Journos As Noobs, Playacting As Pundits

Newbies posing as pundits, and spreading do’s and don’t’s about how we should conduct ourselves, should stop. They have arrived at a superficial appreciation of what is going on, but they don’t understand the deeper truths that motivate our actions online.

The social web is a fairly open place: the confusing term ‘democratic’ is often used to denote this. Newbies can show up, knowing not very much about the social interplay that goes on in various corners of the Web, and in general, aside from a bit of sniping here and there, webheads are fairly gracious in helping the newcomers learn the lay of the land. How many times have I had to explain how direct messages work in Twitter, for example, or in previous years, how buddy lists work?

But when journalists affiliated with large papers take their Sunday supplement approach to the social web, it can become a bit annoying.

One of the topics that makes my teeth itch is online etiquette.

On one hand, I am aware that etiquette exists for sound social purposes: to avoid causing offense. Fine. When all parties are schooled in the etiquette of business card exchange, or which fork to use, then no one is offended. (Aside: Unless you head to Japan, where business cards have to be examined, and a question has to be made that indicates you have really read it (“is this your primary phone number?”), or you are dining in Ethiopia, where no implements are offered at the table, and you must not use your left hand to eat (don’t ask).)

On the other hand, I get upset when print journalists set themselves up as arbiters of online morality, and begin making lists of ‘don’ts’ where social norms have yet to establish themselves.

A recent example is some strident bloviating by Bridget Carey and Niala Boodhoo of the Miami Herald, telling us we shouldn’t pipe out Twitter streams into Facebook, or our streams from social network X into social network Y:

[Mixing networks can cause annoyance - Business - MiamiHerald.com]

Last week, we took part in an online chat about social media etiquette. The discussion started off with a question: Is it poor etiquette to automatically feed all of your tweets into your Facebook status? (For those who don’t know, Tweets are the short messages sent out from your Twitter account.)

We took a firm stand on this: Don’t do it, for a couple of reasons. Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds were designed to be used in different ways. We think it’s not only disrespectful, but confusing to the Facebook audience to put your Twitter feed in your status.

For starters, Facebook’s status is designed to be written in the third person. (Example: ”Bridget is watching The Office.”) Twitter users write full sentences in the first person. (“BridgetCarey: I’m watching The Office”). Put your Twitter feed in your Facebook status, and it looks strange, and oddly repetitive (“Bridget I’m watching The Office”).

That’s awkward; but it gets worse.

In Twitter, messages are sent off in short bursts and are typically part of a conversation. Twitter users also often use shorthand and codes that just don’t translate in Facebook. So if you’re seeing lots of @, #, and seemingly one-sided status updates on Facebook, odds are, you’re seeing someone feeding from Twitter.

Before joining Twitter, we were confused and somewhat annoyed when people did this. And now that we’re on Twitter, even though we understand, we still think it’s wrong.

Disrespectful? What?

Ok, it is true that conventions that arise in one context — ‘RT’ to represent the reposting of a message in Twitter, a ‘retweet’ — may not carry over into another context in a perfect way, and these as a result may not be perfectly understood, but language is in general imperfectly understood.

It is no a sign of disrespect to friends and fans who congregate (at least some of the time) in social network A that I opt to cross post my natterings from social network B offered up to my friends and fans there. First of all, there may be some overlap in those groups.

But most important of all, the primary driver of social tool use is the desire to become and remain connected to others. Etiquette will have to flex around that driver, not the other way around.

Newbies posing as pundits, and spreading do’s and don’t’s about how we should conduct ourselves, should stop. They have arrived at a superficial appreciation of what is going on, but they don’t understand the deeper truths that motivate our actions online.

I will give Carey and Boodhoo credit for turning their pronouncement into a call for input on the issue, but because their framing of the question leads directly to a yes or no answer, instead of an examination of what people might be trying to do, it does not really lead to anything very helpful. The question isn’t about disrespect or whether Facebook prompts with “Stowe is” as the prefix to a post. It’s about connection. (And, the ‘is’ in ‘Stowe is’ is editable now, guys.)

So, the general rule of thumb is that people should not concern themselves that they are polluting one social network by redirecting their stream from another (or many others) into it. Our social contacts in all networks get to decide who to follow and why. The nature of streams is to converge, and we all have to adapt to the natural laws of flow, not the other way around.