Community Development
If the discussion is lively enough and if the people involved are
willing to put themselves truthfully and personally caring into the discussion,
a sense of community may develop. While at times people may begin to get
aggravated with each other, this is present in any community, so it is not
necessarily a sign of total dysfunction. If this sense of community develops,
the life of the discussion will grow.
For the longevity of the discussion group, this is vital and an
important part of the conversation. In order to encourage this to take place,
people have to be willing to put themselves out there. If others sense that
they are just putting up a façade they are more likely to put one up
themselves, thus becoming a negative cycle causing the overarching goal of the
message boards to fall apart.
The subject matter is an organic one.
The topic is there because of culture and social factors, and because those
factors are constantly changing, so will the topic. The fact that the group
will be discussing a topic which is not set in stone will allow current events
and new happenings to influence the discussion. For example, if the group is
speaking about hate speech’s connection to violent crime and a prominently
featured story is currently present in the national media.
Something like that would allow the members of the discussion to
talk about if they believe that hate speech influenced the crime. Also, because
it will be an ongoing investigation, one side or the other could eventually be
proven correct by the law. An example of this could be if the discussion were
taking place in late 1998 the group could have focused on the high profile hate
crime against Matthew Sheppard. This evolving dynamic will allow the group to
continuously move forward and discuss new topics and their relation to the
already present topics can breathe new life into discussions that may have
otherwise ended.
Closing
The idea of a message board on hate speech is a good one. For it
to work, people are going to have to do many things however. They must respect
other's points of view. They must post in the proper, top down way. They must
be able to support their ideas and must be entirely truthful when speaking. If
the board is maintained by an organization, this will allow careful mediation
and mentoring to develop a sense of community and a long discussion on the
topic.
