Parameters of discourse
Among my pet peeves is discussion which veers from the subject of the thread. One of the wonders of this site is that anyone can begin a thread on a specific topic, thereby enabling a more reasoned and, I believe, useful resource.
This site has become quite widely-read in the franchise industry, and that is in part due to the webmaster's decision to adopt a laissez-faire attitude towards community participation. Indeed, there does seem to be empirical support among IT professionals for the webmaster's decision.
However, some valid criticisms have been made, and I note a few of them in the spirit of encouraging an airing of these matters on an appropriate thread:
- I am troubled by the occasional ranting post, but we should remember that responding to such childish vitriol just encourages the behavior. A more effective approach would be for the rest of us to engage in reasoned discourse: Gresham may have called his opinion "law", but let's prove him wrong.
- I understand that some views must necessarily be expressed under cloak of annonymity. But it would help to register under a pseudonym. The webmaster has stated several times the site's commitment to the privacy of its users, and the webmaster has consulted with legal counsel and spent quite a bit of money enhancing not merely the appearance but the security of this site as well.
- Extreme positions are often the most intellectually coherent, and as such can be insightful and help to stimulate debate and "outside-the-box" thinking. We should not discourage such discourse. But the real world is normally more complex, and that is why the pragmatic path is an amalgam of often-inconsistent components. When law schools teach trial advocacy, they force the students to argue Plaintiff's position in one round of the competition, and then Defendant's position in the next round.
- One of the benefits of anonymous posting is that if you see the MauMau debate getting too one-sided, you can log-on and take the other side. There is an old joke about the law professor engaging in a class debate with one of his students; in the middle of the discussion the student exclaimed "But Professor, you're now arguing for the point I was making" to which the professor replied "That's because your side wasn't doing too well."
Whether you like it or not, the Internet and sites such as this are here for the forseeable future. As many of you know, BlueMauMau is now read by a significant number of industry professionals, including media and regulatory folks.
Petulant refusal to engage in discourse may be emotionally satisfactory, but contrary to your long-term interests. For many years, franchise debate was one-sided.
I do think that the franchise industry has come in for a few hits on this board, some deservedly so and some have been cheap shots. But that's the rough-and-tumble of a free media.
In the early days of our history, that's how everything from the Constitution to abolition was discussed: cheap broadsheets were as prevalent as they were incendiary, and there was no avuncular Walter Cronkite or Henry Luce to tell us what to think.
We are seeing a return to a more open discussion, one which does not favor the wealthy but rather one which favors the persuasive individual. Franchisors may be uncomfortable with the new world, but they should jump in the pool, if only to protect their own interest.
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