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Well, Zahir, I did, for example, not point out that loathe is a verb and loath an adjective. That was, I felt, clemency, if wasted clemency.
Not a big number, but enough to show a degree of commitment to Barbelith, while still finding time for the other things that life affords. Anyway, by 'big boys', I guess you mean big boys like you, boys whose mighty girth might be measured by 267 topics and 15,449 (fuck me!) posts since Dec '01. Can't argue with stats like that. Stats like that take dedication, and maybe a vacuum pumping device.
Real. Live. Tiger.
(edit) Actually, and cor blimey, that thread pretty much covers off this entire tangent, and was three years plus back. And now Der Falke and toksik are moderators... oooooEEEEEoooo.
Anyway. I'm sorry that you were baffled, Zahir, and I'm sorry you decided that this was my failing rather than yours. I was seeking to illustrate for you why your approach above was a) not useful, b) not likely to win people over - apart, of course, from stupid people and c) not, if you believed it was, coming from a place of sweet reason.
To summarise:
1) You begin by ascribing a negative emotion (anxiety) to people who are not saying what you want them to say, and go on to describe their position as "funny" - the history of messageboard flaming is full of people who claim to be laughing - see Crimes of Fashion in that link. This is a geek thing - the idea that feeling or letting it be known that you feel strong emotion, rather than being lightly amused by the foibles of those not like you, is a weakness.
You then go on to come to a conclusion about what is going on which is highly unfavourable to the people you disagree with, based on no evidence apart from what it "smells" like to you - that is, your intuition. We've covered the fundamental attribution error before, but this is it, basically.
As much as this has been (mostly) framed otherwise, it does seem smell rather of a small number of posters who feel they *own* Barbelith (through, among other things, their long-term and regular posting histories, and in some cases their IRL connections), and don't want their salon / club house / common room over-run by the freshly matriculated Lower-Sixth, who (althought they are loathe to admit it) remind them of themselves in their salad days.
The metaphor is one of exclusivity and immaturity, and not, as mentioned, helpful.
You then reassert that this highly partial viewpoint must be the correct one, based on no evidence but your nose:
If this is the case (and c'mon, it is), there seem to be two options open to you:
You pretend that there are only two possible ways to proceed, the way you do not want, which is described in negative terms (and is, of course, also untrue - see in particular the claim of "modding their threads out of existence", which appears to be an invention based perhaps on not having read or understood an earlier proposal):
1) Ditch the newbies, either by 'worrying about the idetity of the board' in Policy to the point where they feel unwelcome, or snarking at them directly, or else being honest about your perceived/actual status here and pulling rank on 'em and their attempts to re-Invisi Barbelith by modding their threads out of existence.
Or, funnily enough, there's doing what you want, which is strangely portrayed as righteous and noble. It is also, of course, little different from what is already happening, coloured in by your little fixations on the mean older members and the vital importance of a single incident. It's worth noting that in your contribution to the discussion of that incident, you have already started talking about "high-snark", "high-profile" and so on - there is a bee rattling around this bonnet already.
As an incentive, you then call anyone who is not ready to fall in line with you pathetic and accuse them of (incorrectly understood) passive aggression:
Me, I've got no great hopes for the new Invisi-thread(s), but I hope they prove me wrong. At any rate, I think passive agression towards them is a rather pathetic response.
Anyone who is talking about something you don't want them to talk about is wasting energy:
Maybe the energy being expended here and elsewhere 'worrying' about this development might be better spent in demonstrating, through brilliant threads in under-used forae (sp?), that there's a whole lot more that's worth discussing on Barbelith than a quite well written, largely poorly illustrated comic book first published when John Selwyn Gummer was a serious public figure.
God knows why "worrying" is in scare quotes, but then at this point English is not your friend but your misused slave.
So, as I said. Ticks all the unhelpful boxes. Is rude, makes things up, ascribes negative intent, shows inattention to what is actually going on, misrepresents people and activities and insults people in the hope they will shut up, thus stifling discussion, insists that anything you don't want to be doing is not just something you don't fancy, but "pathetic". Just like Crimes of Fashion, just like any number of photofit pieces of I-can't-be-bullying-they-are-the-bully bits of playground diplomacy.
So, my response to you is not abuse, although if you were unable to understand it and are prone to assuming people who aren't agreeing with you are bad people I could see why you might think it so. It was a sincere but so far unsuccessful attempt to get you to treat other people as people, and to respond to the actual board rather than the board in your head.
In my experience, people who depend on the board in their head tend to get trollsome fairly quickly. One example of this is that the board in your head is now starring me and me alone. MC said above:
Zahir, this passive aggression you mention--emanating from long-term members of Barbelith and directed towards newer members--sounds terrible. Perhaps you could link to specific instances of this? (If you want to link directly to a particular post, you can click on the time-and-date stamp under a poster's name to get the URL.) It would be sad to see a genuine cause for concern dismissed merely as a misunderstanding or an attempt to stir up trouble.
And then said again:
The thing that disturbs me most is that if there is a general, if not official, policy of abusing and criticising all new members soley and entirely because they are new, then every single new member must be being subjected to the most terrible harassment in an attempt to force them to leave the board. I'm at a loss as to why this should be. I urge those who are being harassed to name and shame their tormentors, pointing people in the direction of evidential posts (NB: if you want to link directly to a particular post, you can click on the time-and-date stamp under a poster's name to get the URL), if only so that the people involved in processing new apps for Barbelith can take appropriate action against those who would seek to undermine their hard work in bringing fresh blood to the board.
I would suggest that they use some of the existing Policy/mod threads for this purpose, or PM a more trusted person with the nature of their greviance. In this thread, we should perhaps try to stick to the topic at hand.
Tunnel vision is not your friend here. No matter how rebellious it may feel to shout at figures in perceived positions of authority who cannot, to follow your metaphor, put you in detention, without responding to this you are coming across, to me at least, as a purveyor of inept and abusive rhetoric, not the sweet reason you no doubt sincerely believe. |
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