Alan Gutierrez

Dave Coustan has a new website called Extraface.

According to this Girl and Cat cartoon Large Mediums found via David Weinberger, television did not become conscious of itself until the Simpsons. I recall a Road Runner cartoon that was oddly self-reflective. Two boys in a Road Runner cartoon watching Road Runner cartoon, eventually speaking with Wile E. Coyote through the screen about his fetish for Road Runners. At seven, it struck me as out of the box.

“That’s why I don’t read comments. Because of the things that people say about people who look like me. Half of the comments are people saying things about people that look like me. The other half are people defending people who look like me poorly. Only 10% sound reasonable when they talk about people that look like me. At least I hope it’s 10%.”

We were talking about the release of the murderer of Dinneral Shavers. I was proposing the creation of a website that would chronicle the lack of progress of criminals through our court system. People would comment on the reports.

I was showing a friend of mine, who is African-American, the lucid and constructive dialog in the Road Home Questions post of Think New Orleans. I wanted to make that point that you could have a productive conversation about a contentious subject on the web.

Unfortunately, we’d followed a series of links that brought us to a NOLA.com blog post. The comments were ugly.

She then explained why she does not read comments on the web.

The Promise of Social Media

I beseech people to publish their recovery research and recovery experiences on the web. I am a professional beseecher. If you post it on the web, the magic of search will connect you with people near and far, who can help you with insight and information. It just like email, but you put “To Whom It May Concern” in the recipient field, and the search engines deliver. If you post it, when people search for information, there will be an alternative to the punditry and opinions; your own honest New Orleans voice, your experience.

It’s called social media.

With this exchange, I finally felt the long overdue embarrassment at having advocated communication on the web, when it is so obviously associated with racism in the minds of my fellow citizens.

Which is where I’ll start my series on anti-social media.

The Forum of Last Resort

Social media is at a stand still in New Orleans. People equate online dialog with the racist bile that courses through the comments sections of NOLA.com, the affiliate website of the The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

That website is in a difficult position, because they are affiliated with the one major newspaper in our city. If they were to apply strict moderation they would be accused of censorship. They would offend their potential customers.

They do not moderate much. Only the most blatantly offensive comments are pruned. The ordinary offensive comments stay, and ward off anyone who might have something intelligent to say. It does not serve as a model of public dialog.

In fact, it ends up serving as dumping ground. A forum of a last resort.

The Internet is only place in New Orleans where these horrible can be said publicly, therefore people who harbor horrible sentiments make full use of their only public outlet. NOLA.com becomes the voice of racism. New Orleanians think of the Internet as a place where these true colors fly.

The Promise of Moderation

After a year in New Orleans, the people who I beseech have come to understand that there is a value to web publishing. People see my web publishing efforts as worthwhile, but for what reasons exactly, I’m not yet certain. After a year in New Orleans, I have come to understand that the people I beseech have every reason to avoid web publishing.

I counter their objections with a promise of moderation. Since this conversation, I moderate more than ever.

Racism is just the obvious example of unsavory dialog that keeps people from opening their web browser. There are other many reasons to avoid anonymous unmoderated web conversations. If it is a subject you hold dear, such as the recovery of your school or neighborhood, an unmoderated web forum is no place to present your information. It is pointless. No one of consequence reads those comments. All you’ll get in response to your contribution will be either dismissive or vindictive or somewhere in between.

For Your Eyes Only

New Orleans is a blur of information and Internet communication. It takes place in email. The Internet protocol of choice for New Orleans SMTP, not HTTP. The address on the email message assures you that the recipient will be of one of those 10% who has something reasonable to contribute to issues you hold dear.

Found this funny category in someone’s blog, someone who I don’t know. He categorizes prioritized, numbered articles in their own special category. It struck me as an idea for a blog. Everyday, take one of those articles that are the 10 things everyone should know, or the 7 things they don’t want you to know, or the 8 ways to drastically improve your whatnot, and link to it, but with a bullet list that has a maximum three word summary of each item. Dear reader, why trouble yourself with event reading the article? Have someone read it for you. Oddly, the authors of these articles would probably appreciate the incoming traffic. Via: links for 2007-05-20 by Edward Vielmetti.

Web 2.0 is about arbitrary user bases that you can explore, as opposed to the specific user base that you may need to organize.

Now that I’m leanring about Tumblr and Jaiku. That was always the intent with Kiloblog. Never got too deep into adding other things, like photo streams, or del.icio.us bookmarks.

When I search Google for Kiloblog I get a page at Bloglines that reads People subscribed to this feed also read, and the list of websites includes Alan’s Kiloblog and Alan’s Blogometer. The site in question, is Edward Vielmetti at the School of Information, which is pretty much empty.

Is this that stuff they call stucco?

When people look at New Orleans online, they see festivals, St. Charles and the French Quarter. This is because, most of the photographs taken of New Orleans, and subsequently shared online, are taken by tourists. There are the adventurous and artistic sorts that live in the Marigny and Upper 9th Ward for sultry favors, but that is a neighborhood that is gentrifying, not recovering, per se.

It is a case study in the 20/80 rule.

The 20% of neighborhoods that was survived the flood are taking 80% of the photographs.

For those Americans that participate in social media, who search the web to see how things are doing, New Orleans looks fine. Everyone is wearing beads and watching parades.

Take pictures of your neighborhood, so that people can see the 80% that is suffering a slow and mismanaged recovery. I know that it is difficult to take pictures of people, but pictures of people are important. Folks can see that we do not spend our days in beads.

This is how it is done. I walk with the camera out. I take pictures conspicuously. When I walk past someone, I say “Hello. How are you?”. “Fine. How are you?” “I’m fine. Just out taking pictures.”

There is plenty to talk about with your neighbors. You talk about the Road Home Program, ask if part of their house was stolen and sold for scrap, talk about contractors, or ask what businesses have returned in the area. Ask them if they are active in their neighborhood organization, or if they even know that they have one.

If you have a neighborhood organization, hand out a card or flyer.

Oddly enough, I’m part of the problem. I live in the Sliver by the River, in a neighborhood that is and was high and dry. When I take pictures of the recovery, I have to travel to do so.

I left City Council Chambers yesterday to take a walk with my camera. I ended up in Mid City.