[Heather Bryant]

Arguing that it's harder to just be a human online, Heather Bryant has published an online participation disclaimer:

"The following disclaimer applies to participation in discourse as it relates to my individual experience as a human being in a global online community and the collective communication occurring therein. This disclaimer is intended to acknowledge the complexities, challenges and sometimes human incompatibility with discourse occurring at potentially global scale."

Honestly, this disclaimer feels universal: it's something that I would feel comfortable posting on my own site or linking to. It's both very complete and a little bit sad: these things should be commonly understood. In some ways, these clauses are obvious. But by naming them, Heather is making a statement about what it means to participate in online discourse, and what the experience of that actually is for her.

It's worth reflecting on everything here, but in particular the "some things for some people" and "spheres of relevance" sections hit home for me. It's a commonly-held nerd fallacy (forgive me for using that term) that everything is for everyone, and that everything is relevant for comment. The conversational equivalent of inviting people from multiple facets of your life to the same party and assuming it'll all go great.

It's worth asking: if you had such a disclaimer, would it be any different? What do you wish was commonly understood?

#Media

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