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19 Ways to Not Suck on the Internet

2015-06-19 · list · Hank · 3:57 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Advice & reviews · tags: civic or action cta, self promotion

Hank, who feels he is from the internet more than from Missoula, offers guidelines for good internet citizenship: treat people online as people, cite sources, attribute creators' work, fix Wikipedia, forgive newcomers and yourself, and leave people and places better than you found them.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Asked to run for local office in Missoula, Hank feels he is really 'from the internet'

  • ★★ Hank says he has several times been asked to run for local election in Missoula and, as a local business owner and semi-celebrity, would have an okay chance. — 00:00:01 · Montana, Missoula, Montana

  • ★★★ Hank says that whenever he is asked, he thinks he is not really from Missoula, Montana, but from the internet. — 00:00:11 · Missoula, Montana, Montana

    “I'm not really from Missoula, Montana, I'm from the internet.”

00:00:27 — Guidelines for being a better internet citizen, ending with Wheaton's Law and "leave people and places better"

  • ★★★ Setting aside questions about place, local government and internet autonomy, Hank asks whether there are things we could do to be better internet citizens, and thinks yes. (hedged) — 00:00:27
  • ★★★ Hank says people on the internet are people, the internet is real life, and people should be treated like people online or off. — 00:00:40
  • ★★ Hank says every person is complicated and impossible to fully understand; anyone who thinks they have pegged someone from a short comment is wrong. — 00:00:47
  • ★★ Hank says removing comments and communities that dehumanize or mock other people is not censorship but kindness. — 00:00:54
  • ★★ Hank says everything you post can be read by everybody and will probably stay online pretty much forever, so be thoughtful. (hedged) — 00:01:00
  • ★★ Hank calls BS detection one of the most crucial skills of the online citizen, slow to develop, and thinks it should be taught in schools everywhere. (hedged) — 00:01:06
  • ★★★ Hank's number one rule: cite your sources, don't share statistics you can't source, and don't share things that might be lies even when they support an important point. — 00:01:15
  • ★★ Hank quotes Mark Twain that a lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes, and urges viewers to help the truth put its shoes on. — 00:01:28
    • check: Mark Twain — doubtful
  • ★ Hank says nobody knows everything, or even most things. — 00:01:35
  • ★★ Hank says not to repost creators' work without attribution, and to source unsourced content with reverse image search engines like TinEye, which also hones research skills. — 00:01:42
  • ★★ Hank says anyone can edit Wikipedia: fix spelling mistakes, undo vandalism through the page history, and read about serious editing before making big changes. — 00:01:56 · Wikipedia
  • ★★ Hank says newcomers to an online community should expect rules they do not know and early mistakes, and existing members should expect the same of newcomers. — 00:02:18
  • ★★ Hank says no one, including yourself, will follow all these rules all the time; we all get angry and act like jerks, so be understanding of yourself and others. — 00:02:36
  • ★★ Hank says many people on Twitter and Tumblr pointed him to Wheaton's Law, basically 'don't be a jerk', which he likes but finds a little subjective. — 00:02:49 · Twitter, Tumblr, Wheaton's Law
  • ★★★ Hank says the response he liked most was to always leave people and places better than you found them, which is what we should work for on the internet, which has become his home. — 00:03:01

00:03:11 — Sign-off; Dear Hank and John second episode and fan tweets, Cereal Time, Titansgrave

  • ★★ Hank announces the second episode of the brothers' new podcast Dear Hank and John is out, and they will try to release one every week around Sunday or Monday. — 00:03:13 · Dear Hank and John
  • ★ Hank reads unsolicited tweets praising Dear Hank and John and Cereal Time, and says Cereal Time has run for a little over a week and he loves it. — 00:03:39 · Cereal Time, Dear Hank and John
  • ★ Hank says Titansgrave is still going and very funny, just him being a dork with his dork friends. — 00:03:43

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the internet is already a pretty great place where more good than bad happens, and that its citizenship will bring more responsibilities as it matures. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: citizenship · Internet

Also: People: Mark Twain

Projects: Cereal Time · Dear Hank and John

Works: Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana

Organizations: TinEye · Tumblr · Twitter · Wikipedia

Concepts: dehumanization · local government · media literacy · misinformation · online community

Places: Missoula, Montana · Montana

Memes: Wheaton's Law

Also centred on Internet: Watermelon Internet Trolls · WE WON! Net Neutrality and Re-Thinking Cynicism · Is YouTube Good for Humanity? · Logging Off · History Is Happening · LEAVE IT IN 2017

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