I’m sure to most of us, Fred Wilson and www.avc.com forum needs no introduction. Yesterday, he made a post about shutting down the forum i.e. the comments section of the blog because there’s a ‘lack of respect’ and ‘civility’. Sounds a bit like Radar, right?
I know there’s a bit of ‘Radar is harsh’ sentiments, but brings me to similarities that are obvious from that community which applies here;
Smart people who add incredible value to a forum, can be mean and inconsiderate. (I don’t know why this is the case, but I guess it’s just the way some are wired).
Productive relationships and ideas will be gained from a good forum. (I’ve lost count of the people that I first met on Radar, then IRL, and now we have an ongoing relationship. Simply amazing).
Managing a forum - keeping it civil and engaging without undue censorship is a never ending task. (Not for the faint hearted - even Fred avoids his own comments section sometimes).
I think it’s Nigeria. On one hand, our egos are fragile, we love to be praised - remember praise singing is actually a thing here. On the other hand, we’re very blunt - e.g. a Nigerian will tell you to your face ‘you’re fat/skinny/stingy/poor’ etc.
In all, the important thing is to recognise that any forum will have elements of ‘I don’t agree with you and you’re probably an idiot’ vs. ‘I don’t agree with you and here’s why’. Fred wants it to be more of the latter, and so should we.
Funny, I had noticed on AVC most top comments tended to be agreeing with Fred Wilson and praising his wisdom. Or is it a case where he wanted all comments to go his way? Immature.
TBH, I don’t think Fred has a choice but to intervene in some way. If you think about it, he’s the star performer of his community - the only one who can start the conversation. But in this case, it seems the ‘community’ agrees with him that things have gotten out of hand. Not sure about the immature angle.
I think what Radar is under that veneer of seeming disregard is competitive not contentious. You should check NL threads for pure malice guised as mindless jesting.
I have seen apologies issued on Radar, I have seem overzealous, premature viewpoints recanted. Its a young community and there’s still sanity, even respect amongst members.
For Fred Wilson he didn’t set out trying to float a community, the commentary section just happened upon him and with limited disqus controls, there’s just so much he can do besides issue threats of a shutdown.
I completely agree that Radar is not bad! But we’ve all heard a lot of ‘Radar people are mean’ that makes me feel this is a narrative worth exploring even deeper. And you have to admit, there have been some very mean commentary.
Firstly - smart people in an online community can sometimes be very mean. This is not a bug of forums, it’s a feature. It happens everywhere (like Fred’s), but also worth mentioning that the community can consciously agree what’s acceptable.
Secondly, and I think most importantly, we don’t handle feedback very well and an element of that might be due to cultural factors. Take for instance how we salute/greet each other when we’re pleased:
Me: Hello Sir.
Him: Ha, how far Chief
Me: I dey, my Chairman
Him: You know you’re my Oga patapata
Me: Ultimate Controller you’ve come again o
You can find versions of this in almost any tribe/language in Nigeria. It’s always an elaborate dance. And you can find countless more examples that do the same thing - appease our ego. For instance, we’ve bastardised ‘sir’ - it’s like salt that must be sprinkled on all conversations. But it works.
I think all this is important because when you’ve being conditioned to meaningless platitudes, it becomes very difficult to take any sort of negative feedback, no matter how constructive. And again, this is not limited to Radar, go to our offices: private or public and let me know if people are happy to be told their work is crap.
So maybe next when someone is moaning, one this two factors might be at play.
[quote=“PapaOlabode, post:8, topic:9275, full:true”]
I completely agree that Radar is not bad! But we’ve all heard a lot of ‘Radar people are mean’ that makes me feel this is a narrative worth exploring even deeper. And you have to admit, there have been some very mean commentary.
Firstly - smart people in an online community can sometimes be very mean. This is not a bug of forums, it’s a feature. It happens everywhere (like Fred’s), but also worth mentioning that the community can consciously agree what’s acceptable.[/quote]
strike 1 papaOlabode.
Smart people are mean? oh gosh! Now every Tom on radar will try to be mean, equating it with smartness.
[quote]
Secondly, and I think most importantly, we don’t handle feedback very well and an element of that might be due to cultural factors. Take for instance how we salute/greet each other when we’re pleased:
Me: Hello Sir.
Him: Ha, how far Chief
Me: I dey, my Chairman
Him: You know you’re my Oga patapata
Me: Ultimate Controller you’ve come again o
You can find versions of this in almost any tribe/language in Nigeria. It’s always an elaborate dance. And you can find countless more examples that do the same thing - appease our ego. For instance, we’ve bastardised ‘sir’ - it’s like salt that must be sprinkled on all conversations. But it works.[/quote]
While funny, i dare say the greeting (and similar attitude) have little to do with receiving negative feedback, but rather, it points to our deeply hierarchical nature, and a sickening reverence to perceived authority.
Which brings me to authority. The natural tendency of any system is towards chaos. whenever the growth (in number) of a forum outstrips that of its moderators you can expect disaster. I think its called Entropy in thermodynamics or something like that.
I dont think people want to be patronize or that there is some inherent difficult in receiving negative feedback. They honestly might not know how egregious their effort is. That need to be pointed on with some tact.
you remain the high high chief papaOlabode!!
That’s the opposite message! If anything, people should continue to treat others with civility. We can make our points without harshly putting others down.
We indeed have a hierarchical culture but following your train of thought, why would this not have an effect on how we perceive feedback? You could flip it around and say if X were ‘senior’ to me (by virtue of age/wealth/position etc. in society) and gave me feedback that wasn’t based on facts or just purely incorrect, I would be more receptive to it.
Come to think of it, Japan and South Korea are great examples of how cultural influences affect the workplace. The famous South Korean aircraft happened due to cultural factors. Actually, this is one to write about on another day, but I don’t see how our culture doesn’t have an impact on the way we work. And receiving feedback is a component of it.
I see what you did there - my excellency! We the boys remain loyal.
I think this is a community of people who lean on each other.
Eg. My current and prospective payment service providers are here, My current and prospective bulk sms providers are here, my current and prospective web hosting guys are here, my current and prospective media guys are here, my current and prospective employees are here, & all my current and prospective business partners are here.
And there are a lot of people here who can be the difference between darkness and sunlight for me,
So why I go misyarn in front of all the “Ultimate Controllers”.
I never ever heard of this before. @PapaOlabode Thanks for helping me out of my payments fraud detection misery tonight.
My guy, that’s human (and i daresay the naija psyche) on display. What can you do about it? NL tho’ is on anoda level entirely. How people manage to still comment there baffles me. But it is what it is.
Another thing though is that since NL is more general issues-focused unlike Radar which is techie, VC, entrepreneurship and stuff, there cant be too many walka-by commenters like in NL and they’re ususally the ones with nthe most bile to spew out. Thankfully, Radar is still civil(a bit I guess) and that’s a good thing.
ultimate controller… Alaye chairmummy… 
I see what you did there - my excellency! We the boys remain loyal.