Contention on micro.blog

Conversations on Micro.blog have been getting a bit feisty lately. I like this, as for a while things were maybe just a tiny bit too nice. Difficult topics tended to be silently stepped around, which could make for a bit of a Chip and Dale vibe. Nothing wrong with politeness of course. Micro.blog has been a welcome reprieve from the toxic awfulness that Twitter tends to generate. Still, this newfound friendly contentiousness has added a bit of spark to the place and it’s been fun.

People are posting and discussing things that are Capital-I Important to them. This brings out new levels of enthusiasm. It also brings out rebuttals and countering viewpoints. These are all good things.

So far threads have been, while sometimes heated, relatively polite and productive. On the few occasions someone went a bit too far, there have been apologies and the conversations continued. Isn’t this how it’s supposed to work? Feels right to me.

I’ve even unfollowed someone for the first time. Not because I didn’t agree with him, but because I wasn’t interested in the topic he was so passionate about. Or at least I wasn’t interested discussing it within Micro.blog. Again, it works.

My hope is that Micro.blog’s follower-count-hiding social-network-atop-personal-blogs model is the secret sauce keeping things interesting but civil. It remains to be seen if this is sustainable with growth over time. Contention can lead to antagonistic hostility if left unchecked or in the wrong hands.

Micro.blog is my favorite place online right now and I would love to see it thrive in its own way. I’m optimistic.