Post by Webmonkey on Oct 13, 2005 8:39:56 GMT -8
"There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing."
John Dewey
We've recently gone through a little bit of a conflict as a community, the crux of which is essentially two things: The internet is a crappy medium for expressing tone of voice and intent, and people care about this game a lot. This has led to some mis-interpretation and subsequently trash-talkin' and hurt feelings, as well as a tendency to some sideliners to get in on the snark by putting their two cents in. And then there are a few that love a good debate and if feeling their oats, may just have decided to push until they got one.
All of this can of course be boiled down even further to the following:
The intarweb makes people do the stupid.
Ok, granted. So what do we, as a community do about this little whirl in the brain drain? Well, examining the issues might be the way for some, but I think that's really been done to death by this debate. Every AST or staffer that's thown down over this has acknowledged that while acting in their AST capacity they need to 'keep their suit on' so to speak, either in a public post or privately, so lessons have already been learned there.
Those on the other side of things, the players that have dipped their foot in the muddy pool of internet flame politics have confirmed, yes, it is possible to call someone an asshat long enough to get a reaction, and if not prove a point, at least get someone's back up. Why do these folks push and push? Restate the same points over and over, or ignore the point of the debate entirely and start talking about yo mamma?
I say to you once again people of the boards:
The intarweb makes people do the stupid.
"How does one keep from "growing old inside"? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are indispensable."
Robert McAfee Brown
So the answer is, as some have already stated, to remember what brought us together in the first place... no, scratch that, the possibility of seeing hot chicks vamped out in vinyl brought us here in the first place... remember what kept us here.
Community. A sense that, here we're geeks of a common cloth. Here it is safe to ruminate about the nerdy minutia of combat modifiers, or the spooky canonical backstory behind the world of darkness, or spend 30+ pages quipping about a silky spud...
...or something.
So knowing that it's safe to be a total nerd with these funny, neurotic, charming people, how do you keep that going? How do you nurture it and still get your you fix in? How do you do the right thing?
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
Aldo Leopold
I seriously think that you have to just keep in mind that this is a valuable place, made so by valuable people, and that the internet is not the best place to 'see' that.
What happened? How did this get like this?
So my take on this is one guy wants to make a funny in a 'muah ha ha!' manner and it gets mis-interpreted as an act of censorship. Someone else takes this to heart and blasts them for same. Another, seeing the blast as a personal attack springs to the defense of the first. Others get their digs in. Because some of the people involved are staff, a debate about use of power, responsibility of office, and perception of the same sprinkles into the issue. Those already feeling under personal attack attempt to take action to quell the thing before it gets out of hand, raising more cries of censorship and abuse of power. In other words, wackyness ensues.
Did any of these people have bad intentions starting out? Nope.
Muah hah hah man simply wanted to be funny.
The anti-censorship dude wanted to be able to speak his mind
The defender felt compelled to take the part of the underdog
The outside quipper simply wanted to lighten things up by grossing people out
None of these things by themselves caused this issue.
So a sense of community can still save the day, and just as importantly, lets not forget our sense of humor.
"I would never belong to a group that would accept someone like me as a member."
Groucho Marx
May I please ask, as a member of this community, that those of us who value this crazy thing we do every Saturday night (and a lot of us in one way or another many other nights as well) try to shake hands and move on from this.?
Those that feel like throwing in that last jab? Skip it?
Those that feel they have one more way to restate a point? Drop it?
Those that feel like they have been wronged and need some kind of revenge or apology that they didn't get... forgive and forget.
No more emails, PMs, posts, snide remarks, goading, etc... let it be please. Take a breath, step back, rise above.
Let's not let a simple couple of misunderstandings and personality clashes cause us any more grief.
Thank you for your time;
Chris Schetzle
Big 'ol nerd
John Dewey
We've recently gone through a little bit of a conflict as a community, the crux of which is essentially two things: The internet is a crappy medium for expressing tone of voice and intent, and people care about this game a lot. This has led to some mis-interpretation and subsequently trash-talkin' and hurt feelings, as well as a tendency to some sideliners to get in on the snark by putting their two cents in. And then there are a few that love a good debate and if feeling their oats, may just have decided to push until they got one.
All of this can of course be boiled down even further to the following:
The intarweb makes people do the stupid.
Ok, granted. So what do we, as a community do about this little whirl in the brain drain? Well, examining the issues might be the way for some, but I think that's really been done to death by this debate. Every AST or staffer that's thown down over this has acknowledged that while acting in their AST capacity they need to 'keep their suit on' so to speak, either in a public post or privately, so lessons have already been learned there.
Those on the other side of things, the players that have dipped their foot in the muddy pool of internet flame politics have confirmed, yes, it is possible to call someone an asshat long enough to get a reaction, and if not prove a point, at least get someone's back up. Why do these folks push and push? Restate the same points over and over, or ignore the point of the debate entirely and start talking about yo mamma?
I say to you once again people of the boards:
The intarweb makes people do the stupid.
"How does one keep from "growing old inside"? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are indispensable."
Robert McAfee Brown
So the answer is, as some have already stated, to remember what brought us together in the first place... no, scratch that, the possibility of seeing hot chicks vamped out in vinyl brought us here in the first place... remember what kept us here.
Community. A sense that, here we're geeks of a common cloth. Here it is safe to ruminate about the nerdy minutia of combat modifiers, or the spooky canonical backstory behind the world of darkness, or spend 30+ pages quipping about a silky spud...
...or something.
So knowing that it's safe to be a total nerd with these funny, neurotic, charming people, how do you keep that going? How do you nurture it and still get your you fix in? How do you do the right thing?
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
Aldo Leopold
I seriously think that you have to just keep in mind that this is a valuable place, made so by valuable people, and that the internet is not the best place to 'see' that.
What happened? How did this get like this?
So my take on this is one guy wants to make a funny in a 'muah ha ha!' manner and it gets mis-interpreted as an act of censorship. Someone else takes this to heart and blasts them for same. Another, seeing the blast as a personal attack springs to the defense of the first. Others get their digs in. Because some of the people involved are staff, a debate about use of power, responsibility of office, and perception of the same sprinkles into the issue. Those already feeling under personal attack attempt to take action to quell the thing before it gets out of hand, raising more cries of censorship and abuse of power. In other words, wackyness ensues.
Did any of these people have bad intentions starting out? Nope.
Muah hah hah man simply wanted to be funny.
The anti-censorship dude wanted to be able to speak his mind
The defender felt compelled to take the part of the underdog
The outside quipper simply wanted to lighten things up by grossing people out
None of these things by themselves caused this issue.
So a sense of community can still save the day, and just as importantly, lets not forget our sense of humor.
"I would never belong to a group that would accept someone like me as a member."
Groucho Marx
May I please ask, as a member of this community, that those of us who value this crazy thing we do every Saturday night (and a lot of us in one way or another many other nights as well) try to shake hands and move on from this.?
Those that feel like throwing in that last jab? Skip it?
Those that feel they have one more way to restate a point? Drop it?
Those that feel like they have been wronged and need some kind of revenge or apology that they didn't get... forgive and forget.
No more emails, PMs, posts, snide remarks, goading, etc... let it be please. Take a breath, step back, rise above.
Let's not let a simple couple of misunderstandings and personality clashes cause us any more grief.
Thank you for your time;
Chris Schetzle
Big 'ol nerd
;D
