posted
So, um, your response to finding out that Hatrack is more heterogenous than you had imagined is to wonder if you should leave it, thus making it less heterogenous? It seems that what I perceive as Hatrack's strength is what you perceive as it's weakness. But I think you're wrong, because there wouldn't be room for all of the downtrodden you like to raise up if Hatrack were not heterogenous. It's precisely because of this that you do belong here. You leaving would weaken the place considerably.
I get so confuzzled. I have a lousy memory - far far lousier than probably any of you can imagine - and when y'all go switching identities, I get even more confuzzled.
Sigh. I need a memory pill. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Icky - I wasn't kidding. Yes, it's usually a safe bet that I am kidding most of the time. But I wasn't this time. Had I figured out before that they were the same person? My memory really is that bad. Ask Fahim - he'll agree with me.
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I can see no reason for staying a Jatraquero if you feel the community is not meeting your expectations.
I see no reason to go about encouraging a person to stay who's obviously unhappy here.
I roll my eyes at goodbye thread(t?)s that complain about how Hatrack isn't meeting such and such a personal need, or how Hatrack has changed, or how blah, blah, blah, yackety, on-and-on. What they mostly boil down to is this:
"Convince me to stay."
But why should we? You've shown by the creation of such a thread, or post, that you doubt the community, and instead of working to alter it, you're ready to leave. It shows unfaith.
Or maybe a passive aggressive desire for praise, for which I'll admit a certain personal weakness.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong-- maybe 'Farewell, I don't like Hatrack/Hatrack don't like me' threads are just the subconscious bubbling up of a will to change this site, and are the only way it CAN be changed.
I have serious doubts about that, though.
"I don't belong here." No, maybe you don't. Maybe you can find happy virtual connections with other people. Go find 'em, and I wish you my sincerest best wishes. If you're unhappy, for Heaven's sake, get out and go find happiness somehow! Why are you hanging around this place, which you have no faith in, and which brings you unhappiness?
HOWEVER--
If you have faith in Hatrack, stay and address the problems you see.
posted
Icky, was I3 the downtrodden? <confused> I'm not talking about doing any sort of patronizing raising up of anyone. I guess I'm just thinking that if we are kind to everyone even if they seem different than us, and if we try to listen to what they are actually saying... what they really mean... without hostility ... or petty sniping ... and if we are welcoming ... that it will enrich all of us and the board as a whole. We don't own hatrack. We have no right to stake any claims here. Any new person who posts has exactly as much right to be here as we do.
New people are the life blood of this place. If we allow ourselves to grow insular and prickly to outsiders, then we will not last as a community. And the sort of people who aren't "in crowd" folks are often the very ones who have the most interesting thoughts and personal qualities. The very people from whom we have the most to learn.
I'm not cool. I'm not part of the "in" crowd. Nor do I aspire to be. The fun and banter, and all the in jokes are great. I love to read them and take part when I can. They spread a lot of happiness around, and make hatrack an entertaining place. But the sort of jokes that have the point of "we're cool and you aren't", or "get out of our clubhouse, squirt" weren't a happy thing for anyone even in middle school. And we're not middle school aged anymore. We're securer than that, and more open to new things. We aren't so afraid of someone who's different, or of being known to associate with someone weird or uncool, are we? We don't get our own sense of self worth from thinking how much better we are than someone else, and we don't require rigid conformity to our familiar ways. At least I hope we don't.
I just keep being reminded of the wolf children on the playground in Ender's fantasy game. If that's how things are here then I know I really don't belong.
posted
"Any new person who posts has exactly as much right to be here as we do."
And this is where we part ways, Anne Kate -- in a way.
I think people prove themselves worthy of my association -- and I'm only going to speak here for myself, because I can't speak for all of Hatrack -- by the manner in which they conduct themselves.
If they conduct themselves inappropriately, I will tell them. If they do not subsequently change their conduct, they will eventually lose the pleasure of my association.
There is a distinction between giving someone the benefit of the doubt -- in other words, conceding that their motives might not have been disruptive ones -- and condoning their behavior. I do the former, but I often see you (from my perspective) advocating the latter.
There is no shame in standards, nor inherent smugness in the recognition of an elite status. Should we not have, say, a Fulbright Scholarship because not everyone can win it? I think there's a distinction between the Hatrack in-jokes -- which basically say "I am part of this group, and it is cool" -- and what you're suggesting, which is that implicit in that statement is "I am part of this cool group, and you are not." I think it's clear, from what a few posters on this thread have said, that sometimes these jokes are interpreted in this way -- but I think it's equally clear that they're not meant in this way.
More than any other community -- real-world or virtual -- I've ever seen, Hatrack makes a real effort to be inclusive of just about anyone. There are those who need a fair bit of sanding before they'd fit in, but we take what I think is a fairly mature and surgical approach to that: we identify them immediately, nudge them -- often very blatantly -- towards what we consider minimum standards of behavior, and then, once those standards are met, embrace them as much as they're willing to be embraced.
In my experience, everyone is as accepted by Hatrack as they want to be.
posted
ak, that is only one way of looking at it....try it this way....
We all make judgments of others, not necessarily who is good and bad or smart and dumb, but at the least who we like and who we don't, or who has similar views and who has differing views than our own. It is part of human nature to group and categorize things, it is how we remember. We sort and sift through things, and grouping things together is the only way we can keep it all straight.
Every tine you call a friend to talk you have made a judgment...of who you would like to talk to. Every time you avoid someone because to find them dishonest, or argumentative...whatever the reason...you have made a judgment call.
I see new people come in here all the time and fairly quickly become valued members of this community. SO, quidscribs, bev and MPH...all of them are fairly new, but I feel like they have been here far longer than they have. Perhaps they weren't universially accepted right away....but why should they have been?
There is only so much time I can put into reading posts, and there is nothing wrong with me only reading and/or responding to the people I like, or arguing a point that matters to me but leaving other people/ points untouched.
I sure wasn't accepted right away, not by a long shot. Some people accepted me, like Ela, Jeni, BookWyrm...but most of the people here didn't even remember me when I would post, or is they did they thought I was someone else.
And some people actively discouraged me from posting, both by being rude to me and by e-mailing me. That was over the line, and I almost didn't come back...but as someone mentioned earlier, I am a bit of a fighter (verbally at least... ), so it wasn't in my nature to back down.
It probably made it MORE likely for me to stay around, to be honest. If someone doesn't like me I am fine with that...but if someone gets in my face about not liking me...well, that is a bit of a problem.
To further make my point....I just did it again.....every time I mentioned someone I made a judgment. There were quite a few people who influenced my decision to stay even if I didn't tell them I was considering leaving, but I couldn't mention the all, so I just threw out some names. I made a judgment call.
That doesn't mean the rest of them are forgotten....
ak, IMO you do belong here, more so than most...and more than one person has told you that in this thread so obviously I am not alone in feeling that way. I would be sorry to see you go, even though we don't bump into each other much. I see your posts, but once again since I often agree with you I don't usually comment on them.
I don't think the "pillars" have a lock on popularity, nor do I feel it is particularly important to be liked by everyone here at Hatrack. It is enough for me to know that I have a group of my own friends here who appreciate my posts, and hopefully me as a person. I don't need or want universal admiration, and to be honest I don't know anyone here who has received such. A few people have come pretty close, but even that is sometimes a burden.
I3:
quote: I don't really want to go on any more about this, personally, since I want any future posting by myself to be a non-event. I didn't leave in a huff, just wandered off.
No problem, I was just making sure.... I have taken a few breaks from here myself. I will see you later, when you come ambling back at your leisure.
Don't let ELJay liquor you up too bad, she might take advantage of you.
posted
I started typing this response at around 8:30, so my apologies if I tread over ground someone else has focused on.
I generally don't buy that that's what's going on, anne kate. With some unfortunate exceptions, I think that we are welcoming to new people when they are nice, and scornful when they are insulting. And I don't see a pressing need for that to change.
All the rest is varying levels of oversensitivity. I showed up and posted something, and somebody asked me to document my claims. I typed a long post without paragraph breaks, and people welomed me and asked me to consider paragraph breaks. I started a thread asking if Haley Joel Osment would play Ender, and people cracked jokes. I started a serious thread on how one political party or religious belief is clearly the position of hypocrites and idiots, and people confronted me about it. Waa. I don't think any of these things is horrible, or reasons for anybody to leave. They are Hatrack's way of telling you how to join the community.
I realize that you can cast what I just said as arrogant. You can argue that we have no business having any standards. We don't own the place, the Cards do. Let me explain what I mean. A community is more than a group of people. Any course in sociology will tell you that a community will naturally develop certain modes of communication, certain standards of behavior, and certain traditions and in-jokes (or rather, our in-jokes are our version of shared stories). The complaint I keep hearing from our more reasonable newer members is that they feel excluded because of our having these things. My reply to that is that if we did not have these things, you would still not feel like a part of the community, because there would not be a community for you to feel a part of. There would be a bunch of dry, factual posts, perhaps, but no personality and no continuity.
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. The result of that is countless quality people that have already left or drastically reduced their presence here. That has already happened--it is not a chicken-little prediction. I think if you make this place too welcoming to the OMG ender r0x0r 4ever cr0wd, it becomes less welcoming to other people. And yes, I make a choice. I have a preference. And I would prefer to leave a forum that does not welcome the quality posters who have been chased away. Fan forums are okay, but I did not join one. I was aware of the forums here, but I stayed away when I thought all they were about is OSC groupies. I joined when Bob convinced me there was more to it than that.
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. But I think you're taking it to an extreme that will make this forum equally unwelcoming to people that, quite frankly, I value.
There was a school of thought in teaching about ten to twenty years ago that valued self-esteem above all else in teaching. I see your insisting that we be more accepting to all behavior in a similar light. I have high expectations of my students. Arguably, this might be damaging to their self-esteem, because it certainly is possible to fail my classes. A number of students do so each semester. I think the value of teaching my students math is worth the risk. And I believe that the self-esteem they create if they struggle through their hardships and succeed is more meaningful and substantial than the phony "everything you do is awesome" kind. It's not the same here, in that we're arguably not creating anything approaching the societal value of teaching here, but it's similar enough in that I think the benefit we get in terms of meaningful, entertaining interactions is worth the slight risk of alienating the very thin-skinned.
I think this would be an obnoxious point of view if we were literally turning people away. You seem to see it as though we are. I frankly don't see it that way. I have seen people bend over backward to be patient with young posters, and posters who want to try to join in with what we do here. I never get the "Hatrack is unwelcoming" vibe, because it's so easy to see counterexamples. "Welcome to Hatrack. I have a hard time spelling too, so here's a link to a product I downloaded that will check my spelling in BB posts before I submit them. " is not unwelcoming. On the contrary, it is helping somebody fit in sooner.
I think it comes down to this. We don't have identical definitions of "welcoming." Your definition seems to be accepting of whatever new members produce, and not having standards when it comes to posts, except the standard for niceness that we hold everybody to. My definition of welcoming is to help people fit in. I don't think people will fit in sooner if nobody tells them when they are not posting in the style that is preferred here. I don't find that very welcoming. I believe welcoming is helping people fit in sooner.
(I understand your objection to the need to fit in at all, and to the idea that we get to set some standards at all. You are casting it in a junior high school sense, and I disagree with that characterization. You seem to believe that the opposite extreme would be ideal. I believe the opposite extreme of an unwelcoming forum--which I flat out do not believe we have--would be just as bad, in different ways. I think forces pushing in opposite directions, and forcing us to settle in someplace in the middle, is the best we can have. For that matter, this is the same reaso I believe that democracy has virtue.)
The very first thread I started on Hatrack was one asking when the New Member label by my name would go away. Can you think of anything more n00b than that? I got some ribbing at the time. I didn't leave in a huff, wailing about how unwelcoming the forum was. I expected to be viewed as an outsider, and I understood that my lack of knowledge about the environment here would sometimes be a source of amusement. If people had truly been rude to me, I would have left. But "That will go away after you send me a check for $19.95," and even "I can't believe this newbie's thread has gone two pages!" were hardly rude.
For people who complain about being asked to back up what they say and provide evidence . . . I think this is natural in a debate. If you tell me my point of view is factually incorrect, then I expect you to prove it to me. Does anybody really expect to contradict people and have people just change their minds? Do you do this? If this is a problem, don't participate in debate threads. There's plenty of other good stuff here. I don't participate in very many debate threads, because there are only a handful of topics I am passionate about enough to debate, and because I generally lose interest after two or three pages. If the fact that we take CT's statements on medicine and Dag's statements on law at face value without asking them to prove it--not true, because they both habitually provide us with tons of links without being asked to do so, but just hypothetically--you would probably get similar credibility if you stated your qualification up front, unless your writing style makes it clear you are not a lawyer or a reporter from Dublin. Alternatively, don't enter those debates until you have been around long enough for people to know what your expertise is.
anne kate, I think the dichotomy you have created here, between being welcoming and being unwelcoming, is a false one, and to prop it up, you have cast things people have said as a straw man. Nobody here is about wanting to be cool and wanting to keep people down. This is not middle school; it's not even like middle school. I think you are doing the people you are arguing with a disservice. What you view as unwelcoming, I consider having standards. You can certainly argue that we have no right to have or set standards, and you may be right. But then it is I who have no place here, because I will not stay in a forum where illiteracy, crudeness, and a shotgun approach to conversation are the norm. I simply have no interest in this.
Regarding the issue of ownership of this forum, I disagree with you, to a point. 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.
I see your sense of how we should be, and what virtue is, as almost an academic thing. I believe you study each issue and determine what the virtuous response would be, and act on it. But the problem is that, paradoxically, I think it's possible to not see sides of the issue that way. For instance, I think it's possible to make Hatrack so welcoming that nobody wants to be here, because some of the behaviors you seek to welcome are behaviors that I, and many other people, find unwelcoming to us.
I'm the type of person that can easily forgive something I find insulting once, because I believe that the person who said it did not understand my point of view, or misspoke, or something. When somebody insults me the same way a second time, I have a much harder time getting over it (even when the insult is not explicitly directed at me, but I infer it to be). And it bugs me more when it's somebody I admire and consider a friend. Not too long ago, somebody here called a group of people sharing my point of view whiny, unprofessional, undedicated, and arrogant. For the second time. I was hurt and angry, and I responded in a less than ideal manner, and that friendship may be lost. It is certainly not the same as it used to be. You have no idea how much I am exerting myself to not do the same thing here, anne kate. That's the second time you've compared those who do not perfectly share your standard of behavior at Hatrack to the wolf children in Ender's Game. Since I do not completely agree with you, I number myself among those you have insulted, whether you intend it or not. Your analogy is not remotely accurate, and shows a profound lack of understanding either of Ender's Game or of your fellow community members here. I would greatly appreciate it if you would not make that comparison again, unless the situation is much more extreme than it is here.
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posted
I removed the "New Member" status on good faith with you, Icky, but never got that money. Combining that with the money for Megachirops, plus interest and penalties, you now owe me $39,885.23. Call me to work out a payment schedule, ok?
(Random fact-o-fun...I have a friend named Daag who is studying law right now. Okay, not so much a fact-o-fun as it is a fact-o-uselessness to anyone but me.)
posted
I started in August 2003. I graduate in May 2006, take the bar in July 2006, and find out the results in October.
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posted
Jeniwren, his humor there was just exactly the sort I'm talking about. Humor intended to wound. In this case, me.
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But I do believe that it did. *hug* Anne Kate, you always seem so fragile to me, and I love it as part of your Anne Kateness. I always want to wrap you in bubble wrap because you're like a light-sensitive china doll that sings like an angel.
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posted
Tatiana, I don't think Icarus is actually that petty. You *took* that comment as being pointed directly at you to hurt because you wanted to and then you lashed back. I don't believe he meant it that way at all. It was humor directed at all of Hatrack considering we are now up to umpteen pages of community introspection on this thread.
posted
It's kind of weird that they chose to censor only a single word out of the entire english vocabulary. S*** is completely unedited if you type it out.
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posted
Please, AK, even if he was targeting you, your response is even pettier and right in line with what you suggest we not do around here. I do wish you'd delete it.
Besides, if Icarus had something to say to you, he'd post it with 5,000 words direct and to the point , not one line with a winking smiley.
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posted
*agrees with Sara* AK and Icky obviously are coming at the problem from very different perspectives. It might not be a lot of fun right now, but the only way to work towards a common solution is to get it all out there and understand the other's point of view.
Scott, I partially agree with your post about goodbye posts. However, I support goodbye posts as long as they aren't a whine looking for reasons to stay. If I ever leave Hatrack, I'll post one, just because I'd feel as though I owed my friends here a "thank you" before disappearing into the ether.
posted
I have to say, I was doing quite a bit of nodding at Scott's post.
Find happiness wherever you can. If you have faith in Hatrack, find happiness within compromise. If you don't, then find it where you can.
Life is too short not to be happy. If a forum is causing anxiety and stress then it has become too important. I know that's an offensive concept to some people, as Hatrack is a type of home to them, but even if my physical home was causing anxiety and stress I'd work to either change myself or leave.
posted
Yeah, I kind of agree with Scott, too. Though I definitely think that while it's a little egotistical (sorry to those that have said this) to say that people need to pay attention to your posts more, as if this is really going to cause people to pay attention to your posts more out of anything more than pity for more than a couple days, I think it's cool to focus the giant,lidless eye of the forum on someone who is being a real penis, and who is screwing up the forum for everyone else, in such a way that that person knows that they are not welcome. One person really can screw up a whole forum.
--Storm, the person who has had more threads rocket to the bottom of the forum without a single post than anyone else. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
When I get tired, I tend to be more direct than is really polite. Let me add to what I said above that I totally understand being bummed out when more people don't respond to your posts. Believe me, I know. It's just that it's kind of nonsensical, to me, to ask people to pay more attention when, if they wanted to in the first place, they would have.
I guess the main observation that I would like to make is that certain people and certain subjects (often posted by those same people) are going to definitely get responses--children, Mormon culture, Mormonism, spiritual stuff--than other things and if your post isn't commented on, then that's just the way the ball bounces. It pretty much happens to everyone here. Don't feel singled out. Indeed, it has been my observation that the more erudite a post is, the fewer posts it often recieves. I am guilty of this. Some days I just don't feel like posting a reply equal to the level of the post that I've just read. I think this is why I often don't respond to Icarus or Mr. Squicky. Their posts are usually so well written and developed in their logic, that it would take little ol' me forever and a day just to type something out in the same world as their post.
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quote:Some days I just don't feel like posting a reply equal to the level of the post that I've just read. I think this is why I often don't respond to Icarus or Mr. Squicky. Their posts are usually so well written and developed in their logic, that it would take little ol' me forever and a day just to type something out in the same world as their post.
Word up.
Stormy - you should make a whole 'nother thread with that comment in it to ensure that Icky and Squick read it. Because I'm pretty sure that hits the nail on the head for a lot of people.
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posted
Just imagine a latter day Marlon Brando and you're there. No need for all that tedious uploading on my part, and the boring clicking and the subsequent vomiting on your part.
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posted
I have to say, I agree with lots of people in this thread. I hadn't been following, but man, a lot happened while I was away.
quote:I'm just trying to say, remember, for them it's like coming to a party where you don't know anyone. Treat them the way you'd like to be treated in that situation.
Now see, I agree with that, so I can see Anne Kate's point. However, if you are having an elegant dinner and book club discussion, and in walks Motely Crue, your eyebrows would raise, but I'd expect everyone to put on a nice face and deal with it. But after the 100th time of some idiot showing up just as you and your friends were sitting down to dinner, you'd be annoyed. So I understand Icky's point.
If I really wanted to feel like I fit in, I'd try not to annoy the daylights out of everyone and I'd figure out what the club was. There's no point in bringing my suit of armor to a scuba diving party.
Anne Kate, do you go to church naked? Wearing all black and tattoos? There is a certain level of correctness, is there not, for dress at church?
It's the same thing here. When people are totally out of place, it's helpful if someone points out that bursting into song in the middle of the library isn't a good idea. Maybe that's just me.
Icky and Squicky rhyme! D*oh. I just noticed that!
And, I'd just like to add that I'm one of those people who's wary of new people. Because one person did ruin the entire community for me.
However, I'm much more welcoming of people who know someone. Like bev and MPH. Or ElJay. Or any number of others. The new names who come and make new threads about controversial issues don't even hit my radar screen. I won't even open the thread. I don't trust a lot of newbies, and I'll wait till they've been vetted by the rest of the community. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I thought my position was an in-between one. I repeatedly talked about the value of Anne Kate's contributions, and acknowledged objections that she or anybody else could have to what I was saying.
Whatever. I don't have time for this right now. I have to go to sleep.
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