Steve Rubel makes a good point about gatekeeping in a flat world.

Everyone’s a gatekeeper- not for keeping people out, but for putting information in.

Also note Amy Gahran‘s always interesting perspective in Steve’s Comments.

Steve’s post was inspired by this one by Jeff Jarvis. Jeff’s post is mostly about gatekeeping in the news media and public relations context, in preparation for some radio or TV show Jeff is appearing on to talk about Walmargate.

I don’t have any strong opinions one way or the other about Walmargate, other than to wonder what’s so different about what Walmart did and developers wining and dining bloggers, giving them free access to products and applications, and writing emails asking a blogger to review their product that contain feature summaries (parts of which often find their way into a blog post), etc. I’m not saying that opaque is good- I’m simply saying that if transparency is required, it should be required across the board.

Anyway, there are some other things in Jeff’s post that I find interesting.

Let’s start with this:

The problem with gatekeepers is that they try to control, to get in the way, to keep us from getting what we want.

Sort of Jeff, but in the context of the blogosphere that’s the indirect result of the bigger concern- keeping control of the microphone. Sure, that means that readers don’t get content they might want, but many of them probably don’t know they want it because the microphone holders fill the space pretty well.

Wanting to be the only one talking is different from wanting to be the only one being heard. The concern is not so much that a reader is getting a new perspective on an issue; it’s that “someone else is trying to use my platform to be heard.” It’s more of a musical chairs sort of thing. If that new guy is sitting down then one of us might be standing up when the music stops. It’s front end, not back end.

Again, I’m largely over the gatekeeper thing, which is why I focused on and started with Steve’s flattened earth comment. There are people out there who still want to silence the new voices, but:

(a) there are less of them than I originally thought; and

(b) the flattening forces at play in the blogosphere make it very hard to keep people out of the proverbial club.

Clearly some folks have a conscious or (perhaps, but not likely) unconscious desire to withhold conversation from without their favored peer group. Jeff strongly implies he’s not one of them, and I’ll take him at his word.

More often than not, the lack of a response is because the intended recipient didn’t see the post, as opposed to some sort of exclusionary practice. Not all the time, but more often than not.

He later updated his post to mention Steve’s post and say he hopes we’re not all gatekeepers. I think it’s a matter of semantics.

We are gatekeepers, the same way entrance ramps are gates to the freeway.

For example, I wouldn’t have heard about much of the stuff I write about if I hadn’t seen a reference to it somewhere- on My Yahoo, on a blog in my reading list, in the newspaper. Someone was an entrance ramp and put that information on the – tired metaphor alert- information superhighway (ugh!).

The onramps are always open- anyone can drive.

We just need to keep working to make it like that in the blogosphere.

Adam Green posts today about the conversational and sometimes reactionary nature of the internet. He makes some good points, not the least of which is the Rorschach test title and discussion, which is as humorous as it is thought provoking.

When we developed all those message board sites back during Bubble 1.0, we quickly mapped the response tendencies of our users. This is a bit of a generalization, but response patterns tend to fall into one or more of five categories:

1) The Chorus: I agree, with little additional content. These were good for page views, but didn’t do much to further the conversation.

2) The Heckler: You’re wrong and/or an idiot. These were even better for page views, and only helped the conversation a little by forcing a response.

3) The Critic: I think you are partly right, but what about this. These were the best replies of all, because generally they initiated a semi-thoughtful discussion and debate.

4) The Hijacker: I know you’re talking about that, but what do you think about this. Things can get chaotic, but not as badly as you might think because the hijacker either fails and gets ignored or succeeds and the conversation just takes a right turn and continues, just like they sometimes do around the dinner table.

5) The Hater: I don’t just want to join in- I just want to be disruptive and aggressive and attack people. These folks generally got banned from our message boards at some point.

I think those same categories largely apply to people who converse in the blogosphere, whether via Comments or cross-blog conversations, like this one.

The X-factor in these conversations, just like the ones around the dinner table, is emotion. Once you touch the emotive membrane, passion goes up and logic sometimes goes down. This is both good (more spirited conversation) and bad (the potential to miss the point and turn from a discussion to a fight).

So yes, I think sometimes people react more quickly and perhaps less logically when they are talking about something they like a lot or don’t like a lot.

Now, about my reply to Adam’s memetracker post.

First of all, he is exactly right when he deduces that part of my reaction was based on my feelings about committees in general. A guy I once worked with once said (loudly) that anytime someone asked him to be on a committee, he knew they were only trying to take advantage of him. Now I don’t feel that way (thus I’m still here and he has moved on), but I do understand what he’s saying. There’s a little truth in his statement.

But the real emotive reaction that made me “just about fall over my chair trying to get a response written” is my great dislike of any process that might be designed or used (even if not designed) to let some people inside and keep others outside (paging Seth Finkelstein).

I had nightmares of some self-important advisory committee holding a secret vote to decide who could participate in the group blog- not so much as a memetracker developer, but as a user participant. I love the distributed conversations that occur naturally in the blogosphere and don’t want anyone to dam the river and stop that flow.

Adam is absolutely right, however, that while I tried hard to be objective and conversational, my emotional reaction to the issue may have led me to sense trouble between the lines where there was none.

That’s why it’s important to read posts carefully and try to be sure you understand what someone is saying before you respond. Especially if you intend to take a strong and contrary position. People write blog posts quickly, and sometimes you can’t be certain. Heck, I’ve gone as far as diagramming Dave Winer‘s sentences to try to decipher whether he’s for or against the flattening of the blogosphere- and I still don’t know. I’m not entirely sure he knows.

But even if I get something wrong, someone will let me know.

Because we’re just talking here.

And that’s what’s great about blogs and the internet.