posted
ak, you leaving really underscores that you don't practice what you preach, you hypocrite. Icarus gives you his honest opinion and in return you crap on him by leaving.
You want people to be accepting of all newbies, yet you can't bring yourself to hold your nose when someone has a difference of opinion with you.
Your leaving as you are is really lame. I hope you are proud of yourself.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I don't think we need a welcoming committee, but if someone wants to be self-appointed that's s'okay with me. Though, to tell the truth, sometimes I get concerned about the people who don't know *anything* about Hatrack - it makes me wonder if I'm a weirdo who lurked for awhile instead of jumping in and posting right away.
I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way - so don't jump on me - I'm using the following as an example. We had a landmark thread recently. A few very new members of the forum jumped in and, in my mind, made a mockery of what that landmark stood for. They did this not to be jerks, but because they hadn't taken the time to get to the know the form better, or at the very least ask someone privately what a landmark was instead of putting multiple silly posts into someone's landmark.
I just wish people would attempt to get to know the forum a bit better before jumping in with both feet, nose plugged, and eyes closed. There are going to be certain rules in any social situation, and Hatrack is a social situation in my mind. Too bad there's not a way to keep the FAQs stuck at the top somehow - but I'm still not convinced that people would actually read them.
posted
Storm, if you really felt that needed to be said, couldn't you have kept that to E-mail? Lines like "you hypocrite" don't, as far as I'm concerned, have a place here.
Look, Anne Kate is by any standard one of the founding members of Hatrack. For a long time, she was the welcoming committee; I'd imagine that most of the oldest of us here recall fondly our first conversations with her. She is profoundly and powerfully principled, and couples that with a pure -- albeit fragile -- sensitivity; this often, and more often in recent years, prompts her to lash out at perceived injustice, but only (and this is key to her personality, I think) when she believes that person to be in a position of power and/or responsibility relative to the "victim."
Perceived status is a very real issue for Anne Kate; I think she has a lot of problems accepting that people form opinions of other people, because the mere existence of such opinions produces a form -- even a mild form -- of exclusion. And if you back her into a corner by forcing her to accept that her own insistence on "no status" is itself a form of status, I think she'll react like anyone cornered: she'll lash out or run.
I don't want her to run. I want her to stick around. But maybe she's going someplace in her own head that we can't follow. If so, though, I really hope she drops by after she gets there to help the rest of us along that path, because I genuinely and sincerely believe that her obsessions -- kindness and generosity and selflessness, often to quirky and sometimes to self-destructive extremes -- are ones that many of us need to see on a regular basis to remember to practice in our own lives.
She can be bitter. She holds grudges, which I think are based largely on disillusionment; she still refuses to talk to me after I had the temerity to suggest to her that certain behaviors of hers were unhealthy.
But she has been in many ways my partner on this site for as long as I'd imagine any of you can remember, and I will sincerely and deeply miss her if she chooses to move on. Don't kick her when she's down, Storm; she deserves better than that, even if you can't see why.
----
To elaborate: about a year ago, I stopped visiting a forum I helped found and in fact used to moderate. After the forum changed ownership and moved to a different server with a different interface (much like the BML/UBB switch), I found that I didn't like the structure as much -- but stuck around because I had some very real friendships there. I had no interest, however, in moderating the new site; it'd taken too much of my time in the past, and didn't want to argue with the new owner.
I had always been deliberately heavy-handed, if consistent, in my moderation. The new moderator was a very hands-off guy -- and coupled with a different approach to marketing, the behavior on the forum began to swing towards a more standard "in-your-face" USENET/h4x0r style. And, frankly, I felt enormously betrayed. I don't like flames; I hate being put in a position where I'm forced to flame back or, by holding my tongue, imply that I condone what's being said. In my opinion, it's a moderator's job to avoid situations like that; this moderator, and many of the new users, did not agree.
So I left in a huff. Perhaps not the same way John Hansen left Hatrack, or Anne Kate is leaving now, but definitely in a "you guys have changed for the worse, and I don't fit in here anymore" sort of way. And I got a lot of replies, many from people who agreed -- but many more from people who'd come to the site in recent months and liked the way it was, and couldn't understand my objections.
So I know where Anne Kate's coming from. Hatrack's changed in a lot of ways since she got here. It's too big, IMO, for any one person to care for all the strays -- or for all the strays to be of a consistently high quality. This has to be alienating, and I feel for her.
posted
I think Icky had a lot of good points, some of which have been overlooked....
He said that Hatrack need both of them, or at least both ends of the spectrum. He said that he was willing to help people fit in, and only had a problem with those who were trying to wreck the quality of this site. He also said that he was offended by being cast into a bad light by being one of the people she was complaining about, adn asked her to be as accomadating as she claimed she was.
He said that he considered her a friend of sorts, or he at least implied it.
-------------------------------------------------
I think his point, at least at first, was that it didn;t have to be an all or nothing type of thing, and that either extreme was not a good thing without the opposing view to moderate it's behavior.
I obviously agree....but I will miss AK too.
So I guess he was right, it isn't a him vs her, black vs white type of situation, unless she wants it to be.
This is the last thing I have to say here in this thread, and I hope AK finds some sort of peace wherever she goes.
posted
I feel it is necessary to post here the conversation that went on in the Troll thread:
Hmmm. It has been deleted. Perhaps this should be too. I know people hate to delete but you can't always control what replies people make.
I'd just encourage people to consider how they would feel if someone told their wife, sister, or daughter some of the things being said in Anne Kate's direction.
Edited to be more kind. Man these new rules I've set for myself pinch.
posted
Now, mothertree (aka?) you know that it was because he'd already asked you to stop calling him that wolf thing from Ender. Yet, you came back and quoted him, (something like "maybe you all aren't welcoming enough," I believe) and then said something about "staunching the blood flow from the wolf bites." Am I mistaken about to what you refer? He'd even explained why it upset him.
You're in a bad place right now. I understand. I've been there myself. (Maybe he is, too.) However, he's been trying to extend the olive branch and you've been biting back. Sometimes, when bitten often enough, the owner of the hand will bite back.
I'm sorry you are going through this. Maybe, rather than leave, you could just take a break and come back when you are in a better place?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Sorry, I'm most commonly known as pooka. I guess you resisted the call of the 666 thread. It speaks well of you. Not that it speaks bad of anyone who did read it and reply. I assumed they were just more interested in TTSH.
P.S. It seemed to me that Icarus had raised issues from this thread in that thread first. But we'll never know.
posted
Oh, I didn't pick up that this was your new name at all. I must be reading too fast. mothertree.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I refuse to validate her act of aggression and childish behavior with any form of sympathy whatsoever. If Icarus had been the least bit aggressive towards her, or if his post had been filled with animosity, I could see where she was coming from. But it wasn't, and she is leaving in a childish snit, in a way that she is using to force her point of view on everyone else and to cause pain to people here for no reason other than petty egotism.
She knows she's liked, Tom, and her removing herself is a form of suicide. It's something designed to hurt others, again, because she can't get her way and, I am positive, to generate sympathy exactly like yours for herself and her cause.
I refuse to play along and I am not going to hide my anger and my hurt because you have a personal history with her, or because you yourself sympathize with her. She needs to face the pain that she is causing, just as you and the rest are making me face the hurt I am causing. I can only hope that, in the long run, what I am doing will have positive consequences for all concerned on this forum. I accept the fact that what I am doing will not be perceived as constructive by some of you, and am sorry that I am hurting your feelings because of your relationship with ak, but I'm not going to be silent to make you feel better.
ak is not being a friend to any of you by leaving. She isn't respecting your opinions by leaving. She is doing the exact opposite.
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posted
I don't feel hurt by her leaving. I learned well enough that this forum can get by without any one person.
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posted
For the short time I've been here, this sort of thread pops up with regular precision. What I find fascinating is that folks continue to dialogue, and work through it. It's one of the things I like about Hatrack . . . although these sorts of discussions also always leave me with the same sick, sad feelings I experienced so many times as a child when my parents fought, threatened to divorce, did divorce . . . and then started the whole process over again with the latest husband or wife . . .
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
you know Tom, you're absolutely right. i'm not sure that many of those who came onboard years ago would bother sticking around today if they were new. it's kind of sad in a way.
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Funny enough, I did the writer's forum for half a year before I came over to this side . . . and the reason I stayed away for so long was similar to one previously mentioned - the idea of hanging out at a "fan site" was disturbing.
The first posts I read were on the OSC forum, and were clearly younger folks full of adulation. Not there's anything wrong with that, of course, I just didn't quite know what to make of it . . .
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Lines like "you hypocrite" don't, as far as I'm concerned, have a place here.
Likely because the truth stings...
It is seriously difficult to find many here, on a forum full of debates on subjects like politics, religion, and culture, that have not engaged in hypocritical behavior. The very essence of why we don't discuss those aforementioned things in polite company is because of how we act and react when the tensions flare. Not a single person I have known has engaged in such in-depth discussion and not at some time fallen into the exact behavior they would shrink from in horror on any other day. To be as frank as possible, calling one another hypocrites for whatever reason is a little like accusing each other of being warm-blooded or mammalian: it is more than a little redundant.
What I believe the accomplishment worth striving for in such cases is being able to accept someone despite those bouts of hypocrisy, and hope for the good karma of someone else doing so for you. Otherwise, we can quickly and easily get tangled up in a web of accusational web weaving, where everyone has at one time or another been hypocritical in their relations with others here and outside of the forum. Everyone would not only feel self-justified at holding a grudge against at least one other, but will let their grudges pile up like badges of misplaced honor, tinting their vision to make others seem like they have a chip on their shoulder as the weight of their "honor" places a chip on their own.
But go ahead and scoff. Even when the last ten pages is pointed out, you can still sit smugly in the 'knowledge' that at least it's better than anywhere else. Sure, it sounds kind of like the talk of an enabler, but is it enabling if it's true? We're not that bad, are we?
Of course not. Nevermind.
Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I'm going to pick on the "you hypocrite" line as an example. Just one example. There are a whole lot of other examples I could have used instead, but this one is handy.
One thing I'm seeing here is name calling. Fine, you think someone is acting in a hypocritical fashion. You feel it's important to say so in the forum. Does it really have to be worded "you hypocrite"? Why not say "hypocritical behavior"? Something like this: "It feels to me like you're behaving like a hypocrit when you do this. . ."
There is a difference. One way, you're saying the person is bad. The other way, you're saying how you feel about something.
What are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal? Are you trying to make a person feel bad? Or are you trying to resolve an issue in a way that everyone wins or, at the very least, no one loses?
Have you thought about what you want out of this as your typing your harsh words?
Do you know what kind of impact name calling has? Do you know that it typically serves to escalate anger and hurt feelings and doesn't really accomplish a whole lot that's positive? It tends to cause people to polarize. Divide. Wouldn't it be better to discuss things calmly and rationally, even if all you get out of it is agreeing to disagree. To explain how you feel about something is fine. To attack another person is not.
posted
Justa, when you say enabling, what is the abuse that is being enabled? It's not that I don't see it, just one doesn't stand out. Or do you just mean the tendency of a victim to enable acts of abuse against itself?
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:She knows she's liked, Tom, and her removing herself is a form of suicide. It's something designed to hurt others, again, because she can't get her way and, I am positive, to generate sympathy exactly like yours for herself and her cause.
Nah, that's not it at all. Her decision to leave didn't just come out of the blue--it's something that's been building for a while now. The whole business with Icarus was the straw that broke the camel's back for her. It's just time for her to devote her energies elsewhere. I hope she finds her way back here in the future, but for now she needs to not be here. I respect that, even though I wish, for purely selfish reasons, that it weren't the case.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote: It's too big, IMO, for any one person to care for all the strays -- or for all the strays to be of a consistently high quality. This has to be alienating, and I feel for her.
posted
I should just forget about this thread. Bringing it back to the front page is like picking at a particularly nasty scab. But there are things I wanted to respond to, and things I needed to get off of my chest. If it dies a quick death after this post, I'll be just as happy, but at least I'll feel like I said what I needed to.
Somehow, some people's posts have managed to portray this dispute as being some spectrum of beliefs, of which I am on one side and anne kate was on another. I think Tom raised a good point in saying that the extreme opposite of anne kates point of view basically did not exist here at Hatrack, but I think some people (anne kate included) erroneously portrayed me as inhabiting that mythical position. I found this rather hurtful, because I believe that I personally am welcoming and inclusive. (I know that plenty of people have posted to reassure me that they don't see me in this light, but it bugs me that even a handful of people do.)
The biggest indicator of this false dichotomy was anne kate's constant references to in-crowds and to petty sniping. I don't see any place in my posts here or elsewhere where I endorsed any such thing, or where I placed any value on being cool, or on being mean to outsiders--with the specific exception of outsiders who demonstrated themselves to be destructive to our community.
These are some of the mean-spirited things I said in this thread:
quote: Anne Kate, I love how genuinely good-hearted you are. That is not any kind of left-handed praise: I love to chat with you when you have time, and to have conversations with you. I love to [newbiefish] in Parachat with you (part of why I bristle at the suggestion that we are unkind to newbies).
quote: I've been pretty consistent about always pointing to this variety as the strength I see in Hatrack . . . look for it and then you'll see it. I feel horrible at the thought that it could be what I said that is making you feel this way, anne kate. If you go back and read it again, hopefully you'll see that there was no insult in there. As far as how I feel about you, do you ever read the unsolicited hug thread?
-o-
While it's flattering to be called a pillar of the community, I don't think I have been around long enough by any stretch.
quote: Beyond that, I would say that you have standards that you are trying to enforce as well. Our expectation the new members will take the time to proofread their posts, back up their claims, be patient with the forum stories they don't know, and not be too thin-skinned when they are told how to improve, is not morally different from your expectation that veteran members should be more welcoming. We are each exerting "ownership" of this place we do not own, just not neccessarily toward identical ends.
Your ends are undeniably more charitable than mine, anne kate. However, and this is a point I was trying to make before, I think we need forces pulling in a variety of directions in order to get anything worthwhile here. (Talk about unwelcoming, I am saying that we need both your view and mine, but you are saying that if we are not exactly how you would like to see us be, then either there is not room here for you, or there is not room here for people like me.) We need somebody endeavoring to make Hatrack a nicer place. It would be a mistake to shut out such a voice, but I don't believe we have done that. But where we disagree is that I believe we also need somebody raising expectations. I see this as a quality place, with entertaining and intelligent discourse. I don't think that's invulnerable. I think the level of discourse can and historically has been brought down.
. . . .
So we're damned either way. We can't create a forum that is welcoming to all people. I agree with you that it is a noble goal to try. I value your attempts to bring it about.
. . .
The Cards literally own this place. But I own it too, as do you. That's what a community is. We each own it, and we each have a say in what it should be. You do, and so do I. We remain in community as long as compromise is possible. If you insist that the community must adhere perfectly to your standards or there is no place for you, then if the rest of Hatrack disagrees, you are right. You don't belong here. If I am alone in my belief that we should have standards for discourse here, then I don't belong here. Or maybe we can keep working on pulling Hatrack in the direction we want it to go, and maybe end up going in some third direction neither of us saw was possible, that might be better. And we might both belong in this community.
My point was never that it was okay to be mean or spiteful to people, but that I believed that the occurrence of this behavior might be exagerated, due to oversensitivity on some parts.
My post in Elizabeth's thread was certainly not "Humor intended to wound. In this case, me." It's outrageous that anne kate would say so, and more outrageous that anybody would take this claim seriously, as several people did here. Look at the context. Had I shown any indication of wanting to wound anne kate?
Posting across threads is hardly new. I also posted about this in one of the "welcome me" threads, in which El Jay gave a new poster specific advice on how to fit in here.
It's also not insulting.
I'm also used to feeling that I am among friends, and can crack a joke every once in a while without having to walk upon eggshells, especialy when it's somebody I have repeatedly praised (even before this whole brouhaha came up). If I can't all of a sudden, then it ain't worth being here.
Even when she specifically insulted me with the one thing I had told her I found most hurtful, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. My next post in that thread assumed that she had been joking, and it was only when I checked back in this thread that it became clear to me that anne kate had not been joking, that she literally was calling me a wolf.
Look at my posts, and look at anne kate's posts. Look at how I repeatedly compliment anne kate and acknowledge the value of her contributions. And then look at how I specifically told anne kate how to wound me. I specifically told her which oft-repeated comparison of hers I found hurtful, and she made a point of throwing it back in my face. And so I finally run out of patience, and people can't understand why? I should edit my posts??
(Regarding editing my cursing post: First of all, I don't seek to be considered a "pillar of the community," so revoke your recommendation or whatever you feel like doing. I am me, and that can be good enough for you, or not. I certainly see no need to edit a post that was already automatically edited for me. To what end? To pretend I never lost my cool? That seems more dishonest than anything else.)
Something anne kate said in her final post:
quote:I have no interest in coolness. I'm not cool. It's something that seems to be important here now. I really and truly honestly just don't belong.
I would like to see evidence to support this statement, because she certainly didn't get this from anything I posted.
quote:I feel it is necessary to post here the conversation that went on in the Troll thread:
Hmmm. It has been deleted. Perhaps this should be too. I know people hate to delete but you can't always control what replies people make.
I'd just encourage people to consider how they would feel if someone told their wife, sister, or daughter some of the things being said in Anne Kate's direction.
I ever got the chance to look in that thread again after I posted "Smile when you say that. " because it was deleted. I assume you are not referring to anything I posted there, because I posted nothing inappropriate there. If this is not the case, then please elaborate. If this is the case, then please state so, so that people don't think I said a bunch of nasty stuff in that other thread that they simply cannot see anymore.
quote:. . . her removing herself is a form of suicide. It's something designed to hurt others, . . .
I completely agree with this analogy. She leaves in such a way as to brand me the person who chased her away. The mentality is clearly "they'll miss me when I'm gone" and "they'll be sorry." The manner of her leaving is in itself an aggressive and hurtful act.
posted
"My post in Elizabeth's thread was certainly not "Humor intended to wound. In this case, me."
Huh? Which thread?
Icarus, I have always found you to be extremely honest in your opinions, and I, too, do not understand where this was coming from. I am very sorry to see Anne Kate leave, but I agree that she did so in a way that was deliberately hurtful to you.
[ January 19, 2005, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
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posted
Who had the thread about the stalker and the other online forum? Am I confuzzled?
-o-
Thanks, by the way, to everyone who has said nice things to me, and pointed out that being hurtful is not really my style.
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posted
To help clear things up: yes it was in Elizabeth's thread Icarus made his joke. Anne Kate deleted her offending post fairly quickly (I never saw it) and Elizabeth later deleted the thread for an entirely unrelated reason.
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posted
Icarus, you are very welcoming to newbies, moreso than even most of the people on this board. You are one of the people that I felt would "let me hang out" despite my age and newbie status when I first came here. Not that other people excluded me or anything. I just felt like you made it a point to respond to my posts, chat with me, and play Scrabble with me as if I had been here a long time, and as if I was a pal of yours. That's why I asked you and your wife about some of the personal things happening in my life. Because I felt like you cared.
I just wanted you to know that I appreciate that about you.
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posted
Oh. I don't remember her reply. I deleted the thread just because I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the content being out on the waves.
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And, on a more serious note, I've run up against Icarus and probably butted heads with him as much or more than anyone on this forum. We've had some heated exchanges and been vehemently opposed on things.
And I consider him a gentleman. He's never been intentionally malicious or tried to say personally hurtful things to me.
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posted
TomD, I think fatherhood has mellowed you. That was a thoughtful post and reflects a compassion in you that I've seen more and more since Sophie was born. Or maybe I was just unperceptive before. Which is only to say that I see more of it, not that you lacked it before.
While I don't disagree with SS's sentiments (I loathe "I'm leaving" posts), you gave me food for thought and made me think more kindly of AK. Thank you.
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posted
But . . . What about me? I didn't get any cookies when I joined, either. Don't I count? *whine*
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Dammit, I was just at Subway and didn't get any cookies because I was trying to be good. And now I want some!
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posted
That coconut one alone makes me want to have a kid just to be able to offer my firstborn as a sign of true dedication to The Cookie.
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posted
For nearly two years now, actually. And let me tell you, it's no picnic, what with all the monkey sex.
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posted
One part "I wonder if Tom's got a quality follow-up," one part monkey "love," and one part trying to figure out what trick, exactly, you would most want a one-trick pony to perform. And one part dedicated to clicking "refresh."
Oh, wait. That may be my head. I can't tell; the neighbors are watching QVC and it's messing with my reception.
posted
Well, do you actively not want to know, or are you just completely disinterested? There's a difference.
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