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A Question for Jason C.: How would Netscape have handled “the Number”?

Jason - glad to hear you’re back to Fatblogging - the transparency and your efforts are always inspiring.

That having been said, here’s my question for you and your old Netscape team: How would Netscape and the Navigators (good name for a band) have handled the sh!tstorm on Digg this week over the HD-DVD number?

Would it have gone up? Did it go up? Was it blocked? I’m not sure how to search the Netscape News Stories that have been voted on, but this search (News > Top Stories) turned up no results.

Anyway, I’m curious - given that AOL is close to the entertainment industry, more “corporate” etc - would the community have won out there?

calacanis, digg, hddvd, jasoncalacanis netscape

2 Responses to “A Question for Jason C.: How would Netscape have handled “the Number”?”

Jason Calacanis | May 4th, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Very simple: I would have banned the number with the bad language filter and I would have banned anyone who posted it, their IP address, and their email–at least for 72 hours while there was a storm.

Then I would have explained that putting this stuff in the database was a waste of time because a) it would be removed at some point and b) if we don’t remove it the site would get turned off.

sticking your neck out is fine–but you don’t want to get your head cut off.
Rod | May 8th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Jason - thanks for stopping by a sharing your thoughts, and sorry to have taken so long to get back.

They way you described handling the problem (which I would have agreed with, fwiw), suggests a couple of thoughts that could be inferred… what’s your take on these?

1. The HD-DVD people are a real legal threat and Digg will get its head cut off for bowing to users.

2. The “information-wants-to-be-free-Digg-mob” is a small subset of the wider Digg user base and its alienation would have had no long-term consequences for the site’s overall success.

Agree? Disagree?

I like the 72 keyword/user ban to chill things out in storms, btw.