Wishing Williamsmith and Ultralight a happy Valentines Day, wherever they are. And best holiday wishes to all the other departed as well as the scolds and perpetually aggrieved who helped them along their way, may they learn from their mistakes.
Wishing Williamsmith and Ultralight a happy Valentines Day, wherever they are. And best holiday wishes to all the other departed as well as the scolds and perpetually aggrieved who helped them along their way, may they learn from their mistakes.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
Wow Catherine, you said it so well. I've been part of this community for almost 10 years now, and I've often experienced the same concerns about the fragility of our connections. I joined the old Forums shortly before the original (?) platform was discontinued, and I remember how bereft I felt. I had found my tribe, and then I lost them! I was so relieved when we migrated, but I've always been aware of that vulnerability.
I try very hard to remain both diplomatic and thick-skinned!
We seem to be living in a time of peak touchiness. People take offense on behalf of other’s imagined offense, and the accused offender is offended by the accuser’s offense. And that is just from anonymous, ephemeral internet utterances.Originally Posted by Alan
Too many of us search for identity in little tribes with ever-changing and complicated codes of speech, symbols and behavior, which they try to enforce through shaming. As a rule, if a sentence starts with “as a ...” you can pretty much predict what comes next. And if they seek to indict you as a member of one of their tribe’s villain categories, you can be pretty confident they have no better argument to offer.
The only real mistake you can make is taking such tactics seriously.
Well said, Alan. Thank you!
As I recall, it was a scold or two who sent Packy on his way; he was a crusty old misogynist, but he was harmless.
I recall him as more of a misanthropist, but agree about the harmless part. Apparently he really alienated some people though.
And they scuttled off anyway, so what was the point?
Hmmm. Misanthrope, could be. Maybe that's why I felt some kinship.
I find the "ignore" function at least partially useful. I wish more would use it and set their minds at ease.
I have already had my rant for the day. Do I get another?haha.
I do not understand the whole “I dont feel safe” mindset for anonymous online communities. While I think that
1) there are some pretty skeevy people out there
2) we get to feel what we feel about them and their words
...despite those two ideas I am not going to deny someone’s involvement in a online community for their thoughts and their ability to speak them. Why should I have that power? I suppose we are just talking about community standards of behavior here. I am less concerned with speech doing harm than other actions in the public square.
And really, why does “safety” that is not a physical concern trump my “annoyance.” ? I do not feel unsafe in an anonymous online community but
I often feel annoyed. But so what? Let me feel annoyed, big deal.
Finally, I truly believe in the power of sunshine in exposing hateful ideas and speech. Let the haters share their ideas, write their words, show us their stuff. Turn it out into the open air, let us know who they are.
There was such an odd thing happen on the MMM website. A man who wrote a journal was banned. He never stepped out of his own online journal to argue with anyone, those who argued with him entered “his” journal, and let me tell you, journal space on the MMM site is considered somewhat sacred because anyone reading has to have an MMM account, and those posts are not indexed in search engines. So this journal writer was considered by many to be misogynist and combative. Yet, his “haters” kept entering his journal space to argue with him. And they continued to complain about him to moderators but he minded his own business writing loooooooong posts about himself, his ex wife, his plans and his achievments, not disrupting the MMM community by posting anywhere other than his own journal, the space defined by him as being his. Oh yeah, one of the haters doxxed him, too.
But the moderators banned him in probably the most extraordinary moderator action I have seen. I am still shaking my head over that, just cannot grok it.
Overall, the age of the MMM users are a good 15 years younger than the age of people here. I guess I put it down to the intolerance of the young.
Last edited by iris lilies; 2-15-19 at 4:00pm.
IL, I found it odd also.
Yes, it was several scolds who complained virtually daily of everything from his lack of punctuation to the fact that they didn't feel safe participating in the community. I banned him after behind the scenes negotiations with him were settled with the understanding that he was safe here as long as he didn't do one thing in particular. But, he apparently couldn't control himself and did that thing anyway and I applied the ban as soon as I saw it.
The scolds don't really play much into moderation decisions as we know who they are and what to expect from them. In eight years of operation, there's only been one person banned and that was Packy. One of our resident scolds made a very public post here during Packy's tenure saying that she would never help support a community that allowed someone like Packy to participate. I don't recall anyone calling her on that but I can tell you I never forgot it. When Packy did eventually get the boot she made another public post requesting info on how to donate to the forums. I told her how but also told her that if she were only willing to donate because she got what she wanted, she should save her money, I would not accept it and would rather incur all expenses myself rather than accept blood money. She never did contribute and eventually went away herself. Good riddance on that one!
Getting back to Packy, he discovered me on Facebook several years ago and has sent me hundreds of messages (sometimes 3 or 4 per day) just to talk about things that interested him. I was impressed and told him I'd consider letting him back on the forums if he'd simply not go out of his way to create problems. That's when he started sending me daily messages beginning with "Reason #3,115 you were right to ban me, if allowed to post this is what I'd say", then go off on the silliest tangents designed to do nothing more than create controversy. I stopped responding to those and just recently finally blocked him from messaging me.
I suspect he'll read this thread (as he does still read everything here as a guest) and be so satisfied with being the subject of multiple posts he'll start sending emails. I hope not, but we'll see.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
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