Every once in awhile I get an indi­ca­tion that var­i­ous “weighty” Quak­ers come to my “Quak­er Ranter” site, usu­al­ly because of a group email that some­one sends around or a post on some list­serve. What’s fas­ci­nat­ing is that few of the insid­er Friends ever spend much time look­ing around: they go to the one page that’s been ref­er­enced and then – swoosh, they’re gone, pre­sum­ably back to their email or list­serve. There’s a pro­found lack of curios­i­ty about what else I might be writ­ing about. These insti­tu­tion­al Friends nev­er post com­ments and they rarely even send any feed­back by email.

This con­trasts very sharply with the bulk of traf­fic to my site. Dozens of peo­ple a day come in off a Google search. Unless it’s a bad match, these seek­ers spend time on the site, click­ing all around, fol­low­ing links to oth­er sites, com­ing back, read­ing some more. Not every­one comes in via search engines: some fol­low links from else­where while oth­ers read the RSS Feed or just come in ever few days to see what’s new.

Part of the dif­fer­ence between “insti­tu­tion­al” and “seek­ing” users is in their use of search engines. Many estab­lish­ment Quak­ers don’t know how to use them or don’t think to use them. A web­site mar­ket­ing pro­pos­al of mine was almost nixed recent­ly when a com­mit­tee mem­ber learned that search engines bypass a site’s home­page to return results from inside pages. I just assumed that every­one knew by now how a search engine works. I use Google dozens of times a day; it’s hard for me to imag­ine any­one nav­i­gat­ing the net with­out it. It must almost be like they’re using a sep­a­rate medi­um. Both of us are using the inter­net as trans­mis­sion con­duit, but that’s like say­ing both a news­pa­per and a per­son­al let­ter use paper and ink for tran­si­tion: while this is indis­putably true, it does­n’t begin to speak to the dif­fer­ent use and the depth of audience.

I won­der if the inter­net divide rep­re­sents an even more sig­nif­i­cant divide between insti­tu­tion­al insid­ers and the rest of us. The insid­ers might be staff, com­mit­tee clerks or just very involved Friends but they share a cer­tain way of under­stand­ing their world. First off, they have their ideas all fig­ured out already. There’s a lack of curios­i­ty here. They aren’t search­ing for new writ­ers or new ideas. They will only con­sid­er some­thing after some oth­er Quak­er insti­tu­tion has rec­og­nized it, a Catch-22 sit­u­a­tion that the mil­i­tary refers to as “inces­tu­ous amplification.” 

Any project out­side of the estab­lished recog­ni­tion zone is invis­i­ble. Even ones that have become dom­i­nant in their field are acknowl­edged only begrudg­ing­ly. In the last ten years, Quak​er​.org has done more for out­reach than just about any institutionally-sponsored pro­gram or com­mit­tee. Yet I know of estab­lish­ment Quak­ers who still think of it as an upstart, and tru­ly believe their put­ter­ing about is more impor­tant, sim­ply because their orga­ni­za­tion has been around longer. In truth, many Quak­er web­sites get so lit­tle traf­fic as to be next to non-existent.

The insid­er’s pri­ma­ry point of ref­er­ence is insti­tu­tions. Pow­er comes from know­ing how ideas, pro­pos­als and deci­sions flow through these orga­ni­za­tions. A good idea is only good if it’s made by the right per­son and vet­ted by the right small group first. Some­times I’ll hear of the gos­sip of some group schem­ing with­in some Quak­er insti­tu­tion and I always have to laugh: like, WHO CARES? It’s a small bunch of peo­ple scram­bling over crumbs while the world ignores them. There’s a whole oth­er world of Friends and seek­ers out there build­ing their own cul­ture and con­nec­tions, or try­ing to.

This Quak­er Ranter site is pri­mar­i­ly for those still curi­ous, for those still inter­est­ing in build­ing some­thing real, for those want­i­ng engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion and sto­ries. I actu­al­ly pre­fer it to be a lit­tle bit “under­ground,” unknown or for­got­ten by insti­tu­tion­al­ists, for I think there’s dis­cus­sions we need to have and the open inter­net is a good place for that.

More

I’ll be edit­ing and adding to this post over time as I see more pat­terns of site use. I’m curi­ous if oth­ers have seen sur­pris­ing pat­terns of inter­net use. Oh, and by the way I should cop to being a Quak­er insid­er myself, though I always try to keep the big pic­ture (i.e., God and the Spir­it’s com­mands) foremost.