Get out when things don’t make sense anymore.
This week I received an email from Thyme, the COO of 9rules, informing me that the user agreement had changed, and that I must agree to the new terms to retain my membership.
My first thought was “Nice, it is about time they updated the membership agreement. I wonder what new stuff is addressed or highlighted?” After reading for a couple of seconds my good vibes quickly soured. I discovered that the change in the agreement centered around participation in the private forum and/or “my.9rules”.
Let’s be clear here
This is not a post about how unfair the new requirements are, although I don’t agree with them, or the reasons given by members to justify them. The idea that the weight given to a members content should be gauged by their participation in a private forum or social community and not by the quality of said content is absurd. Life’s not fair, write better content.
I haven’t had a featured article on 9rules in years, the guys at Particle Tree have been writing better development focused articles than I have (for instance) of course they should be given more exposure than me. But I have moved past the point of this entry, so lets get back on track.
I want to talk about something else that is more profoundly disturbing, and the reason for my exit from 9rules. What my friend Rich likes to call “astro-turfing” or the faking of grassroots and the secretive, non-inclusive nature of how this decision was reached. First lets talk about astro-turfing.
When is a community not a community?
When it is forced, that’s when.
Community is very important to me, it is one of the driving forced behind Habari, so don’t think I am poo-pooing the desire to have more dynamic, engaging community. The fact of the matter is that I left the private forums (which I was very active in once upon a time) because the content of the forum was either requests for members to digg each others entries, or someone hocking a service.
I don’t want to help you game digg, and I don’t want to wade through a thousand posts from people looking for a new freelance job. I want to see topics that matter: free speech online, blogging as a foundation stone of new media and journalism, how blogging changed the world of wartime reporting. Things that matter.
That wasn’t happening so I left the forum. Forcing participation now will not increase the quality of the community interaction. It will only make it hollow and forced.
Transparency in all things
Now on to my last point. The email from Thyme informed me of a couple of things that were just mind-boggling:
- There was a discussion in the private members only forum, about this topic. No mention was ever made via email, even though the topic at hand was that some members didn’t participate in the private community(e.g. the forum where this discussion was taking place), which meant that we (I being one of those people) had no idea there was a problem until we were being given an ultimatum.
How hard would it have been to send one network wide email that said “There is an important, far reaching discussion going on in the Clubhouse, you really should check it out.”?
Not hard at all and would have let those of us who were disconnected from the forum know something was going on. - Said forum is now closed and inaccessible, which means now that I have to make a decision, I can’t actually be informed about the arguments that were presented and the discussion that happened.
- I can’t discuss this with other members now, because I am not allowed into the new private forum until I agree to be active in the forum I don’t have access to.
So long and thanks for all the fish
I have to say I think this was handled poorly. Had there been a brief email sent around letting the members know that a discussion was happening, I would have shown up, since this is the type of thing I am actually interested in. Things that matter. But it didn’t and I didn’t, so here we are.
Unfortunately the way it was handled tells me that I am no longer valued as a member of 9rules, which is a shame since I really believe in the ethos that Scrivs founded the network on: That there needs to be someone out there who connects people with good content.
Stroll on over and visit Christian Mohn
October 10, 2007
Very, Very well said. You have done a much better job than me articulating much of the same sentiments I have.
I have never been a “core” 9ruler so my decision to leave was most likely much easier to make than your choice was, but I couldn’t agree more with the “forced community” feel of it all.
A community isn’t something you make by enforcing strict rules and regulations, it’s something that happens if you allow it to grow.
I was never disapointed with 9rules, as I didn’t have any expectations when I joined, but the reactions echoed inside 9rules after people decided to leave has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. All in all, I’m very certain I did the right move, and so did you.
Stroll on over and visit Chris Harrison
October 10, 2007
Over the past few days I’ve read over a dozen posts similar to yours. The last time I heard this much about 9Rules was when they were adding new members to the fold. To me, 9Rules ceased being relevant some time ago. Through it I found a number of sites I enjoyed reading, and I added them to my feedreader, but nothing on the 9Rules site was able to keep me coming back.
Stroll on over and visit Owen
October 10, 2007
I think you Habari guys are starting to taste a bit too much of a good thing there. Maybe Habari should start a blog network rooted in its open community ethos.
Stroll on over and visit David
October 10, 2007
They gave away free fish?? mmmm.
Stroll on over and visit Adam
October 10, 2007
well written. I always thought of being a 9R member was a sign of greatness, alas in the last 9 months or so I’ve just lost heart in it.
Everyone appears to be turning a bit commercial and no longer writing for the love of writing.
Stroll on over and visit Chris J. Davis
October 10, 2007
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment. One thing that I failed to mention in the article is that I am not neccesarily against them adding a requirement to membership… I still think the reasoning is a bit daft, but its not my decision.
My main beef is with the way it was handled.
Stroll on over and visit Scrivs
October 10, 2007
We handled it by talking about it with members for months (at least since April) and even talking about the changes on our public blog. We created a new private section on the 9rules site that allowed Members to integrate with their my.9r accounts to make participating even easier. You knew from the beginning we were about showcasing quality content (and never left that), but also about building connections between people.
You forgot that connection part and that is why we made the change. Heck, you even mention that you haven’t had a featured article on 9r for a while and in all honesty we haven’t had featured articles on 9r in over a year so that shows you didn’t even take the time to visit the public site of the community you were a part of. Yet the best way to handle this was to email everyone about the changes when they didn’t really care about the community in the first place?
Again, everyone had their shot to talk about it and the overwhelming majority of people who cared enough to take part in the community agreed with us. Sure it sucks that some people feel like we are being harsh or in your case handled things wrong, but that is life. Some people see it as forced participation and I admit if we didn’t provide you enough incentive to participate then why was there any reason to join in the first place besides to have your content on our site?
To say that you or any of our Members are not valued is bullshit. If you weren’t we would have dropped everyone off at the last pass a long time ago. Hell, we wouldn’t have discussed these changes and taken the time with them if people weren’t valued. The ones who weren’t valued were the 9rules Community that you didn’t feel like being a part of. To be honest I don’t think it is our job to remind people they are part of something, if they wish to be part of it they will be and if they don’t then they won’t.
And for the record the forum was just closed last week so not as if there were months without access.
I still have mad respect for you Chris and all that you do, but this just came off as wrong to me. As suggested maybe you and other Habari people could start a blog network where all you have to do is allow them to show your content because I have no doubt something like that would work, it’s just not something we ever just wanted to be. I was going to stay away from this entry like I have many of the others, but coming from you it was a bit of a blow.
Stroll on over and visit James
October 12, 2007
This looks like a job for InkSmith! ::nudge::
Considering the change in 9Rules’ user agreement, it’s the perfect time to put InkSmith back on the development track.
Stroll on over and visit Ben
October 12, 2007
You’re absolutely right on target in this post, Chris. The heyday of 9rules has passed and gone. I think the rulers see this and are now switching directions. They’re not focusing on members’ sites and how great they are, they’re now focusing on 9rules.com and how “great” it is.
Stroll on over and visit Shawn
October 12, 2007
I second that InkSmith nudge … Please, for the love of all that is good, open that site up. It’s been in a state of flux for sometime now. The time seems ripe at the moment.
Stroll on over and visit Ian
October 12, 2007
Ali2 in essence added a lot of social features but unfortunately it also disregarded the current members. I feel like Scrivs pooped on me and I don’t like that feeling. Taking the leaf down was one of the easiest choices I’ve ever made.