Gregory Koberger :: the blog

The “Broken Window Theory” says that windows are more likely to be broken if one is already broken.  From the original article “Broken Windows” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

The theory is that people are more likely to do something bad if someone did it before them.  For example, cleaning up graffiti as soon as it happened supposedly lead to a huge decrease in crime in NYC.

This works with comments and message boards, too.  If a post is offensive or badly written, delete it.  Having only thought out and civil comments will lead to more thought out and civil comments.

There is a lot of criticism of the Broken Window Theory.  However, look at comments on various sites.  You will never see a YouTube-like comment on a site like Hacker News, and you will have a hard time finding a thought-provoking message anywhere on YouTube.

Expectations of quality are set by previous comments, and it is important to consistently maintain a high standard.

So, free speech be damned.  Delete offending comments, or risk having the quality of your sites’ comments go downhill.

There is a joke I’ve heard a few times, that says most blogs have only two posts- one introducing the blogger and hyping up the blog, and the second, a few months later, apologizing for not posting more often.  At the risk of sounding cliché- this post is the latter.

After all, blogging is hard.  It is a lot like working out- you can get as strong as you want, but a few days off is all it takes to start regressing.  If you take a few months off, you can easily lose everything you worked for.  That is a lot of pressure- knowing you need to post interesting commentaries consistently to avoid slipping into even more into obscurity.  Very few bloggers manage to ever write an article with a shelf life longer than a carton of milk- so I really admire the bloggers who stick with it and post constantly.

Like most things, there is a lesson to be learned.  Most of us don’t have the stamina to churn out a steady stream of content.  So when you start your next company or project, don’t pick something that requires you- you’ll wear yourself out.  Very few projects can remain untouched for years and still be relevant, however you should aim for doing something that can survive with no updates for a few months.

If your entire project relies on you to continuously being active, odds are you will not be able to keep up.  And it will show.  Much like this blog.

The biggest problem inside companies is self interest. The sales team wants to make money, the editorial team wants integrity, the legal team wants to avoid lawsuits, the engineering team wants to use cool technology- the list goes on and on.

Does every company need a little bit of everything? Of course. However, it’s important for companies to decide which is the most important for them. Otherwise, every department is fighting for the spotlight- and they all end up being at odds with each other.

A company needs to pick that one attribute it wants to strive for- and if it’s done well enough, the other qualities will come naturally. And it’s important it only goes for one- trying for numerous of these attributes from the start will result in a company with an unclear direction, which is apparent to consumers.

After ten years of using the same password, using strange programs and logging in on public computers, it finally happened- someone broke into all my accounts.

It was a long time coming- I started to get a bit cocky about my online security, after all.  Same passwords everywhere, no spyware programs running, no encryption anywhere.  But hey- ten years without anything going wrong?  You let your guard down.