by Spectre General » Wed Jul 06, 2011 12:34 pm
Well I suppose I have two separate points to make in this post.
The first being that it is absolutely pointless to try to justify a flame war. If you're involved in it, you know you're involved in it, and you know why, and this goes for all parties involved. When people start slinging around excuses, or justifications, at that point it literally becomes absurd, because in the same vein as what ghosty said, this is the internet and none of this shit matters.
However, motors, you did say something in your response which I thought I might see in some form or another that I'd like to address, and that was this:
[quote]<Originally posted by i_like_lectric_motors[/i]
<br>You're allowed to stick up for someone like hello_world but I'm not allowed to stick up for someone who has contributed far more to the board? Is that it or am I missing something here?
[/quote]
Perhaps you are missing something. This is something I do happen to take issue with, and honestly, there aren't many things, or I wouldn't still be coming here. This is a music forum, it's not community service, you do not get rewards or allowances for contributing to the site, I don't care if you answer every question in Obscure 80's Central, I don't care if you've posted 9,000 songs over the past 9 years. It shouldn't matter. The concept behind a message board is that anybody can create an account and make topics or respond to them. There currently are no rules regulating who is allowed to make posts based on "how much they've contributed." The reason this is a pet peeve of mine has nothing to do with hello_world, he's not my special buddy, if he flies off the handle cause he can't take a tiny amount of trolling (which is what happened) that's his problem. The reason it's a pet peeve of mine is because I've run into this mindset countless times on the internet all over the place, not just here. There's this crazy mindset that for some reason people have where they think that the more they do for other people, the more entitled they are to get whatever they want, say whatever they want, and act however they want, and they generally take on this persona as if they were "allowed" to boss around others, because they've "contributed more" or "earned that right." And that mindset is simply false. Don't you know that life isn't fair?
"Who has contributed more" is 100% irrelevant. In fact the only place it matters is in the minds of the various other posters on the site. That's why I made the "tree-fort" analogy, it's almost as if there's some set of unspoken rules of membership that were magically agreed upon by a large amount of the population that there was a threshold that had to be reached, or an initiation that had to be passed before someone was "entitled" to say what they want, at least, without fear of some reprecussion. This has always boggled my mind because it's pretty much omni-present on the internet, not just here. It is, much like ghosty said, very cliquish, like high school. When even minor spats like the one in this thread crop up, it turns into a stupid self-preservation decision, and everyone makes this insane judgement based upon who they think it will best behoove them to "side with." Ultimately somebody (or some group) comes up with false logic akin to "so-and-so is wrong because [i]we[/i] have the majority opinion" then they turn into trolls who say and/or do whatever they want cause they know the majority will "side with them" and there will be no reprecussion. We jest about the "Gossipmonger's Gang/Secret Bully Club" but the fact is it really [i]does[/i] exist. Not physically, but in the minds of everyone who reads these interactions, when they have to decide who to "side with" it [i]becomes[/i] a real thing. It's all group mentality bullshit. Something that should have been phased out of humanity eons ago, at least if we're all as enlightened/evolved as we like to pretend we are. I mean the fact that zill used the word "alliances" in the post above is completely absurd. Why do I have to be "allied" with you to talk to you? I only "stuck up" for hello_world because I hate that attitute, that mindset in general, not cause I like him and hate you, I don't particularly like him, and I don't particularly hate you. I just hate the dynamic that you unintentionally introduced by suggesting that there were two groups of people here, and that eight6 was in one of them and hello_world was in another and that somehow, the group that eight6 belonged to was justified, and hello_world's wasn't. In reality, they're both trolls, and fairly dumb for getting into a flame war over nothing. So are you, so am I. But you know that group mentality dynamic gets introduced into threads here almost constantly, it's just usually not as blatant, and usually doesn't afford an opportunity for discussion such as it did in this case.
Ideally, there is only one group, the group of people who post on this website. Though, I suppose there may be a second group, a group consisting of lurkers who never post, and only come here to download every single thing anyone ever posts, in reality that group is probably much bigger, and I'd almost hate to see how you feel about them. You also have to remember that people are here for different reasons. I come here for the entertainment and the conversation, if you can belive that, and fact is this place has gotten really damn boring recently, and I find that suggesting that someone leave, ostensibly because you don't like them, or because they don't belong to your group, or because they haven't contributed enough, is just not productive, so that was what prompted my last response. I don't have any beef with you, or anyone else really and I'm not losing any sleep over it. There's really just nothing else interesting to talk about right now, and the whole social dynamic of internet forums is just always bizarre to me especially when it's a bunch of intelligent adults acting like children.
FYI the only person I ever openly raged on here (that I remember) was Georgie, because he was completely intolerable and even then it was his arrogance that got to me. There's some members now who are pretty intolerable, but I just ignore them, or troll them if/when I feel like it, how they respond to it is up to them. There's usually nothing wrong with trolling, and that brings me to my second point:
People are actually trolls for a variety of reasons, contrary to what hello_world stated (although it's probably right in a minority of cases.) Half the time people do it in a lighthearted way, in the way you might be a sarcastic jackass to your friends. Sometimes I find it hilarious the back and forth that some of you guys have with one another, it's mean-spirited but you realize that nobody really means it, and it's easier to interpret the longer you've been here. If you get offended that's your problem. Nobody here has managed to offend me, so I don't care if people troll. And even if someone does get offended, really that's their choice too, nobody should have to apologize, and if you make a post, well then you're fair game I think that's pretty obvious now. The other reason people troll however, is because they genuinely do mean what they say, and know that they can get away with it because this is the internet. I don't like this kind of trolling, because it's unrealistic. It wouldn't happen in real life and if confronted about it, the troll usually says "dude, lol I can't belive you're getting all emotional about some stuff on the internet" but that's a form of backpedaling IMO so they can keep up the ridiculous social facade, people that do this, probably do need help. I want to make it clear that I'm not accusing anybody of doing that type of trolling, but it has happened and generally we all know it when we see it, well, most of us do.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to the NNNW section to offer Sheik motors one of my daughters, three of my camels, some rare 80's music and permission to draw water from my well on Thursdays after midday in the hopes that we can form an alliance and that he'll give me the password to get behind the green door at the Secret Bully Club.
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What is love after all
but occasional steps
of a dance.........
.......In a trance?