Posted on January 23, 2007 - by jono
Misinformation: The Enemy Of Community
Building and running communities is hard work. What is seen by some as simply a means of providing enough hands on deck to get things done is actually a much larger and more complex web of relationships, politics, resources and diplomacy. There are various factors that help community, and various factors that inhibit it – one key inhibitor being misinformation.
Since I have been working with community, I have discovered that misinformation and incorrect communication are the source of 95% of conflict and disputes. But what do I mean by the terms misinformation and incorrect communication? Put simply, any information communicated that is not known to be accurate, but communicated or inferred as accurate is misinformation. An example:
Jane talks to James about some problems with a community member called Dave:
Jane: “Well, Dave just went ahead and just switched the server off…” James: “That is terrible!”
(Jane does not actually know this fact is accurate, but heard from Sandra that Dave switched the server off, who in turn heard it from someone else who assumed it)
The problem in situations such as this is that an assumed fact is communicated to another community member with a veil of authority, and the nature of the assumption is not clearly expressed. If the assumption was clearly communicated, this is fine. Imagine this scenario instead:
Jane: “Well, I heard a rumour that Dave just went ahead and just switched the server off, but I am not 100% sure it is accurate”
James: “If that did happen, that is terrible!”
Its only a few extra words, but the clarification is utterly essential. When assumptions and rumour start getting spread around a community as fact, bad things happen.
What makes these kind of situations even more difficult is when personal relationships or conflict cloud the issue. In the above examples, imagine that Dave and Jane have already had a rocky relationship and don’t get on all that well. If Jane feels Dave has already compromised the community in the past, it is extremely tempting to assume that Dave has just switched off the server, despite the actual facts being unknown.
This can also occur in instances of celebrity. We have lots of rockstars in the Open Source and Ubuntu world, and in some scenarios an accurate communication is overshadowed by showing off that the person spoke to a celebrity. An example:
James is talking to Jane about how Dave acted like an idiot:
James: “Yeah, I was talking with Linus the other day when Dave started accusing Sandra of these problems”. Jane: “Wow you spoke to Linus?”
(Dave never accused Sandra of anything)
In this scenario, James is merely bragging about talking to Linus, and the secondary communication of Dave is deemed less important and therefore the accuracy is sacrificed in the light of fanboying Linus.
Unfortunately these kind of incorrect communications and misinformation happen all over our community, and I would like to encourage everyone to think twice when it comes to these kinds of situations. There is nothing wrong we making clear that something is an assumption or second hand knowledge that may not be 100% correct. Little improvements like this can have hugely positive impacts on our community.
So the rule of thumb is is “to assume makes an ASS out of U and ME – clarity is key“. 
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January 23, 2007
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“I was talking to Linus, Alan Cox, Ted T’so, Marvin Minsky, Vint Cerf and John Carmack the other day, when I noticed Jono has a tiny todger.”
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January 23, 2007
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And for your followup post, you’re going to explain how this applies to Mark’s RH FUD, right?
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January 23, 2007
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Jono, I don’t mean to cause problems, but why does it seem you care more about Jokosher than Ubuntu? You blog constantly about Jokosher and how excited you are about it and I see no similar excitement for Ubuntu.
As far as I can see Jokosher stops you from being as good of a community leader as you could be in this: you never seem excited about Ubuntu, only Jokosher.
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January 23, 2007
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So did Dave switch the server off or not?
(I’ve never cared much for that Sandra anyway. Always causing trouble)
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January 23, 2007
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..and of course there’s never any misinformation in LUGRadio is there?
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January 23, 2007
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Luis – every should apply to these thoughts, including everyone in that story, me, you and anyone else.
Dan – I am hugely excited about Ubuntu, and not long ago I was criticized for writing nothing but Ubuntu, but the last few weeks have involved a lot of Jokosher posts as we are leading up to feature freeze. I am psyched about Ubuntu as I am about Jokosher, LUGRadio and anything else I am interested in.
Simon – it will always remain a mystery.
Alan – we have spread misinformation in the past – guilty as charged. It is something we are trying to stop, and part of my view is based on experiences with LUGRadio where we did it and bad shit happened.
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January 23, 2007
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I seem to remember this quote as being accurate (from Lovechild’s tagline):
Ade: I’m not condemning anybody. Jono: Well let’s assume, for the sake of argument you are.
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January 24, 2007
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[...] So the rule of thumb is is “to assume makes an ASS out of U and ME – clarity is key“
I just assume that everyone thinks I am an ass. Hence, I try to be as clear as possible. The problem may lie in people assume that their point of view is the correct one – trust not the ones you don’t know. This is obviously an over-generalisation.
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January 27, 2007
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When you ASSIST you make an ASS-CYST. So stop assisting!
When you ASSIGN, you make an ASS out of a SIGN! Put that thing away!
When you ASSEMBLE, you make an ASS out of an EMBLEM. Stick to high-level languages!
When you ASSASSINATE, you make an ASS out of an ASS out of some INNATE QUALITY. That’s too many recursive ASSes!
Finally, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of UME, which is a Japanese plum. They’re yummy plums. Do not make them taste like ASS.
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January 31, 2007
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However, ascorbic acid is still our friend.