@faraday said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
@Three-Eyed-Crow and @WTFE In yet another example of why I often feel like a visiting alien among these boards, I actually have extremely fond memories of Electric Soup. It was started by a very good friend of mine from B5MU days and I regarded it as a success while it lasted. And frankly, if a forum is going to die because people can't discuss things constructively without being jerks and belittling each other, I can live with that.
Part of the problem, as noted, was what was considered "not constructive" was handled with a bit of a steel fist and/or sledgehammer, making the place ironically less open than it wanted to be, than it should have been. Sure, this means that the ideology wasn't abused by creative trolls, but I felt that it was abused by the people who were there to uphold it.
I'm not saying that it was a bad place, or that your time there wasn't genuine, but I don't think it was the place that people have been saying that Soapbox should be, and I don't think Electric Soup was the place it should have been.
--
@Ghost said in MSB: The meta-discussion:
Yeah, because shit goes from okay to NOT OKAY in the blink of an eye around here sometimes.
"Around here"? I've asked that question far more on games than on here, so I'm going to call Confirmation Bias -- yes, on both of us. Kudos to @Miss-Demeanor for pointing out how specifically your complaints are not hobby-specific.
In catching up from a day and a half on this thread, I'm going to guess that your complaints can be boiled down to The Apology Thread in particular, and specifically one person in it.
I understand being bitter that a thread has gotten out of your control and wanting to regain understanding, wanting to get everyone on the same page, but when you put yourself out in public and on, I dunno, let's call it some kind of Soapbox, you open yourself to commentary from those passing by.
Looking at the +1s (I believe this thread is before the -1s were removed), people agreed with you and @Miss-Demeanor about equally. Remember, I believe in "the silent majority", I figure that most people who want to comment here don't want to open themselves to criticism and will use that +1 as meaning "I agree" and nothing more. I use it as a metric to mean how much I should pay attention to the post, to actually read it.
In the Apology Thread, these posts were most upvoted:
- The original post
- Miss Demeanor's counter-point
- @mietze's advice trying to be honestly helpful
- Cobalt's winning one-liner: "MUSoapbox; Where we argue over apologies."
- WTFE's reiteration of it
- @VulgarKitten being funny, because I like it when she's funny; she should be funny more
- @GangOfDolls' counter to Cobalt/WTFE in defense of the original post
- @surreality explaining "consideration of others" to Miss Demeanor
- @gasket saying how one post makes Soapbox as bad as WORA
- @Tinuviel actually using the apology thread to apologize
- @Coin getting involved to say that apologies have more meaning face-to-face
- mietze reiterating how public apologies are dangerous for inviting commentary
- gasket saying how one person's actions represents the entire board
I'm stopping here. I thought I'd get about 5 posts out of this, but this thread has really split opinions in Soapbox, but I would like to note, in the way usually used for yelling: The opinions were very passionately split.
Looking at this thread, I cannot believe that Soapbox is any one thing but passionate. I see humor, understanding, frustration, caring, and the odd insult all being +1'd, being thanked, someone saying "yes, this represents how I'm feeling right now".
--
Final note: If you want to now remove the +1 you gave me before I finished this unexpectedly long edit, Ghost, I don't blame you. No hard feelings.