{"id":27110,"date":"2016-04-06T11:30:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T09:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/?p=27110"},"modified":"2018-06-28T12:02:27","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T10:02:27","slug":"the-internet-interconnection-community-has-a-hashtag-problem-lets-solve-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/en\/the-internet-interconnection-community-has-a-hashtag-problem-lets-solve-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The internet interconnection community has a hashtag problem. Let\u2019s solve it!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me start off with a disclaimer: I am not a neutral bystander to the issue that this blogpost is about. I do research about\u00a0the social glue that holds the internet together. In my work, I analyse how internet engineers manufacture internet\u00a0connectivity, how they solve network problems, sometimes like firefighters, and also how they handle the disputes that\u00a0occasionally lead to shutting down connections with other networks. So I have an interest in understanding the global\u00a0community of networkers and how they communicate.<\/p>\n

This blogpost is about non-communication. All kinds of professional groups use hashtags to have semi-public\u00a0conversations on social media. Data journalists across the world communicate around\u00a0#ddj<\/a>\u00a0(data driven journalism).\u00a0Professionals for spatial analysis follow\u00a0#gis<\/a>(geo information system). Search for\u00a0#oer<\/a>\u00a0and you will find a community of\u00a0people who care about open educational resources. But where do you find the chatter about internet interconnection on\u00a0Twitter, Facebook or Instagram? #Internetinterconnection? – Search harder. Out of all professional communities, the\u00a0networker community is the last you would assume to lack a handy hashtag. But it\u2019s true: the ones who have the longest\u00a0track record of social networking on the internet \u2013 precisely because they created it! \u2013 they do not have a (functional) hashtag\u00a0that works in today\u2019s social media environment.<\/p>\n

To be fair, this is a story of bad luck. Because in fact, the networker community does have a hashtag. This hashtag\u00a0predates most social media platforms. It is #ix. #Ix for internet exchange \u2013 beautiful from an engineering point of view,\u00a0because it is so short and efficient. The less you waste on metadata, the more you have for the payload. However, with\u00a0the uptake of social media, this hashtag has become useless on general platforms. Search for\u00a0#ix<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter and all you\u00a0find is noise. #Ix is not unique enough. In the hashtag game networkers share the experience of early adopters: you benefit from\u00a0features before anybody else does, but what you invested in is seldom compatible with future technical environments.<\/p>\n

But, you may argue, perhaps networkers simply do not use Twitter or Facebook. Or they do not have common things to talk\u00a0about. Ultimately, if there were a demand, there would be a hashtag, wouldn\u2019t there? Is this blogpost the musings of a\u00a0researcher in search of a problem? Well, it is true that internet interconnection professionals communicate through all\u00a0sorts of communication channels \u2013 from email lists to IRC. But you can be sure that networkers use Facebook and\u00a0Twitter as well. On\u00a0this Twitter list<\/a>\u00a0for example, I compiled profiles of people who deal with internet interconnection\u00a0professionally. (Feel free to notify me on Twitter\u00a0@zielwasser<\/a>\u00a0about your own or other interesting profiles.) And if you take a closer look,\u00a0you can trace networker\u2019s attempts to form hashtag publics on Twitter. The volume of tweets marked with either\u00a0#BGP\u00a0<\/a>(boarder gateway protocol),\u00a0#peering<\/a>,\u00a0#routing<\/a>,\u00a0#IXP<\/a>\u00a0(internet exchange point),\u00a0#IPv4<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0#IPv6<\/a>\u00a0is significant. All these\u00a0things are aspects of internet interconnection. However, none of these hashtags works as an umbrella term. None of them\u00a0captures the richness of the topics that play a role in this industry that is situated at the nexus of economy and technology.<\/p>\n

So where do we go from here? In order for a hashtag to work, it needs to be short, memorable and distinctive. And the right people\u00a0need to use it. Here are my suggestions:<\/p>\n