What makes an internet community?

There is a certain feel to an Internet blog … just as there is to a neighborhood.  In a neighborhood you get a feeling for the kind of people that live there.  Are the lawns well-kept or weedy?  Are the homes well maintained or are there signs of abandonment and decay?  Would you feel safe walking around or do you keep your car doors locked driving through?  

Blogs are like that in may respects.  They reflect the issues and attitudes that the proprietor cares about.  The sites that do not accommodate comments are defined by the proprietor of the site who sets the standards, creates the atmosphere and does all the posting.  One of the most prominent is Glenn Reynolds, a Law Professor at the University of Tennessee, who blogs as Instapundit.  Another example is Walter Russell Meade who recently turned off comments on his blog.  He is also a College Professor, from Bard College, and editor of the American Interest, a bi-monthly magazine that focuses on foreign policy and international affairs. 

A third example is Ann Althouse, also a Law Professor, at the the University of Wisconsin.  She writes on a wide range of issues ranging from photography to politics and culture.  She is a “moderate” who voted for Obama and appears to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative.  She attracts commenters who are mostly on the libertarian/conservative side along with a small gaggle of very liberal commenters who seem to be there primarily to tweak the conservative commenters. 

A fourth example is Free Republic which is an informal gathering place for Conservatives, started by Jim Robinson.  Unlike the blog posts cited above it does not have a series of essays to which commenters respond.  Sign up at Free Republic and you can post links to newspaper articles or other media sources and allow others to comment.  Free Republic acts as a news aggregator with a decidedly Conservative slant.  FR is widely credited for exposing the Dan Rather hoax about Bush National Guard papers.   

Many newspapers allow reader commnets, in effect turning their editorial pages into Internet blogs.  The Wall Street Journal allows people to post comments on its editorials and op-eds and comments are not limited to subscribers. As in most blogs, the community that comments is closely aligned with the position of the editorial page.   

But there is one glaring exception that I have found.  If I want to read comments from people who hate conservatives, FOX News and Christians; who insist that whites are racists with white hoods in their closets, who believe that gay is the new black, that opposition to same sex marriage is rank, homophobic bigotry and  a Christianist plot, I don’t have to go to the Washington Post, the NY Times, the Huffington Post or even Daily Kos.  I can go to The Volokh Conspiracy, which - despite what the name implies   -  is a blog run by law professors who post primarily about legal issues which are well written and interesting to read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.   

Which brings me back to the question of what makes an Internet community and why do the comments in some cases not reflect the general attitudes of the proprietor?  Perhaps Volokh is an anomaly.  You can go to the Washington Post to read Jennifer Rubin – the Post’s token conservative blogger - being torn limb from verbal limb by the readers of that newspaper.  But that's not a surprise because the Washington Post - like the NY Times  - is written for a Liberal audience, for people who hate Rubin's position and the comments are perfectly reflective of the paper's editorial and news orientation.   The Washington Post publishing Rubin is like Romans throwing Christians to the lions, it's entertainment.   

But Volokh is different.  It’s proprietors (there are a number of regular contributors who write article from time to time) are law professors of either a Libertarian bent or moderate conservatives.  Yet the comment section is mostly a gathering of Leftists, many of whom use their commenting privileges to denigrate the contributors.  The more conservative the contributor, the more hateful comments he receives. 

David Bernstein is one of the  contributors who posted a one-line comment on Ann Coulter’s participation in Libertarian’s John Stossel’s program for Libertarian students.  As always, Ann makes it controversial and entertaining.  Bernstein’s comment in full read:   

Best line of the evening: “I don’t think you’re stoners...You’re nerds!”

You have to watch the video to appreciate how apt that line was.  But this post gave vent to the denigration of not just Coulter but Sarah Palin, Ronald Reagan, Christians and the Koch brothers,  while defending Jimmy Carter and Saddam Hussein.  We are also informed by Arthur Kirkland, a frequent commenter, that Coulter is a

… foul-mouthed, bottle-blonde, Guccione-fornicating, barren, leather-mini-skirted spinster .. who fleec[es] student activity funds.

Coulter is no doubt a Conservative provocateur as well as a best-selling author and frequent guest on TV shows and public debates.  It’s how she makes her living.  And she does it very well.  What’s interesting about this comment is two things:  first, Liberals tell us to stay out of their bedroom yet the essence of Arthur’s criticism is misogynist and blatently sexual.  Second, while Arthur is somewhat more extreme than the other members of this community, he is simply the one to put together a string of adjectives with which the others in the community essentially agree ... or they would comment on it, but they don't.  There are exceptions in this community, but like the Liberal commenters in the Althouse blog, they are the like the homeowner in Detroit keeping the grass mowed and the shutters painted, hoping for improvement that never comes.   

But essays by the members of the "Conspiracy" who have the right to post articles there, project a totally different atmosphere.  I have asked myself the question why is there this apparent disconnect between the proprietors and the commenters?  There are a couple of observations and conjectures.

·         Conjecture #1: Law students are flaming leftist:  The actual posts by the Law Professors like Jonathan Adler such as:  No Standing to Challenge FISA Surveillance does not really interest the layman but could interest law students who then go on to comment:  “In my judgment, anyone who uses FISA and this decision to engage in the described surveillance is a pussy hiding behind authoritarian skirts, probably because of fright.”

·         Conjecture #2: The proprietors like this because it builds readership.  Stacy McCain, another blogger, maintains that there's nothing quite as good for traffic as a flame war.  The post on Ann Coulter elicited 138 comments when I last checked. That’s a lot of traffic.   The site averages about 25,000 hits a day according to Sitemeter.  That’s good for a bunch of lawyers writing, for example, about anti-trust and its effect on the tobacco settlement. 

·         Conjecture #3: Where gangs form, good people move inside.  When the gang-bangers in the neighborhood gather on the corner or assemble their posse and move down the street, people in a neighborhood move inside.  They don’t want any trouble.  Althouse, Free Republic, the Wall Street Journal, Kos, Huffington Post attracted people who were like minded and were in tune, mostly, with the proprietors.  But if a blog finds itself congenial for commenters who do not share the bloggers’ viewpoints the comments can still create the neighborhood because in the end the comments on a blog, unless it’s constantly moderated, do not have to bear any relation to the original post.  Many comments are simply people replying to each other.  It’s fairly simple to “hijack” a thread by making a provocative statement and many people enjoy doing just that.   

I suspect the real reason is a combination of all three.  Volokh and friends are college professors, and college today is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Left.  Even if they are Libertarian or Conservative, they are used to the abuse heaped on anyone who isn't Liberal and don't find it jarring.  Having a popular blog can’t be a bad thing to have when the dollars are counted.  Finally, like a neighborhood, you end up moving to a place where you’re at home.   Once the neighborhood – or the blog - becomes a war zone the people who don’t want to be in the line of fire leave and the only ones left on the street are the gangs and the cops.