Shorter version: Jesus, don’t Digg and Reddit scare the crap out of you?

Strange juxtapositions in the wind. What’s up with the world?

On the one hand, a huge kerfuffle all up and down the aisles at Scienceblogs recently over social and cultural norms of dialog, framing, and debate. PZ Myers dissed for treating assholes like assholes on his blog, and the deep philosophical and sociological consequences of being rude and being immoderate and getting mad and showing it. In the middle of a political debate of all things.

Clutch the fucking pearls.

And originally unrelated, but suddenly not: I’m doing a little side-project with some local colleagues over here at the Nudge blog, where we’re re-implementing Lee Spector’s, Chris Perry’s, Jon Klein’s, and Maarten Keijzer’s Push language for a genetic programming exercise or two. We’ve posted a few entries over there, just mainly project-related discussions and clarifications for ourselves, though as we get closer to a decent release candidate we’re hopefully going to have legible content as well. Whatever. It’s not a big deal.

It’s not what you’d call “Search Engine Optimization Ready”, OK? And not unremitting scholarly pedantry, either. What, you’re surprised? That means you don’t know me very well.

Your bad.

And, as it happens, that’s my point.

So anyway, because I like to keep the beloved couple-hundred people who read this blog up to date on things that I think are interesting, I cross-posted a bit I wrote over there, here. A short summary of some genetic programming search algorithms I like.

Now I’m, like, you know, professionally a practitioner of these arcane arts. I kinda know how to be technically specific and all advisorish and Suity about stuff. I do Suity really well, when I choose to—which is generally when somebody with more money than you is paying me.

And as some astute readers will recall, the author does also tend to fall into an academic cadence now and then, and has through the years given ample evidence that he knows how to explain things in that legible, clear Passive Voice with which one tries to elucidate finer points and convey overarching conceptual frameworks to the Gentle Reader, providing as needed all salient citations and ample background information and shit like that.

Let’s all take a moment right now and acknowledge to ourselves my guilt. I shouldn’t ever, ever, ever write the way I am right now. There’s so much potential usefulness wasted every time I fail to educate and share my knowledge and remain polite and try to make the user experience more helpful and pleasant and whenever I’m not nice to people. Every time I’m not perfectly clear about something, an angel eats a kitten.

I feel like such a frivolous pissant.

OK. Done now. Their turn.

Other, smarter people are standing by, ready to be helpful and talk to you directly, and answer your questions and concerns. If you want nice, polite discourse and helpful scholarship, go get it. Nic and Riccardo and Bill are all better people than I am, and they’ll help you find your way. I have the deepest respect for them. Plus, added bonus: it’s their job to teach you stuff about genetic programming.

This is a blog. Better: personal blog. It says it, up on top there. Go look.

You’re not reading a book, and I’m not writing one. You’re not watching an educational television channel broadcast for the good of humanity. I’m not selling something and need to make sure the branding and the value proposition are crystal clear. I’m not reviewing any blockbuster movies in hopes of getting my own picked up by a major studio. You’re not sitting in lecture at school—although maybe you did land on this page because Google lied to you and told you the answer to your fucking homework would be here.

In other words: it’s not my job to be comprehensive. Not in any way. Not here, at least (Cf. comment on “people with more money than you”). Not my job to Speak to the Ages.

I’m too busy speaking with the people I actually set out to speak to. We’re having a conversation. And even though you just dropped down out of the sky by way of Digg or Reddit or del.icio.us or slashdot, you may be surprised to find that what you’re looking at is part of an ongoing conversation. Scholarship is a conversation. Being a member of a community of practice is a matter of conversation. And that’s what blogging is, as well.

POINT OF TOZIER’S SCROLLY RANT IS DOWN HERE>>>>>; SKIP THE REST IF YOU’RE BORED!!ONE!

Seems to me that the fundamental premise of social search is broken for that very reason. I’m not sitting here ranting because I want to fill up my server with more words, or because I invested in scroll bar stock and want you to buy buy buy and every click in the right margin of a window earns me cash, or even because I got all sad and upset about something rude and foolish somebody said about My Pristine Reputation on the Internet.

[Let me tell you about My Pristine Reputation on the Internet, boyo. Spider Jerusalem, Al Swearengen? Out of work.]

Social search assumes that what we say on the Web is supposed to be read out of context. Telling somebody to go look at something that’s an explanation, or a cunning piece of summary, or useful tool, that’s easy. Telling somebody to look at a single utterance in a long, convoluted conversation with many parties and esoteric background knowledge needed?

That’s lazy. That takes more than a few tags and a 255-character comment.

Assume that the author and other commenters are in the middle of a discussion. Assume it. You land in the middle of a confusing, unhelpful Internet Site because somebody linked you there? Act like polite people at a party and introduce yourself, try to catch up by quietly watching. Find out what’s going on. Ask questions. Participate like real people do.

Not like users.