I do have the perception that McEwan was a bit of a Citizen Kane like benevolent narcissist and maybe the article could have gone more into that, but I have only occasionally read Shakesville so what do I know.

Below each post a notice stated that one must read the Commenting Policy and all of a post titled Feminism 101 before commenting. By my count, the Commenting Policy is 15,000 words long, including linked Shakesville posts. Feminism 101 is a roughly 22,000-word annotated bibliography of 182 posts dating from 2006 to 2012. In total, new commenters were asked to read approximately 205,000 words, about the equivalent of Moby-Dick, before typing a single sentence at Shakesville.

TBH this makes me wonder about how much influence Shakesville had on the rest of feminist blogosphere. First, I much prefer this model where no-one pretends to have the authoritative solutions for all issues and outside sources are prodigiously consulted. The model of Shakesville as trying to become a go-to place for an entire political world view and, incidentally, that of Silicon Valley rationalism and LessWrong/SlateStarCodex folks has a terrible track record.

Secondly, I think having too rigid expectations for conduct and prior knowledge set the bar for participation too high. This was an issue in the past in many feminist spaces, though I feel this has actually lessened perhaps because people can just set up a new shop elsewhere or can't be policed on Twitter or whatever. Given how the state of online propaganda and persuasion presently is, making these kind of demands come off as wanting to lose in a noble and enlightened manner and is a projection of weakness rather than strength. Feminism isn't a RPG and you can learn quite a bit from less experienced or educated folks and letting in 10 million somewhat ignorant 16-18 year old girls is probably better for the movement that spending multiple hours of research on problematic things someone said years ago.

This was pretty much a rant, but maybe a few uptakes could justify it. First, do promiscuously keep touch with people from different backgrounds and tendencies and have respect for expertise (when that notion can genuinely apply). Secondly, do have some rules for conduct, but keep them modest and clear. A few bad faith actors will always fly in through the cracks, but basically just banning slurs cleans up online spaces a whole lot.