Joe's Jottings

As some of you may know, I’m on the Board of the Hillsborough Forum, a group that works for the economic regeneration of the Hillsborough area of Sheffield, and also coordinates other activities in that area, such as ‘Yorkshire in Bloom’ and other community activities, such as Community Gardening.  I’m very proud of my involvement with HF – and certainly enjoy working with some wonderful people such as Wendy Wells.

Tonight we had an event to launch our ‘Made in Hillsborough’ brand – an attempt to provide a unique and easily identifiable brand for companies and businesses based in the area.  the brand was designed by local, highly skilled, Graphic Designer Emma Metcalfe and manages to encapsulate all the major aspects of Hillsborough – green spaces, soccer, the Barracks, the range of produce available in the area.  It’s so ‘hot off the press’ that the first time I saw the ‘full version’ of the logo was at this presentation, and it’s a smasher. 

It’s partially visible in the background of the above photograph and on the right you can see a larger version of the logo in all it’s glory!  The launch took place in the Hillsborough Hotel, who provided us with excellent surroundings, a nice buffet and a very nice special brew for the occasion from their in-house Crown Brewery – Hillsborough Pale Ale.  Of which a fair amount was quaffed by all, including me.

There was an excellent set of introductory talks from the Rt. Hon. David Blunkett MP, local author and historian Ron Clayton (Ron – if you’re reading this send me your web site address!!)  and Hillsborough Forum’s very own ‘member of the Queen’s Gang’, Wendy Wells MBE.  And then it was down to networking, brewery visiting, eating and drinking!  And a fine evening was had by all, with your correspondent finally strolling home through the drizzle at 11pm!

We had excellent support from many Hillsborough businesses for raffle prizes and give-aways on the night including Picky Miss Sock Monsters, Imogen’s Imagintion (milinery / hats), Simpkin’s Sweets, Teddy Bear Maker and Funks Butchers.  On a personal level it was great to see old friends again, and make contact with Russell Cavanagh who runs NW Sheffield News Online.  My major social gaffe of the evening was not immediately recognising the very friendly folks from the Java Lounge coffee shop in Hillsborough – given the amount of coffee and cheesey crumpets they’ve served me in recent months that was a wee bit embarrassing! 

But – thanks to all!!  Follow @Hills_Forum on Twitter, and if you want to help plug the brand, use the #MadeInHillsborough hashtag!

I don’t like to admit it in public, but I kind of like my work.  I’m self-employed, in IT.  I probably do around 35 hours a week ‘client facing’ work and probably about 10 hours a week grubbing up new work, invoicing, etc.  I’ll work longer hours when needs be, and slack when I can.  I don’t regard work as the be all and end all of my life – far from it.  But I have found that when I don’t work, bad things happen, usually presaged by letters from the people who hold my mortgage, my bank manger, the utilities companies, etc.  Because when I don’t work, the money doesn’t appear.

I have worked with people from the New Economics Foundation (nef) and have quite a bit of time for them, but this latest suggestion blows my mind, I’m afraid.  They suggest a working week of 21 hours.  Very early on in this piece they do admit that people would have a reduced income.  Yes, typically by about 40 to 50%, assuming a straight reduction.

Don’t get me wrong – I agree with this comment made by the report’s author, Anna Coote:

“So many of us live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume, and our consumption habits are squandering the earth’s natural resources.

“Spending less time in paid work could help us to break this pattern. We’d have more time to be better parents, better citizens, better carers and better neighbours.

“We could even become better employees – less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive.

“It is time to break the power of the old industrial clock, take back our lives and work for a sustainable future.”

But I’m afraid that this approach is typical of the new left – legislate and push the impact of policy on to the people.  Changes in people’s habits come from the people themselves.  I consume less than I used to, spend more time being a better citizen, and am more productive in my working life not because I work less hours but because I manage the time I do spend working more effectively.  The idea of breaking the old industrial clock is another piece of left wing thinking.  Guys, don’t know how to tell you this, but the old industrial clock has already stopped and some of the biggest issues around working conditions today are not hours based but revolve around:

1. When and where the hours are worked -  employers are inflexible, often insisting on the 9 to 5 regime sitting at a desk when it’s not actually necessary to get the job done.
2. The nature of the job – many job types are fleeing the UK leaving us with skilled technical service work, the professions, retail, leisure and service sector.  Most of these jobs rely on people being there to deliver.  A 21 hour working week means that to cover time when people will want to do things, 2 people will need to be employed where one was before. 
3. The fact that the cost of living has greatly increased – people are working the hours they work because they need to to keep a roof over their heads.

I’m not at all impressed by this report.  The report acknowledges a massive cultural shift – indeed it will be, making a MORE stressed workforce as people start wondering where the money to pay their bills is going to come from.  More people will have to be in the workforce; whilst we have 2 million unemployed, I doubt that that would cover the requirements of halving the working week for most people.  And the idea that everyone will join hands and walk happily in to tomorrow’s rainbow future of good parenting, good charitable works and a new worker’s paradise is rubbish.  Good parents are good parents because they want to be, irrespective of the hours they work.  People doing good works in the community – again, many of these do this not because they have time in abundance but because they make effective use of what time they have.

People are not necessarily going to go and do worthy things in their communities, no matter what we may wish to believe.  As a pragmatist, I look around me and see that what most people want to do with their time off is chill out, relax, consume and make full use of the recreation industries.  I doubt taht this would change if they were given more time to do it in.

Give people a 4 day weekend and I’m not sure that people will actually thank you for it.  Especially when the bills come in.  But Governments will love it – they get to reduce the unemployment figures at one fell stroke.  And it puts all of our finances on that much more of a knife edge – all the better to keep us in line.

Unsurprisingly, repossessions are at a 14 year high.  It would have been unthinkable for the recession to have had any other impact on householder finances, as is indicated by this report on the BBC website today.  So it was pretty useful for John Healey, the current housing minister, to be interviewed today on Radio 5.  I say ‘current’ housing minister because it’s quite possible that by the time you read this he will have either been fired or done the honourable thing and quit.

Basically, he’s reportedly said that “It can be the best thing for some people to be repossessed.”  Yup, that’s right – check out Guido Fawkes here.   Now, just in case you’re feeling confused that a member of the party that is purportedly ‘for the people’ is advocating that being evicted is acceptable for some, I will remind you which party he belongs to.  New Labour.  That’s right.  Not the Tories, but New Labour. 

Now, my initial thoughts were that he’d basically put his foot firmly in his mouth and what he’d really intended to say was ‘It’s never the best thing for people to be repossessed.’   That was a reasonable expectation of what to be expecting from a ‘socialist’, after all…but I did a Google search and…oh dear.

Unfortunately, this sort of caring approach to the property owning democracy is nothing new for Healey.  Take a look at his coments from last year where he lauded a fall in home ownership.  So it would appear to be more policy than slip of the tongue.  Which makes you wonder what the housing policy of this Government really is. 

1. Housing policy is to push people out of owning their own houses back in to state or local authority owned housing, redolent of East Germany in the 1970s?
2. Housing Policy is to remind anyone who owns a house that they cannot necessarily expect any help if they are threatened with repossession?
3. Housing Policy is partially dictated by the banks who want to get some easy money back by repossessing a few more people.
4. Housing Policy – like other policies – is to made so ludicrous that New Labour cannot possibly be re-elected and they’ll escape the consequences of their totally fucked-up handling of the economy.

You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

But if you’re one of his constituents – sack ‘im in May.  You know it makes sense.

What a surprise – Sheffield City Council and Yorkshire Forward are planning to  chip in £20 millions towards helping kick start the stalled £600 million ‘Sevenstone’ retail quarter in Sheffield City Centre.  Don’t get me wrong – this area of the city centre could do with some redevelopment.  Whether this project is right and whether it was timely is another matter and not one for discussion here, but throwing public funds in to the development at this time is in my opinion not a good move.

The developer, Hammersons, claim they can’t support it at this time.  Now, I acknowledge that it’s been a hard time for property developers (mind you, the good times were brilliant for you guys, so don’t bitch and whine too much) but gentlemen, planning ahead and possibly losing money is all part of the game of free-market capitalism.  Whether the improvement to Sheffield really needed a £600 million project that would further draw shoppers away from the existing suburban shopping areas like Ecclesall Road, etc. is another question.  After all, Meadowhall showed the impact of an out of town shopping centre on city centre shops, so I guess this development will have the same effect on shopping areas outside the city centre, but what ho.

Hammersons develop these places to make money from.  Look at their portfolio - some massive developments – places like Brent Cross, the Birmingham Bullring, prestige developments in Europe.  All impacted by the recession, but that’s the game. 

It appears that the developers of Sevenstones have concluded that a £20 millions input from public funds will kick start the compulsory purchase process that will in turn (somehow) facilitate further development.  Hold on, if the £20 millions for CP can’t be found without going to the public purse, where the Devil is the remaining £580 million going to come from?  I’m not a financial whizz kid, and would truly welcome someone coming to me and saying ‘This is why, it’s OK, there’s a logical reason…’

So…first of all, any property developers reading this….please tell me how this works.

Now, here’s where I put my tinfoil hat on and enter conspiracy theory territory.  At the moment, that part of Sheffield is half demolished, half still (barely) operational.  But as it stands it’s possible that the Council and property developers could, for example, put a much smaller amount of money in to the area and build a much less grand and less joined up development but that would be affordable in the current financial situation and re-activate retail activity in that area.  This might well have to happen in 6 months time when existing CP orders run out and issues about land acquisition for the project can potentially become major stumbling blocks.   Now…if the CP orders are all followed through and the land acquired, and existing properties demolished, it becomes much easier for the Council to turn around in a year’s time and say ‘Ooopps…we need MORE money, but we must rebuild this area, so…..’

Hammersons have put £60 millions in so far.  The Council will be borrowing £10 millions of the £20 millions required to carry the project on. 

Sheffield has some thriving out of town shopping areas despite the best efforts of current and previous Council administrations.  I am proud to be associated with Hillsborough, and often visit places like Darnall on business.  A fraction of the money being spent here could make a massive difference to local, community-based retail and other economic activity in this city.  The shops that will be in the new development are not going to be small stores with local connections; they will be the usual suspects in terms of High Street homogenisation.

The public sector is once more bailing out large private sector concerns because ‘not to do so would be disatrous’.  Sounds familiar?  Think banks.  Same argument, and I think we all know that the beneficiaries are unlikely to be the people of this city.

I’m old enough to have used an address book and still have a Rolodex on the phone table.  When I actually sit down and think about the people with whom I have reasonably regular ‘quality’ contact in a 3 month period, either electronically or face to face, it probably amounts to no more than a hundred or so.  I guess it’s safe to say that in the world of networking I’m a ‘quality over quantity’ sort of fellow.  I’ve never been a great collector of large numbers of business cards or people details – collections are fine for stamps, coins and locomotive numbers but are kind of creepy for people.

Back in the late 1990s / early 2000s I used a networking site called Ecademy – I stopped after a while because it seemed that people were making contact with you purely from a sales oriented viewpoint.  Allow me to explain – if I’m interested in AI, and someone brings something to my attention that’s even vaguely related to the field – that’s cracking!  That’s exactly what I’m there for – and hopefully I’ll be able to reciprocate.  On the other hand, if someone steams in with a ‘Hi, I’m Fred, I’m in marketing, blah, blah, blah’ I get the feeling I’m receiving a boilerplate message which is likely to end up as a boiler room selling attempt.  The site seemed to encourage numbers of contacts over quality – and that’s one of the reasons why I eventually jacked it in.

I’ve noticed in recent days that I’m being followed by people who are following thousands of others.  And the odd thing is most of them appear to be selling something that is as relevant to me as a comb to Sir Patrick Stewart.  The ‘Bio’ of one such follower (soon to be ex-follower in my daily purge) – “A Business Dedicated to providing free online MLM training videos, articles, books and webinars”.  If I received an email like this I’d call it spam – pure and simple.  I know that Twitter has policies around spam, but my point is that most folks following 20,000 people seem to be in the MLM, ‘sales and marketing’, ‘social media consultancy’ sort of areas.  They’re cold calling – they sure ain’t networking.

Bottom line – there is NO WAY, realistically, that the content generated by the 20,000 people these bods follow is ever registering in any meaningful manner with these people – I assume it’s simply being harvested electronically and searched for keywords that might suggest a sales lead. 

Joe’s categorisation of Twitter users…

1. Vast number of followers, smallish number of followed – publisher / celeb.
2. Vast number of followers, vast number of followed – probably sales / mass marketing
3. Smallish followers, large number of followed – probably spammer
4. Smallish followers / smallish followed – personal / business networking

OK – it’s not a brilliant classification but it works for me.  Just watch out if you’re in category 2 or 3 ‘cos I’m binning you!

 Whilst I was drafting this yesterday, I came across this piece on the same topic:  http://juliorvarela.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/when-twitter-numbers-are-meaningless/

Don’t get too hung up on your numbers on Twitter.  If you’re following lots of people, just check WHY.  Do they add value to your day?  Amuse / entertain you?  Educate you?  Guide or enlighten you?  If not, ditch ‘em.  And those following you – just take a look at their numbers and think about what I’ve said.

And I hope you don’t chuck me off your lists.

…we’re all dead, so goes the old joke.

I’ve found myself thinking of ‘the long run’ increasingly often over the last year, and I’m not sure why.  I think partially it’s due to having children around on a reasonably regular basis for the first time; I’ve found myself thinking more of the world that they will grow up in to, and how the activities of the human race in my lifetime will have influenced that world – for better or worse.  some of you may recognise the image on the left – it’s a picture of a model of the ‘Clock of the Long Now’ - a timepiece designed to keep reasonably accurate time for 10,000 years.  I like the idea of thinking that far ahead – whether it’s realistic or not is the question, I guess.

Years ago I remember reading that when the ‘big’ cathedrals were built – places like Notre Dame in Paris, or theBasilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence – it was taken as a given that some of the people who started building the place would not live long enough to see it completed.  The Basilica, for example, took 170 years from inception to completion.  Imagine – a life expectancy of maybe 40 was pretty good going for those days, so it would be possible for 4 or 5 generations of a  family to work on the building, most of whom knew that they were committing their skills and lifetime to something they would never see completed.  And this in a time when the Black death was all over Europe.  I imagine that part of what drove people was faith; a belief that what happened in your life wasn’t the end of things, but just the beginning, and that building such edifices would help ensure your soul would be well received in Paradise!

Gardens are the same – many formal gardens literally take 100 years to mature to the vision that the garden designer envisaged.  And the owner of the land on which the garden was being built and who was paying for the garden would know that he was planning for the future, and leaving behind (and paying for) a legacy that he would never truly enjoy.  There’s a rather nice comment about the wisdom of a society that plants trees for the future in this blog entry from November.

It’s the combination of altruism and faith in the future that fascinates me; it is a combination of values that I think is lacking today.  We seem to have ended up in a culture of short-termism.  Which is incredibly ironic when we live so much longer than did our ancestors; maybe we’re just not so sure about our future prospects, or maybe it’s our Governments thinking in 4 year chunks.  But we don’t seem to have the faith to build for the future anymore.  I don’t really see anything being built that will first of all survive more than a century or so, and certainly nothing of the scale and majesty of your Duomos, Notre Dames or Towers of London. 

It’s a great irony that we might leave so little that survives more than a few centuries that our descendants of a thousand years hence (should we leave any behind) might regard the times we’re now living in in the same way that we regard the so-called ‘Dark Ages’.

Many moons ago I posted a piece on here - ‘Am I a twit not to twitter’.  Well, I’ll admit it.  Yes, I was a twit not to Tweet, and I’m happy to say that.  I can’t argue with objective facts, so here’s my brief thoughts on what converted me.  Just in case anyone wishes to follow me, I’m on twitter, funnily enough, asJoePritchard.  Serious lack of imagination there but no excuse for missing me! 

So, here are my hints and observations from a beginning Twit!  There are plenty of articles around with more detailed hints and tips of how to use Twitter, and I’m not going to re-hash what’s said elsewhere.  These observations are my personal thoughts and insights, for what they’re worth, as to how I found that Twitter could be useful.

Two Way Street

I think the first thing that I learned about twitter (or rather had it pointed out to me) was that it’s a two way street; if you want people to follow you you need to follow people, and that you need to have an idea of what you want to gain from Twitter.

Identify what you want

Apart from keeping up with your friends and colleagues, I’ve found Twitter invaluable for getting a good newsfeed from sites of interest.  In fact, I’ve found it a better proposition than RSS feeds.

Use a Twitter Client

When I first tried Twitter out, I used the Twitter web interface to use the Twitter service. It didn’t work well for me – so this time I decided to try out a couple of dedicated Twitter applications.  I have Twhirl and Tweetdeck installed and they’ve both made using Twitter on a regular basic much easier – I just leave them running quietly in the background, they dynamically update, and they make it a pleasure to Tweet.

Think of it as less intrusive MSN

I’ve actually used Twitter as a form of MSN with some people – it’s more spread out in time than a typical MSN conversation, more compact than Email and certainly doesn’t clutter my inbox with lots of short mails.

Use it for promotion

I’ve recently re-activated this Blog and integrated it with both Twitter and Facebook, and have been studying the referral logs to see where blog referrals are coming from.  There does appear to be a fair amount of traffic from Twitter.  A recent event I participated in – ActionForInvolvement’s Climatewalk - made significant use of Twitter in the run up to the event to promote it and encourage re-tweeting about the event.  Again, I gather that the results were well worthwhile!

If you need to, run multiple accounts

I was considering tweeting on behalf of my business from within my ‘personal’ Twitter account but I’ve decided to set up a separate account for the business.  The reason?  People following my business may not be very interested at all in everything else I do.  Let’s call it ‘brand protection’ – I want my business brand and my ‘JoePritchard’ brand to be different entities online.  Whilst folks who know me will know that I run ‘em both, the separation will be useful for business connections who I really don’t want in my personal life – and vice versa!

Be picky in following and blocking

Spam has certainly increased on Twitter.  When someone follows me, I’ve got Twitter configured to mail me.  I always go and check out their profile, and then determine first of all whether to block or not.  Folks who look like spammers always get reported; if someone seems to be mainly pedalling MLM or just looks ‘dodgy’ in terms of their content or places linked to – again, block ‘em.  I can’t understand why American High School kids of either sex can think that I can be interested in reports of their weekends drinking or shopping and don’t bother completing any parts of their profile  - sorry guys, you get blocked.  I know this sounds arrogant of me, but I want followers who know me or who are interested in what I say or consider that I somehow add value for them.  If you are a US High School kid who IS interested in what I say, then let me know – but have something of interest to me on your profile, somewhere!  In return, when I follow, I want to be following people that I know, am interested in or who add value to my online life by introducing me to new stuff or ideas.  Twitter does seem to encourage the ‘numbers game’ in people.  I prefer quality.

And that’s that – I’m going to start using Twitter Lists shortly and will let you know how I get on.  And then there’s the API stuff….watch this space.

I appreciate that this is likely to be read as a massive attack on the Welfare State by some, and that I’ll be suspected of channeling the political spirits of Norman Tebbit, Margaret Thatcher and Atilla the Hun by others.  However, that’s not the intention.  As some of you will know, I hold Libertarian views and am a believer in as small a Government as is practicable, but that does not mean that I take the view that the State should not intervene to help those in genuine need.

This entry grew out of the ongoing study-tidying process that’s been going on for a few weeks now here at the Towers.  I came across a newspaper article that I’d clipped in June of this year, and in the article was an interesting observation from William Beveridge - the architect of the modern UK Welfare State.  In 1948, 6 years after he originally wrote the report that gave ultimately gave birth to the benefits system, he expressed his fear that the reforms he’d introduced might encourage people to be passive about their needs.

The Government of the day didn’t take his words on board; the rest, as they say, is history, and we’re now able to look at the society that was created and wonder whether the result of 65 years of cradle to grave Welfare State has been, in the words of the journalist Camilla Cavendish who wrote the piece, to reduce people to a bundle of needs.

And I agree with her; one of the side effects of the Welfare State, especially in the increasingly Nannyish manner that it has been implemented in the last 12 years, is that many people have been dumped in to a dependency culture.  The risk to entitlements and benefits if a job is taken means that many people are not going to run the risk of taking a job that will result in them losing money from their weekly income – and I can see their point.  For all the talk of dignity of work, self respect, etc. the bottom line is that if you don’t have as much money coming in to the household then, in the words of Quark, the ferengi bartender from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - “Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack”.

In 2007, roughly a third of all Government expenditure was in the from of State Benefits.  This constituted around 11% of GDP, and about half of the population of the UK were recipients of some form of state benefits.  Now, we live in a system where inevitably some people are going to slip to a point where they need state intervention to keep a roof over their heads.  And it’s appropriate that they get that help.  But half the country?  This is obviously not half the households; many households on benefits slip will involve a number of adults.  Some households can’t get much help at all; anyone who runs their own business or is self-employed will understand that if their business hits trouble they are very much on their own unless children are involved. 

But for those households and individuals who are dependent on benefits, and in many cases have their whole lifestyle driven by the need to maintain their access to the benefits system, let’s take a look at what this means:

1. There are restrictions on paid and voluntary work that can be done whilst claiming benefits.  In other words, you are effectively being paid to do nothing for part of your week.
2. The crossover between benefits and work is fraught with problems – it’s very easy to get a nice little job and lose out bigtime in the ancillary benefits that your household may be entitled to.
3. The problems in moving in to and out of benefits – as may take place if you do contract / temporary work or find yourself on a series of short term contracts (not uncommon in a recession when piece work may be increasingly common) again discourages people from stepping out of the benefits pit to seek ongoing work.
4. Some people with occasional illness that will prevent them working for a month or so here, a month or so there, again find it easier to stay on sickness and disability benefits rather than step in and out of the workforce and lose the regularity of cashflow of being on benefits.

There are some people for whom a loosening of the restrictions around working whilst on benefits would be a great advantage.  For example, allowing someone on benefits to do a paid job for a couple of months without losing access to benefits might seem strange, but think about what it would permit:

1. Ongoing guaranteed income over the first month or so when pay in a new job may not be immediately available.
2. No sudden shock to the family finances.
3. The work is bringing in extra money for a month or so – it is worth doing.
4. At the end of this period then the benefits can be stopped. 

There are people for whom this sort of movement in and out of the workforce would never be possible, due to illness or disability, and it should therefore be possible to allow them to do voluntary work / temporary work as required again with no financial loss.

This would require a synchronising of the Tax and Benefits system.  And the Government would also need to make it very clear (and structure tax and benefit regimes accordingly to ensure it) that if you wanted to sit on your backside you could do, but that your income would be less than someone on benefits who is working as and when they can. 

The aim is to encourage self-value, self-determination and get out of the need trap.  We cannot carry on like we are doing producing multiple generations of families in which no one has worked.  This is wrong, it’s perverse and we simply cannot afford it financially or as a society.

This article in the BBC’s online magazine rather intrigued me; basically, are we heading for a dislocated society in which the relatively wealthy live in walled communities whilst the rest of the population exist in a less secure ‘open world’?

When I was a kid I remember reading a suggestion that the evolution of community resources, like street lighting, sewers, etc. came about because the rich had to share the world with the rest of us.  A wealthy man might have a well lit private estate and safe water, but if he, or his family, had to go outside the confines of their safe zone they might soon be in dark, dangerous streets and exposed to foul standing water rife with disease. 

So, philanthropically minded individuals acted from enlightened self interest (and then from the profit motive) to create municipal organisations that provided street lighting, paved roads, sewers, etc. for everyone.

It’s ironic that a century or so later we’re heading in the other direction by starting to consider retreating from these communities in to walled communities and other protected environments.  The wealthy no longer choose to collectively improve the commmunities that they interact with on a regular basis, but instead choose to isolate themselves from them and rely on defences rather than building a ‘common treasury’ in their communities form which all can benefit.

I have recently become very interested in Permaculture and ‘Transition Towns’   as means of addressing the pressing problems of Peak Oil and Climate Change.  Both of these philsophies reflect the enlightened self-interest approach to surviving massive cultural shocks.  They assume that the ebst way to make lives in a future totally changed by fuel and energy crises and climate modification is to survive as a community.  Compare this with the alternative approach – wealthier individuals building individual bolt holes for themselves and their families shows admirable foresight and planning but there remains the problem that at some point, after the MREs have run out, the inhabitants of these bunkers are going to have sally forth in to the world they left behind.  At that point they’re going to have to interact with those who didn’t have bunnkers – either by force of arms or by negotiation. 

I see survival built purely on personal and family group provision as being short sighted and, whilst for some it may be the only way open to them, for the vast majority of us we need to work out how we’re going to mould together the communities in which we live to prepare for changes in the future.

Anyone who’s spent time in any online communities will be aware of the feuds and fights that take place between users of those communities.  Whilst some degree of conflict is inevitable, there always seems to be a few people who move it form debate and discourse in to abuse and harassment.  I’ve concluded that there are two forms that this takes – attrition and ‘Shock and Awe’. 

What’s motivated me to raise this at this time?  Firstly – personal experiences and observations, secondly the return of Channel 4′s Big Brother to the TV screens and finally a piece of legislation from Scotland, which, although aimed primarily at sexual harassment, may have implications for anyone running an online community.

So…let us begin…

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