Dominator Tentacles

The recent hacker attacks on radical feminist websites is an example of the dominator model growing a new tentacle.

A few weeks ago, a group of anonymous hackers mounted attacks on several feminist blogs and websites. The attack was nothing new: women’s voices in general, and feminist voices in particular, are silenced daily by violence, threats, and shaming, on the Internet and in real life.

As a result of the recent attack, there are fewer radical voices on the web. A few radical feminists have taken down their blogs; some will not be reopened. Others have made their Flickr photostreams private. At least one blog and one forum are now private; a muting of voices if not an outright silencing. Going private, having to hide: the parts of the radfem community that are still intact are no longer fully open, and no longer fully a part of the human conversation on the web. 

The hackers exchange communications at some notorious sites which I have visited. (I had to shower myself and sage my computer afterwards.) They appear to be a group of sociopathic personalities whose discourse is trite, tired, and boring. A single comment from one “Anonymous” caught my attention, though, and has stuck in my mind:

“Remember, we are not political. We are not Republicans. We are not Democrats.”

I’ve been mulling this over. After all, these same hackers have also taken down gay websites. Attacking gays, attacking feminists; hmmm, seems like a political agenda to me.

But let’s suppose that Anon’s actions are motivated, as Anon seems to say, by a sort of juvenile nihilist philosophy; not by politics, and not by any desire to support big government, big corporations, and the status quo. Because Anon is a rebel kind of guy. An anarchist, perhaps. He’d never carry water for, well, anybody.

Interestingly, however, Anon never seems to take down the big sites. Walmart.com and the Pentagon are safe from his attentions. It’s not that Anon is a big fan of Walmart or the government. It’s just so much easier to attack the vulnerable. Big business and big government aren’t vulnerable on the Internet. They can afford not to be.

Small discussion boards and blogs, particularly ones that advocate unpopular points of view, are often run by individuals who put up their own funds, if they can scrape them together, and who must be their own IT departments. They can’t afford the type of security that requires the big bucks. And since they have jobs (unlike Anon, apparently), they have to put their desire to maintain an Internet presence in the balance with supporting themselves and their families. When the crunch comes and time pressures set in, it’s not the Internet presence that wins out.

So the actions of these “apolitical” hackers do have a political end: they remove unpopular, radical, fringe viewpoints from the web. Big government doesn’t have to eliminate the subversive websites; Anon will do it.

Sorry, Anon, it looks like you do carry water for the dominators. And you didn’t even realize it, you putz!

Wouldn’t it be great to have an open web, where even the most marginalized groups can be heard? The dominator model, which dictates how human organizations should operate, doesn’t like open. It doesn’t like consciousness, community, or cooperation. Like Anon, the dominator model believes in establishing “cred” by bullying others. And the dominator model extends its tentacles just about everywhere, including inside our own minds, so sometimes we don’t even know how to live by any other model.

As a feminist blogger once put it, “many ghouls of the patriarchy have slimed our brains.”Those ghouls have certainly slimed Anon’s brain.

Anon is just another tentacle that the dominator model has extruded.

So I’m wondering: how much do we want an open web? Enough to recognize a tentacle when we see one? Enough to support free access to free software, including the expensive technology and services that make sites secure? Enough to get the slime out of our own brains, and stop giving a pass to dominator-style web discourse, such as bullying and building cred?

I don’t like it that radical voices, however unpopular, are being expelled from the human conversation by online thugs. I like it even less that it’s happening with hardly any notice, and without comment by more mainstream writers.

Here’s a story about the incident at a news site. I’m not linking to any of the feminist sites that were attacked, because one of the ways Anon decides who to target next is by following links. I guess that means my voice has been muted a bit, too.

Misogyny bares its teeth on the Internet

Transparency

I just watched a great story of web transparency unfold. It goes like this:

A recently-minted MD–I’ll call him AsshatMD–decides he wants to blog. AsshatMD wants to blog anonymously, because he likes to insult people. In particular, he likes to bad-mouth nurses. A sampling:

Most of the Hispanic girls came from community centers managed by certified nurse midwives (CNMs), nursing “specialists” perhaps even more incompetent than CRNAs (how OB-GYNs tolerate them I do not know; they’re acerbic, ignorant and foolhardy and generally built like linebackers).

Naturally, he doesn’t want real-life nurses (or, as he calls them, “bulldogs disguised as nurses”) to read this stuff. After all, he may have to face them in person at his hospital.

In his most recent blog, AsshatMD takes to task pregnant women who have the temerity to hold opinions differing from his, particularly on the subject of how they should give birth. He makes observations such as this one: “I’m tired of having to manage precarious medical situations because New Age mothers prefer to be irresponsible [...]” by “clamoring” for natural childbirth and declining offers of anesthesia.

It follows that AsshatMD’s blog comes to the attention of a feminist blogger, who offers it as an example of, well, asshattery. AsshatMD promptly comments on the feminist blogger’s site: “This is apparently a blog which caters to rabid (and exceedingly retarded) lesbian manhaters.”

Not surprisingly, other people visiting the feminist blog begin to speculate about what might happen if AsshatMD were outed. Suppose his supervisor got wind of Asshat’s misogynistic writings? People take note of Asshat’s self-proclaimed credentials: his alma mater, the hospital where he claims to have done his residency, and so forth.

But wait! Dr. Asshat’s credentials begin to change. At 2PM he’s a physician living in Northern California who attended Cornell; by 4PM he’s a “District of Columbia” doctor from UCLA.

By 5PM, his site is down; closed for business. By 6PM, a webpage that had previously linked to his site has disappeared. AsshatMD is trying to erase his anonymous existence.

Too late, though. By this time my curiosity was piqued. I’m not sure what came over me; I’m a technical writer, not a private detective. I guess I wanted to see what I could do with Google and a laptop. So I did it–I tracked him down.

I’m not going to out AsshatMD. But it’s interesting to know that even after he had taken down his site, it took me less than an hour to find his name, including middle initial, as well as his religion, academic history, part of the country he calls home, and more. I read a short article he authored about a fraudulent “cancer curing” juice. I even found a photo of him. Oh, and by the way, I have no special technical skills in this area. I’m sure others would have had him in minutes.

To all the Asshats out there: For the sake of the reading public, please assume that anything you post on the web leaves a trail of breadcrumbs that leads, inexorably, back to sweet little old you. Maybe if the Asshats of the world understood this one truth, there would be less asshattery on the web.

We can only hope.

Shrill?

I hear tell that Chris Matthews of MSNBC thinks women leaders, like Nancy Pelosi, have a problem because when we women raise our voices we sound “shrill” and it’s most unpleasant.

I just thought I’d point out that we’ve been listening to fatuous egotistical male morons for the past six years — I’m sure I don’t have to mention names — and it has been nearly unbearable.

I’m eager for Nancy Pelosi to raise her voice. Counting on it, in fact.

Why I left open source

A while back I told some friends that I would, some day, write about why I have found it uncomfortable working at Flock, and within open source communities in general. I’ve been procrastinating. It’s hard to write about my feelings on this subject. That’s probably because I want anything I say about Flock and open source to be taken in a positive light, and I’m afraid that it will instead be taken as criticism that makes people feel defensive.

But recently both Eli and Lloyd also left Flock, and I think it is important to point out that while engineering departures have been rare, nearly the entire first string of people who focused on UI, communications, and community are now gone. We were excited by what we thought we could do at Flock. So what happened?

I can speak only for myself, but here’s what happened to my enthusiasm: in very short order, I realized that I would have little influence over Flock’s development as a product and as an organization. I want to be influential in whatever enterprise I am part of, and I want to develop and learn. After being part of Flock for a few months, I concluded that Flock was not going to offer me the opportunity I wanted.

It’s always hard for a non-engineer to be influential in an engineering enterprise. After 25 years of working in the computer industry, I know that. But I’ve concluded that it’s particularly difficult, ironically, for a non-engineer to make her voice heard in open source groups. Since open source projects are usually organized with an “everyone plays” philosophy, why is it so hard for non-engineers to participate?

I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I think it comes down to one thing: the people who are part of open source enterprises are on the whole less experienced than their counterparts in large, established companies. While they value diversity, open source communities are not experienced in actually working with a diverse set of people, and don’t understand the role played by process.

Open source communities are long on creativity but very short on process. In open source, process is a dirty word, bringing to mind long, tedious meetings and rules that control software development. I’m not one to advocate rigid procedures, but a degree of process is necessary for a diverse group to work together. Written specs, schedules, deliverables, feature and UI freeze dates — product development doesn’t happen without these. In the absence of process, contributors in the areas of user experience, QA, and information design can’t do their work.

People attracted to open source projects like to think of themselves as outliers: people who don’t fit a norm, and who don’t like the status quo. I was drawn to open source because I am implacably opposed to the hierarchy/dominator model of human organization, and I see open source as a force pulling in the opposite direction, toward a participation/cooperator model. I value the outside-of-the-box open source personality. But every personality has its shadow side; for open source projects, it’s the philosophy of following no process. If I could change one thing about the open source projects in which I’ve been involved, it would be to inject a good dose of the processes I know, from my experience, work well.

Because in diverse organizations, process is really just a set of agreements about how to work together.

Back Home: Reflecting on China and the Dominator Model

I loved being in China. I want to return to Shanghai. I want to see what it looks like in another year, because I’ve never seen so much change taking place in one city. I’m looking forward to meeting more people there, and finding out what they think about their evolving economic and social system.

Back home, I had to gather up my family, re-pack my suitcase, and head to Houston for my nephew’s wedding. Getting back on an airplane was stressful, but being among relatives and friends has given me lots of opportunities to talk, and reflect about my trip. People ask me about the Chinese government: Could I detect its presence? Did I see a lot of soldiers and police? Is the heavy hand of Communism felt everywhere? Anywhere?

I remember as a child hearing about the few visits of westerners to China — how the guides shepherded the visitors around, and permitted them to see only certain things. In contrast, Nancy and I moved about freely. We were asked to show our passports only when checking into our hotels. I saw fewer police in Shanghai than I do in my home town. There were more guards and soldiers in Beijing, but Beijing is a capital city filled with historic landmarks, much like Washington D.C. where one also sees many guards and (especially these days) soldiers.

The only time I felt inhibited was when websites I need to access were blocked. This blog, for instance — I couldn’t update it from China. Chris Messina kindly published a couple of my posts, and the rest had to wait until I returned to California. Apparently the Chinese government blocks all access to WordPress. After a couple of days I couldn’t upload photos into my Flickr photostream, either, and I wondered if that site was blocked as well.

Coming from unlimited access to a few million noisy, chaotic, acrimonious, and informative conversations about everything under the sun, I felt weighted down by the Chinese censorship. It’s as if the information stream to which I’ve become so accustomed was suddenly dialed down. I often complain about the overwhelming amount of information on the Web, but having the volume turned down all of a sudden felt unnatural. I don’t want to be separated from what is rapidly becoming the sum total of human communication. And I don’t want anyone else to be separated from it, unless by choice.

My first reaction to being blocked was disbelief. I wrote to Chris, asking if something was wrong with WordPress’s servers. When he told me that the blockage was deliberate, I realized that despite the physical signs of development I could see all around me, this new century may not be the Chinese century. If an author in China can’t do something as simple as posting to a blog site — or using hotmail, since it has also been blocked from time to time — then the human conversation will take place without the full participation of the Chinese.

But I don’t think the story will come out that way. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I have a sense that as the Chinese economy grows, more and more Chinese people will demand full access to the world’s information stores, and that demand will prove irresistible.

Terence Mckenna once said that each bit of human progress outsmarts itself. I’m optimistic because I see the Internet as a sign that the dominator model has finally, finally outsmarted itself. Our hierarchically organized culture, where concentrated power loves to control everything, has bred a new engine of progress that is not subject to such control. The only way to grow is to get on that engine, and go where it goes.

Deprived of Words, We Labor On

The estimable Lloyd has asked me to put into writing my philosophy of instructional design for on-screen reading, which can be summed up in seven words:

"We have their attention for five words."

(Note the irony)

People don't read anymore. I'm not sure how anyone becomes educated these days, because from what I've observed in usability testing, people are not going to read to the end of this sentence, much less finish Moby Dick.

But still we wish to communicate with these word-deprived people. Technical writing research scientists are hard at work these days, searching for new ways to reach people whose eyes automatically slide away from the content-loaded text on the screen and over to the little blinky thing on the left.

One concept is to communicate mostly in screen captures. So instead of writing "Open the File menu and choose New Blog Post," the author presents a little picture of the File menu, open, with the pointer resting on the New Blog Post option. Maybe you'll even throw in a little picture of the bog editor window, with an arrow implying that an open editor window is the consequence of choosing New Blog Post. This approach is promising, and I'm trying to adopt it in my own work. (Perhaps one day you'll tune into this blog and find a post composed entirely of screen pictures!)

My own personal concept, my favorite alternative, is to re-write all user's guides as graphic novels. If I could draw, or work with an illustrator, that's the approach I'd use. I'd love to write an explanation of the client-server relationship entirely in cartoons!

Meanwhile, we must do our best. The open source community is especially taxed, because it has sensed the need to communicate more effectively with "end users," but doesn't know how, and doesn't employ a lot of technical writers.

So here are six tips for writing clear documents. If you follow these tips, your sentences will be shorter with no sacrifice of meaning. These tips take less than one minute to read.

Number 1: Use direct verbs

USE: "Now that the basic files are ready, we can create the topbar."
NOT: "Now that the basic files are ready, the topbar can be created."

Number 2: Speak directly to the reader, as if you're having a dialog

USE: "If you don't have experience with XUL, you may want to read the tutorial."
NOT: "If the reader doesn't have experience with XUL, he or she may want to read the tutorial."

Number 3: Use present tense

USE: "In the chrome.manifest file, we define the important directories."
NOT: "In the chrome.manifest file, we will define the important directories."

Number 4: Keep text as short as possible

USE: "Click OK."
NOT: "Click the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box."

Number 5: Avoid quotation marks

USE: "Open the Flock menu"
NOT: "Open the 'Flock' menu"

Number 6: Don't use all caps; avoid capitalizing tools, widgets, etc.

USE: "Creating a Flock topbar"
NOT: "Creating a Flock Topbar" or "Creating a Flock TOPBAR"

It may seem that there is no relationship between the subject of this blog post and the topic about which I claim to be writing: namely, exposing and trashing the Dominator Model.

But if you look hard enough, you'll find that everything is related to the Dominator Model. For the abbreviated attention spans that seem to keep people from reading more than five words at a time, I blame the patriarchy.

Phase Shift

Time for a reorg!

Yesterday was my last day as a regular Flock employee; possibly the last day as a regular employee of anybody. I'm re-defining myself as a consultant. Depending on business, and my sense of discipline, I should have plenty of time to spend writing my anti-dominator model rants into this blog. Hurray! And I'll also get more exercise, eat healthy food, do yoga, organize my closets, floss my teeth, and rotate my tires.

Accordingly, my blog's title has changed. I hope y'all like it.