contrary to the concept of what a church in conflict should do.  I know,  online communities are different from churches,  but how much of that is due to the fact that we so quickly abandon them rather than seek some workable reconciliation?  I end up feeling that simple abandonment fits the model of not being serious about “social” in the first place.  Makes for “cool copy” to say we’re “doing social media”,  but it turns out our “media” aren’t really social at all.  There’s no organizational face to it at all.

Organizations have to be serious enough about these new mediums (media) to study them.   And I just don’t see that being done by church organizations.  Ground rules for discussion are the equivalent of the unspoken social pressures we get in face to face encounters.  What cues do we give as feedback to let people know that a conversation has ventured into flaming?  The online environment provides for some a sense of insular protection from obnoxious remarks that would be a thick presence in a face to face context;  online,  people take liberties with such anonymity.  The good from online conversations often comes when people feel less inhibited and can speak their mind without the social uncertainties and lack of confidence they might experience to speak up in face to face encounters. The bad from online conversations often comes when people feel less inhibited and speak their mind without the social feedback cues and lack of actually seeing the person they might experience in face to face encounters.

There’s  a lot more to this,  but there are some initial observations,  and a few pet peeves thrown in.