Jane Jacobs, an urban activist, made that observation in 1961 in her landmark book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” Although she was describing cities built of bricks and mortar, her ideas about cultivating vibrancy feel relevant today, as some of the most important metropolises of the 21st century are being constructed online, where chaos is in no short supply.
Jane Jacobs是一个城市激进分子，他于1961年在他的标志性作品《美国大城市的生与死》中发表了以上发现。虽然她描述的是砖头和灰浆建成的实体城市，但是她培养活力的想法在今天也是中肯的，由于21世纪最重要的大都市正在网络上构建，那里从来不缺少混乱。
The latest controversy surrounds Reddit, a community and social news site that lets members create and run their own forums on any topic, from movie news to local politics to the sharing of beautiful nature photographs. Reddit has come under fire for harboring a forum that encourages people to covertly photograph women on the street and upload the images to the site for others to ogle and comment on. The pictures, nicknamed “creepshots, ” incited outrage and provoked other members of the site and some journalists to publicly out those distributing the suggestive images. These actions, in turn, prompted an outcry from those who felt that they should be able to retain their own anonymity while posting photographs of women without their consent.
最近对Reddit网站充满争议，这是一个社区和社会新闻网站，其成员可以创建和运行任何主题的论坛，从电影新闻到地方政治，再到自然摄影的分享。人们批评Reddit提供了一个鼓励偷拍街头妇女并上传网站，供其他人盯视并评论的平台。这些照片，昵称为“creepshots”，激起了义愤被招致网站的其他成员和一些记者公开那些提供这种暗示性图片的人。这些行动，反过来，又促成那些感到他们在发布未经妇女同意的照片时，应当可以保持匿名的人的抗议。
The skirmish has set off a debate about privacy and free speech, ownership and community, digital rights and accountability, touching upon issues of privilege and the undercurrents of power that course through the Web. At its core, the fallout is about how we transport social order, morals and responsibility to the digital realm and whether the online infrastructure can find a weird wisdom in the way it is being erected that will allow all its inhabitants to flourish.
这场冲突启动了一次关于隐私与言论自由、主权与社区、数字权利与责任的争论，触及通过网页的权力暗流和特权问题。其核心在于其影响所及关系到我们如何将社会秩序、道德及责任移植到数字王国，是否网上基础设施能够具有奇异的智慧，用其正在建立的方式，让所有网络居民都得到发展。
Reddit is just one Web site — and one that many people have never heard of, at that. But it wields a sizable chunk of influence online, playing an instrumental role in rallying the Web to halt the progression of antipiracy bills proposed by Congress earlier this year, as well as enticing President Obama into its virtual halls to answer questions submitted by its members. It also drives significant amounts of traffic around the Web each month.
Reddit只是一个网站——而且是一个许多人都还没有听说过的网站。但是它在网络上具有相当的分量，在组织网页阻止今年早些时候国会提出的反盗版提案中起到了很大的作用，同样也诱惑奥巴马总统在其虚拟会议室回答网站成员的问题。同时，还每月都驱动相当数量的网络交易。
Zeynep Tufekci, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, described the site as “the secret backbone of the Internet, ” which is why it is even more crucial that it be accountable for the environment it is fostering, she said.
Zeynep Tufekci,教堂山北卡洛来那大学的社会学教授，他形容该网站是“互联网的隐性支柱”，这表明了它非常关键的原因，它是它所培育的环境的来源。
“Reddit is not just a cog in the machine, ” she said. “It may not be the most visible site, but is a powerful platform.”
“Reddit并非机器中无足轻重的零件，”他说，“可能它并不最显眼，但它是一个强大的平台。”
Of course, Reddit isn’t the only Web site struggling with these issues. Such creepshots appear on other places around the Web, including Twitter. And sites from YouTube to Instagram, the photo-sharing app, are grappling with how to address provocative content, from images depicting self-harm to violent torture videos, and where to draw the line about what to publish and what to remove.
当然，Reddit并非在这些问题上争斗的唯一网站。这些偷拍照出现在网络上的其他地方，包括Twitter。从YouTube到Instagram（照片分享应用）网站，都在努力解决如何处理刺激性的内容，从自残照片到暴力折磨视频，以及如何为应当发布或清除的内容之间划线。但是，围绕Reddit的讨论感觉特别恰当，因为它是一个熟练跨越旧网页和新网页的网站，设法包容奇思妙想和惯性思维，它矫正比较注重广告和数据挖掘的主流社交网站，更加注重交流和社区。
But the discussion around Reddit feels particularly pertinent because it is a site that deftly straddles the old Web and the new, managing to house the wondrous and the freewheeling, an antidote to the mainstream social networking sites where advertising and data-mining can seem more important than the conversations and community they contain.
随着我们更多的将生活移到网络，我们花费如此多时间的数字领域也许会与我们上学、工作及养育家庭的城镇一样的有影响力和重要。一直在采访Reddit争斗的Jezebel的作家Katie Baker说，上网与不上网人群之间的鸿沟在填平。“越来越清楚，我们不能再那样想了。”她说。
As more of our life migrates online, the digital domains where we spend so much time may be as influential and important as the towns where we choose to go to school, find jobs and raise our families. The gap between who we are online and who we are offline is closing, said Katie Baker, a writer for Jezebel, who has been covering the skirmishes around Reddit. “It is increasingly clear-cut that we can no longer think that way, ” she said.
Reddit，象Jacob女士的大城市一样，是互动和文明的枢纽。如果有些人群在里面被边缘化，就象许多男女要求论坛做的那样，这将减损社区的整体健康。Reddit废除掉的政策，那些公司无意进行修正而只能消失的政策，可能会在新的网络空间中存身。但是，在Jacob女士的书中，那些将人们赶走而不是处理他们那些令人不快的事情的城市，将会退化、腐烂并最终消亡。
Reddit, like Ms. Jacobs’s great cities, is a hub of interaction and civilization. And if one population feels marginalized within it, as many women and men who oppose those forums do, it detracts from the overall health of the community.
Reddit并非一座孤岛。根据Quantcast数据，它是一个拥有1900万月用户的网站，一个与其他网络世界天然联接的网站，它的社区精神、文化基因及图片从其首页传播到更为广大的网络世界。由于它属于同时拥有时尚媒体Condé Nast的Advance Publications公司所有，因此，它基本上独立。
Those turned off by Reddit’s policies, which the company has no plans to amend despite the blowup, could always find a new place online to roost. But in Ms. Jacobs’ book, the cities that drive people away rather than deal with their unsavory bits begin to deteriorate and decay, and eventually wither.
网站已经抵制了要求禁止非法的未经同意的妇女拍照的论坛的呼声，将自己树为言论自由的保护者。但是，Tufekci女士指出，那些Reddit们扭曲了言论自由理念所代表的逻辑，因为此处所引用的言论自由是指妇女照片，经常是未成年女孩的，未经她们同意而拍摄，并为了取乐而四处传播。因此，与那些，比如说揭露压迫性政府，甚至仇恨言论的人不一样，这种事情本身是不令人愉快的。
In other words, averting our eyes and avoiding certain forums won’t solve the problem of how to deal with those forums when they tolerate and encourage attitudes of hostility and exploitation of women and underage girls.
对Reddit之类网站的挑战——同样，对Pinterest, Instagram,Tumblr及其他需要决定如何控制通过它们虚拟管道的内容的网站——是解决如何取悦它们的网友，而不将其中一些人赶走。而人们只需看看社交巨头如Myspace,Friendster和Digg之前辉煌，以及现在如何的少人问津，就可以理解网站生死之线是何等脆弱。
Reddit is not an island. It is a site with 19 million users a month, according to Quantcast, one that is inexorably linked to the rest of the Web, and its community’s ideas, memes and images migrate from its front page to a larger online world. While it is owned by Advance Publications, which also owns Condé Nast, it is largely independent.
但是，Reddit可能面临更大的风险。它越强硬地捍卫发布偷拍照片的权利，它就越难以保护公司免于政府和行政机构和知识产权拥有者的干预， 如果它不解决如何管理自己的话。
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