Slashdot Mirror
The Slashdot Interval
Strange that a British magazine for spooks and a techno-geek culture website would combine to provide a brief, tantalizing and significant look at the shape media might take in the 21st Century.
Two weeks ago, Jane's Intelligence Review posted a draft of a cyber-terrorism article on Slashdot, and asked for feedback. As anyone who has ever written for this site could predict, they got plenty, much of it merciless.
But Jane's didn't respond as media historically have - by publishing the piece anyway, or spouting defensive declarations about how great it was, or simply ignoring what it was hearing.
Instead, Jane's decided it couldn't afford to be wrong on a subject like this, acknowledged the value of much of the criticism, scrapped the piece and started over, even offering to pay critics whose comments ultimately get included in the article.
Bravely -- by contemporary media standards -- Jane's not only embraced interactivity but took it many steps farther than almost any serious and influential publication ever has. This is the antithesis of the way conventional American journalism works. It's hard to even imagine a Washington reporter putting a story up on an editorial website and asking for help before he or she publishes it.
The Jane's/Slashdot experience was ground-breaking, a precedent for an evolving model of digitally-influenced journalism, a step into the interval (an interval is defined in my dictionary as a break, gap, or opening, an interspace) that will transform journalistic institutions, whether they know it or not, like it or not. So far, their answer has been a resounding "no" on both counts.
The traditional model of information distribution has been closed, secretive and non-interactive. Publishers sign confidential contracts with writers. The process of researching and writing books is hidden. Newspapers, newsmagazines, publishers and TV stations make editorial decisions and preparations behind closed doors. Reporters simply prepare their work, then release it to the public. Criticisms, feedback, suggestions can all be heeded or not. The result is a widening chasm between the creators of information and its consumers.
The current hallmark of information industries is a pervasive kind of bewilderment: what do people want? What will they buy? Why can't we pick and choose for them any more?
Since media won't open up their processes to the public, their writers and reporters benefit only from the handful of people they've spoken to, the relatively narrow spectrum of information they've been able to access in the reporting and research process. Jane's and Slashdot have just re-written the rules in ways that have implications for all kinds of journalists, in new and old media.
Jane's decided to correct mistakes and gather all possible information before, not after, the piece was published - the complete reverse of the way mainstream media have worked for decades, and a fundamental reason they've become so arrogant, disconnected and mistrusted.
The Slashdot Interval is not a threat. It offers hope and shows the way. It doesn't undermine the way media work, it moves it forward. Journalists editors producers have a seminal opportunity: they ought to seize on it, experiment with it, expand its applications.
Fear of real interactivity has been publishing and journalism's biggest problems in confronting the shift from top-down information models to the many-to-many forms evolving on and driven by the Net and the Web.
But the Web is a godsend for reporters and publications that value truth and reason over dogma and control.There's no reason that The Washington Post, Newsweek, The New York Times or CBS News couldn't use the Web to test the value, accuracy and clarity of their material. A reporter covering the Pentagon could hear from scores of people working there before writing about Defense Department morale or spending programs. Medical writers could seek help from geneticists, phycisists and bioethicists before they write gee-whiz stories about new fertility drugs. Technology reporters could evaluate new software and hardware before they write gee-whiz stories about them.
Think how many errors could be prevented, bugs eliminated, consumers saved, distortions altered, or useless or ill-informed information published, if this became a media model.
Jane's wasn't forced to change its story as a result of the Slashdot input. A visionary named Johan J. Ingles-le Nobel, their deputy editor, saw interactivity as an opportunity, not an intrusion.
It was a demonstration of what can happen when the ethos behind the online open source movement fuses with a rare open source journalistic instinct. "When you're confronted with a prospective article about cyberterrorism, as a journalist you know this is a massive emerging topic and that it will make a great story," Ingles-le Nobel wrote on Slashdot after his request for help. "After all, you've got to be both blind and deaf to have missed the unprecedented emergence of this thing known as the Internet, and that the day will come when, like anything else, it comes to be seen as a tool in the armoury of those that seek to harm and terrorise. Yet the very nature and vocabulary of the subject precludes a thorough understanding unless you're a programmer in the first place."
The Jane's editor was delighted that Slashdot readers - who include some of the most knowledgeable hackers, geeks and nerds on the Internet -- offered help. He got more than 250 posted comments and 35 e-mails from psychologists and network analysts, and many of the responses, he said, were insightful and knowledgable.
This is a common online experience. Journalists and others may be put off by the flaming and hostility of public threads and posting areas, but e-mail tends to be radically different: thoughtful, useful and intelligent.
Ingles-le Nobel said he decided to scrap the original piece. Instead, "I'm going to cull your comments together and make a better, sharper feature out of it."
This ought to be standard procedure, not a bold move. But in the age of anonymous sources, little or no accountability and almost manic competitiveness, it's nearly unprecedented. Magazines and publishers (newspapers, too, if they're still around) can open up their editorial agendas, perhaps posting lists of stories and topics underway. They can solicit opinions and ideas from a much greater range of sources than the pundits, academics, ideologues and lobbyists who dominate media.
Slashdot, for example, sees all its readers as potential contributors and critics, radically broadening its corps of information suppliers. Writers publish their work in conjunction with criticism and response.
Deja.com also sees users as a virtual army of consumer reporters. Amazon.com has always made it a point to highlight readers' reviews as well as published critics'. Consumer critics don't have to be paid professionals; purchasers and users of products would be highly credible.
In my own case, without quite recognizing it, I used some techniques of the Slashdot Interval in a book about to be published, called "Geeks." Several years ago, I posted the original thesis of the idea on Hotwired, the website of Wired Magazine's digital empire, where I was a columnist at the time. I got an enormous amount of feedback, thousands of responses.
I took this process farther when I began writing on Slashdot, putting my Geek-focused ideas out in the open for consideration and feedback. The responses made me re-think some of my conclusions. This process works almost continuously on online writers, as the feedback, criticism and additional information constantly influences writing on given subjects.
I got to make many of my inevitable mistakes during the pre-publication process; I even found the two geeks who became the primary subjects of the book online. Before I'd written a word, I'd had the chance to talk to hundreds of geeks. My stereotypes, misconceptions and inaccuracies were challenged when they should have been - before, not after, they were published.
This - not technological skill or programming know-how -- makes writers and writing better, more informed, more credible. It doesn't take power away from the writer - I still get to write what I want - but it unmasks the conceit that the writer is unreachable, all-knowing, or beyond assistance.
The Slashdot Interval may not prove relevant for every story in every publication. On fast-breaking stories, for example, there really isn't time. With simple announcements, there isn't a need. But Jane's recognized the limitations of reporting a sensitive, complicated story and used the Internet to get the best help available. At some point, the writer/journalist/producer/author has to pull back, stop gathering and sorting information, and take responsibility for his or her story. All publishing can't always be communal.
Routine announcements of fact or incidents could be presented in the traditional way. But stories about science, politics, law, medicine or other specialties could be tested in advance with knowledgeable constituencies to ensure that they're as accurate as possible, knowing and well-informed.
This idea sounds nightmarish to most journalists; it means the sharing of responsibility and the lost of total control over content - something every journalism school in America teaches as a sacred tenet. But it was Jane's that was practicing the best kind of journalism, by experimenting with journalism that is interactive, opened up to the public, prepared to listen.
With any luck, the Slashdot Interval will become an especially infectious meme. Perhaps Twenty-first Century media have just been Open Sourced.
So much the better.
Just for the record Science Jounals have worked like this for a long time. if you Send something for example to the New England Journal Of Medicine (Or any other major journal) they will ask a number of other people to read you piece and give them a review of it. It is a good way to keep the quality up.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
...Science Jounals have worked like this for a long time.
Well, sort of. Peer review is exactly that. Review of ones ideas by (presumably) one's peers. Other recognized experts. I don't know 'bout the rest of you, but I've never been asked to peer-review anything. I'm no expert (probably), my expertise goes unrecognized (definitely), or both.
Slashdot and other wide-open interactive media don't depend solely on recognized experts. Anyone who feels like it can rant on and on. Non-experts, experts who haven't been recognized as such, and just plain hotheads with nothing relevant to say can all get an audience.
Some them deserve to be heard. Non-experts frequently have valid concerns that need to be addressed. Even when they don't, forums like this one allow the real experts to correct the mistakes and address the concerns of the misinformed. What peer-reviewed academic journal allows for that? As for the hotheads, they can get moderated into near-invisibility without being deprived of their right to express themselves. What could be better?
There've been a number of times recently when Slashdot articles have been critical of traditional information sources. The one that stands out is The Gartner Group's analysis of Linux.
These Analysts are listened to by a lot of the Industry. These guys are not audited for accuracy, nor do they have to demonstrate credentials, but they can be tremendously influential. Sometimes, it seems that analysts like Gartner and Giga create the future rather than just predict based on trends.
The situation could be better. It seems to me that moderated up comments on Slashdot are at least as good as the insight of the Analysts, and are often much better.
By and large, CIOs are not going to read Slashdot, although perhaps they should. Would it be possible to have a new Slashdot section called "Industry Analysis" (or something). Articles could be posted here which would pose specific Industry Trend types of questions/issues for review and analysis. There could also be a standard review Article posted every month/quarter/year to capture analysis for a recurring report on the upcoming state of the Industry. These "Industry Analysis" articles could become a trusted source for Industry News and Trends.
It might be a good idea to have an Editorial Board for this that would take the "Industry Analysis" articles and collect them just into the gems (highly moderated comments). The Editorial Board might exercise some discretion on Comments, editing them for brevity, possibly consolidating similar Comments into single sub-sections of the report.
In each case, the collated sub-sections would have by-lines that give information about the authors. This would be an important function of the Editorial Board. They would gather information about the authors for the final edited version of the reports. This information would be important to identify potential biases of the authors. We don't want some guy working for HP playing up the fact that the next release of HP-UX with UltraECommerce+ will be a world beater, without a by-line that makes it clear that the author might be partisan. I wouldn't exclude articles where bias is a factor. After all, the articles still have to pass through moderation. The best marketing information provides you with a lot of data to work from and it could be included, it just has to be completely clear as to the bias of the author. I would allow Anonymous Coward by-lines or even by-lines by authors who don't want to give information about themselves, but the by-line would state the fact that the author prefers not to disclose information about themselves.
Perhaps the final product would go through a final Slashdot Community review so as to be a check on the Editorial Board and to allow for the Community to point out potential biases that may have been missed by the editors but should be noted.
Maybe the Editorial Board is unnecessary, I don't know. Without some editing, I doubt it would ever be taken seriously in the industry. I would like to think that this could be taken seriously and help to create the future the way the Gartner's and Giga's create the future with their predictions.
These final reports could stand alone as Web-Based documents. An Industry Analysis that is for and by the geek community.
Hey, the Slashdot Community is increasingly being used for Industry Analysis anyway. There are a lot of Industy Press stories that say "the geeks of on Slashdot are saying...". We might as well publish our own industry analysis that is free of outside editing.
This whole process could be called Open Analysis, or think up another name...
I could even see Slashdot getting paid to address specific issues with the Open Analysis process. Maybe Slashdot could distribute some of this to the contributors (as Jane's was going to do), but I'm not opposed to Slashdot benefitting from this. What's good for Slashdot is good for the Slashdot Community.
I agree that Slashdot would be very inappropriate to apply generally. If you're doing a story on someone being a criminal, I don't suggest you solicit public opinions on the subject. :) You might weasel and ask for interesting stories instead, but you're potentially exposing respondents to libel, and the story's subject to defamation. This is best investigated privately until you actually have facts. You can't get a scoop by using public review either, obviously.
But assuming slashdot-like sites covering diverse subjects were in existence, it might be valuable for a fairly large class of stories. Don't think of it as publishing exactly, but discussion of a first draft outline -- more likely if this had been planned from the start. New ideas will be proposed, misconceptions punctured, hoaxes exposed, logic tightened, all to the good if the reporter is open to criticism and suggestions. The forum provides data, the reporter provides information in the story.
The data on the wire services are shared pretty well, so it's not inconceivable that this kind of data could be too (it's posted publically, so it kinda has to be.) Product will still be differentiated by the sources that only the reporter has access to, and their insight and writing ability.
Prior review isn't really censorship here because there is no threat to prevent Jane's from publishing whatever they like, including the original story (which they did.) Newspapers usually call politicians before breaking a negative story on them, right? It's not because they won't print the story if the politician doesn't like it, they want more data, and to ensure they're not making a mistake. Prior review is only a problem if you can't ignore it when you choose to.
The trouble is this: a random selection of people has no particular qualifications for wisdom or knowledge. Unless you are ready to postulate a self-selecting superior race of Slashdot ACs^Hreaders ;) you run into the difficulty that the peers reviewing your idea have no clue about it. Peer review is not a populist thing, but an elitist one- you don't peer review scientific papers by handing them out in the street. In the case of the Jane's piece, there clearly were qualified peers available to review the work. In many other cases there wouldn't be- and Slashdot is not a selective forum, for the most part.
In fact, the nature of Slashdot is such that it is almost impossible for certain notions, such as unionization, to get reviewed with clarity, because the Slashdot population has self-selected to strongly favor libertarian beliefs, and beyond that to outright Randite views. This slant even manages to strongly color more computer-software-oriented socialist ideas, such as freedom of software being an end in itself and not solely a tool used to maximize profit. As a result, one is almost obligated to say 'OF COURSE open source is about maximizing efficiency and profit and anything else is icing on the cake', and it's equally obligatory for _somebody_ to slam the GPL's more social implications when that is brought into the discussion, as if to say, "You can talk all you want but you HAVE TO also pay credence to the TRUTH!".
All this merely underlines the point that Slashdot is its own special interest group, with no particular claim on the truth. Considered as a whole, Slashdot may have formidable resources to peer review some things. It may be clueless about other things, or even actively wrong and misguided about still other things, even things that seem to concern it deeply.
My picture of the average Slashdot viewpoint (not reader, just viewpoint) is of a viewpoint deeply educated in computer technology, naive in sociology, rather well-off and insulated from the harsher edge of modern society, similarly naive in politics and economics, with a strikingly optimistic viewpoint and lots of energy to bring great things to the world, but extremely willing to write off injustices and abuses as acceptable provided the abuser is acting in their own self interest, which is seen as so paramount that it is not ever to be questioned. As a result, the vision of the average Slashdot viewpoint (not reader, viewpoint) is very sharp but very narrow, prone to fixate on small details and fail to acknowledge there is a big picture- capable of spying a dim possibility on the horizon, _pursuing_ it and then actually _reaching_ that possibility where most people would never ever have got that far- and then looking around in complete surprise at the surroundings, having never given a thought to what else was there.
Thoughts?