Clay Shirky on social software

http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

"So the core group needs ways to defend itself -- both in getting
started and because of the effects I talked about earlier -- the core
group needs to defend itself so that it can stay on its sophisticated
goals and away from its basic instincts."

You can't go wrong reading anything Clay Shirky writes. In this article he explains what to expect when creating social software. The above quote is about the fact that a core group naturally develops, while the curious, flighty, and trolls pop in with no investment in the forum. It will not work to give equality to all of these. The core group must have some precedence, even though this hurts potential democratic ideals.

I agree with this. Project Chanology had the core group of people who established and maintained the internet forum used by the group. This core group had the skills and willingness to devote their time and effort into setting up the forum.  They earned the right, therefore, to moderate the forum.  If enough of the group thought they were too heavy-handed or preferential, then people could vote by leaving the forum, or even forming a competing one.

In every town that I protested in or read about, there was a core group of protesters that did most of the work.  This is human nature.  But I don't know of any of these people in Project Chanology who considered themselves leaders.  They were the most active.  They deserved credit for this.  But no one was therefore required to submit to them, or give deference to them, or in any way treat them any differently than any other protester.  And in fact, I'd say that most protesters didn't even know who these people in the core group were. They were just the people functioning as organizers, maybe just for that protest.

You'll see if you regularly read my blog that I use Project Chanology as my base point for comparing what else is going on.  I do this because I think Project Chanology is a new, important movement that points to defects in our understanding of many social constructs, like community and leadership.  In this case I believe Shirky's point fit well with Project Chanology in most respects.