Dashes.com
Anil Dash’s message to people who run online communities: Take some responsibility for what you unleash on the world. “When people are saying ruinously cruel things about each other, and you’re the person who made it possible, it’s 100 percent your fault,” he writes. We shouldn’t just keep shrugging our shoulders and shaking our heads and being disappointed in how terrible our fellow humans are, he adds. If you don’t follow these steps, “you’re making the web, and the world, a worse place. And it’s your fault.”
* You should have real humans dedicated to monitoring and responding to your community.
* You should have community policies about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior.
* Your site should have accountable identities.
* You should have the technology to easily identify and stop bad behaviors.
* You should make a budget that supports having a good community, or you should find another line of work.
“If your website is full of a**holes, it’s your fault,” writes Dash. “And if you have the power to fix it and don’t do something about it, you’re one of them.”
