Is the blogosphere a conversation or a Rorschach test?

A couple of weeks ago I made what I assumed was an innocent suggestion that we set up a blog for memetracker authors to discuss their philosophies. I explicitly said "There is no right answer, but it would be great to see the motivations of these authors." Unfortunately, I also used what I quickly realized was a huge trigger for bloggers, "We need an advisory board to help arbitrate the selection of memetracker participants on this blog." This sentence was immediately interpreted as me trying to set up an advisory board to select who could build a memetracker and how they should work, as if that were really possible. I backed down from this blog idea as soon as I saw how I was being misread, but I was surprised as to why I was being misread.

Yesterday I got an email from Laurence Timms, author of the Chuquet memetracker, who had just read my post suggesting the memetracker blog, and wanted to discuss my idea of institutionalizing a single method of creating memetrackers. I was able to explain why this was the exact opposite of my intent, but I was again curious as to why he had formed this opinion. I believe that "the customer is always right," and even when they are wrong, there must be a reason why they formed their opinion. Laurence seems like a very bright guy, so what had I said to mislead him? I went back and reread the post carefully, and saw not just the "advisory board" trigger, but also the word "institutionalized." I had used it to explain that I wanted to see discussions between memetracker authors "institutionalized," meaning giving them a more structured method of talking, instead of spreading their comments to each other all over the blogosphere. Laurence admitted that he had read this quickly and formed the wrong impression. The irony of a memetracker author quickly skimming a post and reacting to keywords was obvious. I can now see that this is a common problem with blog readers. I do it too. When you have hundreds of posts to read, you skim them looking for the words that can give you their meaning.

A great example of this fast reaction model, is Kent Newsome. Kent, please read this entire paragraph, and take a deep breath before responding. Also, I'm smiling as I write this, see :). He was one of the first people to react negatively to my original memetracker post, and recently explained how quickly he reacted, "For example, when I saw Adam Green's memetracker blog post, I just about fell over my chair trying to get a response written and published." He made some very good points about the problems with an advisory board in relaton to this discussion blog, but I can't help thinking his first post was much more about his feelings about committees in general. Now Kent, this is the part I hope you have waited to read before posting. I like Kent's blog, and he seems very fair. I'm not trying to attack him or provoke a flame war. I'm still smiling :). I just think his reaction demonstrates the haste with which many blog posts are written, and the importance of the blogger's reaction to triggers, like "advisory board."

I do the same thing. I've gone off half-cocked a few times since I started blogging, and I'm sure I'll do it again. I now understand when reading and writing posts that this rapid reaction problem must be taken more into account. The funny thing is that memetrackers exacerbate the problem. I remember when InfoWorld magazine went from monthly to weekly publication. The entire software mail-order business shifted gears and started cutting prices at a much quicker pace. In the same way, memetrackers now encourage bloggers to rush out their reactions to a hot topic. It's as if we are all Slashdot readers racing to get in the first post. Maybe we can all adopt a policy of taking a deep breath, waiting 30 seconds, and then rereading the post carefully, before reacting to something that hits one of our buttons. No, I'm not say "everyone must adopt this policy", breath slowly, and read the word "maybe" again. :)