The Long Runway
Dec 11th, 2007 by sharbrough
Finally, there’s nothing so controversial as a good controversy. When we publish original records, we are all reminded that people have done some really hateful things to each other before, for some really stupid reasons. As Santayana (George Santayana, the American philosopher who appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in the 1930’s [link], not Carlos Santana, the similarly surnamed guitarist who put the “s” in ’smooth”) said, “Those who forget the past are condemned to re-live it.” He was referring to the utility of a memory in the ability to learn, in a generic sense. We think people can avoid repeating past mistakes better if they are aware of them. That’s simpler said than done.
Discussions of historic periods of slavery and war often uncover strong feelings on those issues – feelings that are sometimes voiced in unconstructive terms. I like the phrase, “a man of strong opinions and a limited vocabulary.” Encouraging a constructive discussion on controversial topics implies a requirement to manage / referee the conversation. Our content partners would be appalled if anti-semitic or racist vandalism was tolerated on the site. When we empower people to participate in a dialog, we have to take pains to keep it constructive. The protocol for that is not well worked out – computer networks and social media are in the infancy of consideration. The community identifies the issues, notifying Footnote managers to address them.
Clearly, the management of Footnote doesn’t have all of the answers today that it will need in the seasons to come. What it does have is a clear vision of what kind of site they want to build, and what kind of customer activities that it wants to empower. The truth is certain to turn out differently from management’s expectations in some particulars. It’s happened many times in the past two years. The way it reacts to those surprises defines Footnote more than the choices of content, or the style sheets on the user interface, or the speed of the search engine. Footnote’s management feels like its business practices are its single greatest asset – the first and last thing that should give visitors to the site, content partners, affiliates, and employees confidence that they’ve got enough runway.
