The community here at AVC is possibly it’s greatest strength. But like most things, it is also it’s greatest weakness.
Over the past five years I’ve gone from the most active community member, to a regular participant, to an observer, to an avoider.
I wrote yesterday’s post for an entrepreneur (and every entrepreneur) who wanted to know what the Trump election means for startups.
As I wrapped up the post, I thought very seriously about closing the comments because I knew what they would become. But I didn’t do it. Because that’s a slippery slope. What is the bright line test for when I should open comments and when I should close them? Frankly I’d rather just shut them down rather than turn them on and off whenever I randomly feel like I should.
But I cannot accept the behavior that goes on in the AVC community whenever politics, or gender, or race, or taxes, some other hot button issue is raised, either by me or by the community when a thread gets hijacked and goes astray.
There is a lack of respect. There is a lack of civility. It makes me crazy. So I just skip the whole damn thing.
But I am enabling this behavior because I choose to make AVC a community instead of just a blog. So it is on me that AVC turns into a cesspool some days
As you can tell I am struggling what to do. I’ve thought about banning certain long standing members of the community. But I also don’t want to censor people. They should censor themselves though. That’s the problem. They can’t
So that’s where I am. Fed up to my eyeballs and pissed off and struggling with what to do.
If nothing else, consider this a warning. If you don’t police yourself, the community here will be history. There is a very big piece of me that wants that to happen.
