Hypercompendia

I'll come back to this, the rough estimates according to Wikipedia of the various internet communities and their membership, but it does give credence to the popularity of social networking. I've personally participated in Facebook, weblogging, twitter, Plerk, and Diigo, as well as a few smaller ones dedicated to literature, writing, computing, etc. Within the larger services, there are often smaller community groups formed for special interest topics and as the two-year presidential campaign gained steam, many were formed of people supporting their candidate, as well as just as many against the other candidate.

I scanned through some of these, reading the mission statements, reading the postings, and checking out some of the members. I quickly dropped out. On the pro candidate there were just as many anti's commenting, and rather rudely. On the anti-candidate forums, there were such ranting and outright ignorance that I was beginning to worry even more about the state of the union based on the populace.

One of the things these communities tend to do is fan the flames which is a good thing when it's a positive glow, but a very nasty situation when the mob mentality is all afire feeding each other's whacked-out ideas. I must admit that as most of the weblogging folk I visit, I tried but didn't succeed in completely keeping away from political statements. And worse, I've dropped following some of the blogs that appeared so far right or left that I began to allow the politics to overcome my formerly high opinions of some of the writers.

There's no reason why a weblog or forum cannot be used as a platform for our ideas; that's part of the social networking allure. We develop an audience and can't resist stepping up to the podium. Oddly enough, I think that in discussions of political or religious nature we're more apt to be true to ourselves on the internet than in reality dealings. The facelessness of the internet grants us a bit of privacy as far as identity, yet we tend to open up to the unknown stranger more easily online. It's almost like making a statement via graffiti.

Within the groups, we find some great assistance and inspiration and support with our interests, but it can just as easily turn into a mob mentality situation when there is no dissention or argument based on alternative knowledge.