I have been publishing a Web site for 14 years. By all accounts, its a great success. There are 2 primary reasons why people come to this site. One is a meticulously researched database of Traditional Song Lyrics that was collected by a wonderful man over a 40 year period. This list was never published in the Library of Congress, or ever even in print. Instead, this list was given to me in 1995 because I was the only one willing to put it on the Internet. Intellectual property law was still being hammered out and some Oracle apparently told the publishing companies that the Internet would be the death of printed material.
A fan of Trad and giant nerd had it previously hosted it on a Xerox Parc (the Willy Wonka Factory of Technology) server but shut it down at the first threat from a publishing company’s lawyer.
I was 24 years old, and was running a business out of the master bedroom of my 2 bedroom apartment, and I had a BA in Philosophy. I had nothing, I thought, so I had nothing to lose.
Sure I was threatened often, but when explained who I was, what I had in the bank, and what I intended to do, they would eventually stop calling. I was officially sued three times. All three times, I was able to have them drop the suites without leaving my bedroom, I mean office, over the telephone. I took interest in the emerging evolution of intellectual property law, and since is was just being born as we now know it, I became somewhat of an expert at it. The combination of my layman’s knowledge of copyright law and my understanding of technology has kept me off their radar ever since.
The other things the site contains is a Discussion Forum. Interactivity in 1996 was unique, an early implementation of Web 2.0 to be sure. Other features were quickly added, notably a membership, private messaging, bookmarking, all the things to turn this site into a community. It’s grown at a fairly even rate and today have 75.000 members that have made 3.2 million comments on 80,000 topics and 15,000 songs. The server sits beneath me as I sit here typing, a hum that’s been with me longer than 2 wives could stand it (or me). It’s paid for by donations, Google Ads, and Amazon commissions. If I tried just a little bit harder, I am fairly certain I could make some more significant income but only at the expense of my time.
So, for 13 years, we’ve had a very focused existence. Traditional music enthusiasts, historians, professional musicians and passerby’s looking for words to a song their grandma used to sing. I always let non-members read and post, I still hate sites that make you register to get to the good stuff. Membership grew, but old members stayed. Over the years, we gathered and traveled and got t-shirts made so we could find other members at folk festivals around the world. There are 5 festivals around the world that you could go to in one year and meet damn near all of them.
So we had a pretty tight, somewhat closed society, and it’s been that way for 13 years… until yesterday.
At 2am EST, I surreptitiously added what most of us are used to by now, a SHARE button on conversations and songs. Half our membership is in the UK and Europe, so they were all about to wake up. Sure enough, it wasn’t 6 hours before they noticed it, began discussing it, began fearing it, and by 10am our members were convinced that this was the end of our community.
The Old Time Music demographic, in the US and UK, is somewhat similar to the rural Pennsylvania farmer. They use computers for email and casual browsing, weather, news, maybe even shopping, but Facebook… Twitter? “Aren’t those large capitalistic corporations interested only in our dollar? Aren’t they full of perverts and stalkers, flamers and trolls? Won’t our nice little community be infiltrated by all those people and tear us apart (disagree with our opinions)? You’ve made a terrible mistake!”
I found the discussion fascinating. Lots of doom and gloom, lots of fear, lots of misinformation and general ignorance to what social networking was. Not to mention the conceptual lapse that it was they, the members, who had the choice to share or not share and to whom they shared it with. You would link that they would share things they were interested in with people they thought would also be interested in, ergo, people like us.
The discovery and discussion appears here: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=124896
After letting them vent for about a day, I posted a very long, very grandiose (as I am known for) explanation. I said:
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This is all very fascinating. A few quick points:
I’m seeing a lot of fear here.
I’m seeing a lot of comments from people who know not of what they speak, but speak as if they do.
I’m seeing people that have known me, personally for many years, not trusting my intent or my knowledge of these things.
Now, I can only speak of what I believe, what I believe in, and how I choose to spend my time and energy. I know and you know how I get and talk (grandiose philosophical waxing) when I post in threads like this, and this one is going to set records, so skip to the last paragraph where I summarize or hold on, cause here it goes:
Today’s Opus is: Trust me. (and we’re taking the long route so buckle in)
Lets assume for a moment that mudcat is good. When I think about mudcat, I am really thinking about Folk. I make my decisions about what I want to do to mudcat as to how it affects Folk. I believe in Folk and I have dedicated much of my adult life, one way or another, working for Folk. Why? I believe that history is the story of the rich white man. I believe that Folk is the story of the rest of us. Folk is all of us, of which I am but one. All of us.
Mudcat came alive when the forum was added. That was also the moment, that I was no longer in control of what it contained. The songs in the DigiTrad were no longer static, indisputable and authoritative. In 1996, discussion forums, or interactivity for that matter, were a new and scary rarity.
This is also the moment that I became truly interested in what I was doing here.
I am interested in how tradition travels through generations, across borders, between communities and families. Tradition is existential, in that we make them, decide what they mean and choose whether they are important to us. Tradition comes from people yet they become so sacred that we suspend belief and stop questioning their origins and make them divine. Some feel digging into them destroys them, and some, like me, think that that is precisely what makes them beautiful and powerful, that fact that they come from men and women just like us and were found meaningful enough to stand the test of time.
People complained then, and still complain now, that the forum should never have been associated with the DigiTrad (song database). Dick Greenhaus, however, (at least then) felt differently, and it was his interest that made him put all that work into collecting those songs. I have never stopped feeling honored that he trusted me with his decades of dedication. The fact that FSGW, albeit cautiously, welcomed me and our members to their gatherings, gave me that same feeling.
You may believe something different, and I am sure this thread will continue such that every one of my points here will be negated, debated and refuted, the point remains that it is my interest that keeps this site running. It’s my interest that created this site, this community. It’s my interest that makes me wake up at 4am when I get a text message to reboot the server. It’s my interest that I stay up late and backup the database in the middle of the night. It’s my interest to spend the time pondering changes, innovation and growth. It’s my interest to take the time to write this lengthy post.
I created mudcat for reasons and purposes that are still present, but not necessarily the only things it is anymore. My interests were Preservation, Research and Connection. That’s all.
I wanted to know the words to a Leadbelly song.
I wanted to know what kind of strings he used on his guitar.
I wanted to know someone that was as excited as I was when they released his Last Sessions CD and wanted to talk about it.
I wanted to meet people, that wouldn’t think I was crazy, to sing the response to my calls while performing a Leadbelly field holler.
This 24 year old kid couldn’t find any of those things in Downingtown, Pennsylvania in 1996.
I founded and began managing an online community 13 years ago. Social Networking that we are seeing and hearing so much about these days, is them (corporations) trying to do what we did here at mudcat without the focus of a particular interest with the goal of making money. We have Folk to bind us and money is not why I do this. Interest is why I do this. And having done this for so long, I am an expert at it. While some of you feel that I do a terrible job that is a detriment to Folk, I, and a few others, view it as a success to have not self destructed and that we continue to exist at all.
Think for a moment about the challenge. We’re global. How many different cultures are we dealing with? The Internet, and mudcat, provides anonymity which opens the door for misbehavior and lacks accountability (but also happens to be a form of freedom). We have only words on a page, no body language, no eyes to look into, no empathy for other words on a page. The Internet is besieged with flamers and trolls, stalkers, spammers, nihilists and anarchists who hide behind all the things that I provide. Yet we’ve not yet self destructed. But sadly, many of my friends that kept my interest have left, which saddens me to no end and we are waning, in my opinion, which is why I ponder and why I tinker.
I mentioned the FSGW above and will speak of them again, only because they are another Folk organization like us, that I have enormous respect for their organization, and that I happen to know many of its mothers, fathers and caretakers.
The FSGW was waning once too, and perhaps thought that inviting me and my mudcatters would either infuse them, destroy them or change it into something they themselves were no longer interested in. How did it turn out? I don’t know, but it seems like a case study in what happens when you try to add to the folk organization gene pool.
Sadly, the rolling river that has been my personal life has kept me from bathing in the loving embrace of that group of profoundly wonderful people for years now. I feel the regret that many sons must feel when their fathers pass and they didn’t get to see them one last time. Sandy and Barry were my friends and mentors and I needed to tell them what they meant to me, ask them why they do what they do and what I should do, one more time before they passed. Now I look up and only talk, for they have no more answers for me.
I look at many of you still, for that wisdom as caretakers of Folk. The highest of integrity and thoughtfulness of Dick Greenhaus, Dick Swain, Bill D & Rita, Nancy King (and her offspring), Art Theme, Kendall, and many many more… as well as the extreme views of gargoyle, Joe Offer and a healthy percentage of our UK base. When you get down to it, its the collective of which I am but one member that guides my two hands. I stay grounded in my thinking (not getting angry and pulling the plug, not getting hurt when criticized or attacked, not getting too self important when feeling proud, not feeling a failure when our community is degraded with bigotry, dogma, sociopathy, personal attack and plain old BS), I remind myself that all of you also have two hands.
The problems we have here are the same problems that the world is having. Some of you look to me or Joe or Vols to solve them. We don’t have that kind of wisdom, power or influence, nor do the leaders of our nations to solve the world’s. We have to solve them together. Along with my two hands, I also have a plowshare (or sword) which is technology. I feel like I’ve done pretty damn good with it so far, so I’m always a bit surprised and disappointed when my changes or proposals are met with such disagreement. And you may be absolutely right, I can’t argue, because with innovation comes uncertainty. I am merely making an experienced and well educated guess as to what’s ahead. A wise man once told me, “If you don’t make mistakes once in a while, you are clearly not trying hard enough”.
So what am I trying exactly? Fair question.
I am trying to stay interested, for one. I’m trying to maintain a community that I want to be a part of. I’m trying to return to my 3 founding principles. Our community now suffers because the social aspects of our community have weekend our binding, our founding principles, Preservation, Research, Connection.
Connection is the dangerous one. I’ll bet I get 10,000 emails per year. Just to ballpark their nature, I’d say 10% thanking me for some piece of information they found, 10% providing additional information, 20% asking me for more information, 5% threatening to sue me, 10% asking me to referee a fight, 5% (eg) asking me to look at a chat log from 3 years ago to settle an argument that is a matter of life or death, and 40% thanking me for being the means in which they’ve found a new club, venue, gathering, festival, new friends and even husbands and wives. So while it may be the problem child, it is making the biggest emotional impact on our community members, myself included.
I never could go to members-only posting, though it’s been pushed on me from all sides for years. Why do I not waver on this point?
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these — the homeless, tempest-tossed — to me;
I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.
(not exactly)
I felt very alone in 1996. For some reason I had a passion for something that my peers had no interest in. (It was that damn Folk Box that my dad had that did it to me) And I know for a fact, from 40% of 13 years worth of emails (50,000) that many of you were lonely too.
Earlier this year I moved to a new town where I didn’t know a soul, in the loneliest and saddest time of my life. The 2nd night here I went to a song circle at a local church, and made 30 new friends, many of whom knew about mudcat. Not a bad social lubrication for new introductions. If it works for members, imagine what it does for the founder. Mudcat had nothing to do with that song circle being there. It was Folk that did something for me that night, this life. [posted about it here: http://bit.ly/Pinehall%5D
So there is my defense of Connection, I guess. We are connected already, and the fear that I see is that those connections will be threatened or changed in some way. But I think not of us, I think about the lonely or thirsty (for knowledge) yearning for a connection who have not met us yet. An argument is being made to close the gates and I find that to be selfish. Even though I could bask in the glow of y’all blowing sunshine up my ass from the confines of my virtual castle.
I believe that technology can make us more accessible while broadening our benefits. The strength of the community, and its various factions, has outgrown my ability to influence its behavior, so I’ll use technology to filter it rather than moderate it. I will invent tools so that users can create their own filters so that they can get out of mudcat exactly what they want. Then what would there be to complain about?
And as for these words being saved forever, gargoyle is very right. The internet has always been and will always be that way. And all of life is becoming that way with cellular phones, smart keys, surveillance cameras, credit histories… Welcome to the 21st century. I’ll address this issue, my stance and my suggestions with a quote from Thomas Fuller: “Govern thy life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one, and read the other.”
So in summary, 1) Trust me, I wouldn’t let anything ruin mudcat because 2) I believe, passionately, in Folk. 3) Innovation was a cornerstone to mudcat becoming anything in the first place and I believe that it shall continue to serve us well because 4) I am very good at this. 5) Change must come from all of us. I’ve been trying to make this point for years, so maybe there needs to be 6) more us. 7) By sharing things we find interesting from our community we are most likely to attract more folks like us. 8 ) I am using technology and tinkering because 9) there is too much BS and needless needling that interferes with Research, and I am displeased at our inbred dogma, bored with the same old fights, and missing some friends that have left, which all make me 9) less interested. 10) If I am not interested in mudcat, mudcat does not exist. (how is that for existentialism?)
(I warned you)
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I posted this an hour ago, and since, 2 messages have been posted. One saying “good for you” and another saying “why should we try to be a social networking site”…
Being the benevolent dictator of an online community for 13 years, and a social media marketing professional for 8 years, I find this all very personally and professionally interesting, proving only that I am a giant nerd.
The definition is still up for grabs, but I’ve always thought of Web 3.0 to be the portability of Web 2.0. Meaning that any Web site will be able to integrate the features of all social networking sites into their personal or corporate sites. So instead of making mom and pop shops invest in custom Web 2.0 features or move over to Facebook Pages, they could add the Facebook plug-in to their site immediately adding functions such as a forum, member profiles, pictures, private messaging, chatting, etc and so on. Web sites will end up a hybrid of custom design and content and social network plug-ins. Maybe that’s Web 2.5.
Ning is providing social network enabled shells that folks can use to create their own branded social network, which again, is making someone move from existing real estate to a confined, template driven environment. Nice for a new idea, but re-work for an existing one.
Google friend connect (http://www.google.com/friendconnect) is the closest thing I’ve seen so far, to this idea. It has gadgets, plug-ins, API’s, newsletter creation and distribution, member profiles, security hierarchies, monetization, moderation tools, ratings and review infrastructures, and analytics. Everything you would need to get in the game.
I’m just beginning the grand experiment to implement the latest social/community tools to an old-school, closed community of very opinionated, scared of change, old folkies, who happen to be the very people who taught me about online communities in the first place.
Web and Social Media Strategery 