Okay, this is an artifact of how Discourse displays conversations, and this hasn’t been the first time I’ve noticed it, but maybe the first time I’ve noticed it with something I had just posted. And that is, visually it appears that my post 32 is in answer to and rather dismissive of @teknocholer’s post 31 rather than both of our replies being in two different parts of the same topic.
And the reason I bring this up is that, especially when there is a topic folks feel strongly about, a not entirely clear visual presentation can lead to a lot of hard feelings and some righteous indignation.
I didn’t take it that way, so no harm done, but it emphasizes the importance of quoting the text that is being replied to. I probably tend to do this more than strictly necessary, but it avoids confusion.
I was wondering how to update it to better reflect what this place means. I’m not sure I could have done a better job than that. Any interest in using that story (mostly) as-is or using it as a jumping off point for something else that fills the role of welcoming new users and sort of explaining what this place is (and isn’t) trying to be?
The landlord seemed kinda’ proud of his snowglobe display, however he blamed other’s lack of interest on the popular guy who stood in front of it delivering one-liners…
Isn’t it on Heart Attack and Vine? Or is that the part that’s only in my head? It’s hard to keep track sometimes, because some of the hallucinations are really vivid.
I still wander by the bus station, mostly out of habit. More and more, just as I’m about to stop to chat or admire something interesting, I decide it isn’t worth the energy. That’s not ideal, because if I don’t get regular microdoses of the lunatic fringe, it starts to feel like a deficiency, and I start acting out, which isn’t appreciated by my locals. Basically, I’m glad this place exists
I rarely go there anymore either- and when I do, it’s pretty much always through some filters to limit the spread of what I see.
It does appear there are been a number of new writers brought on fairly recently- and I wonder if that’s a sign of some sort of shakeup? Maybe another manifestation of the thing many of us were feeling?
I don’t really know (and don’t really care), as I’m not interested in opening up myself on a place that treats community members that way.
Meh.
the longterm visitor the landlord was friendly with for a time gets locked out for a decade because he was taking an extended,emergency dump in the bathroom while the landlord was yelling at where the visitor usually was,
and where a well-behaved visitor gets shoved out more than once with her aggressors because she’s defending herself against unwanted attention,
the landlord executing extreme retributions for actions not expressly against the code of conduct or guidelines (“he mocked my ficus”), and tossing or ripping up appeals to reconsider the uneven and injudicious severity of actions
are missing. [Edited for parallelism]
Crusty isn’t the word I’d use. Not without “spiteful” and “unhinged.” Some left because if someone who was on the good side of the landlord got kicked out for what appears to be eternity for a minute offence, what can the lesser-regarded and unknown visitors expect?
I’m beginning to realize that the BBS is a lot like cable TV. Yes, it’s convenient to have a lot of the things I’m interested in available in one place. But, I never stopped reading elsewhere too, and in the process I would see virtually all the same things (in fact, usually over and over again). Now that I’ve cut the cord – because of the ethical issues – I realize that I’m not actually missing anything by not using them as my chief aggregator.
There are some excellent posters over there still, but mostly they’re here too, so I don’t have to worry about that part.
I do miss them as an exaggerator site. I would love to find another place just for the “Here’s the news that interesting” aspect. I think this does some of that, but they did have some well written content unique to their site.
Freudian slip? Did you mean aggregator, or are you thinking of some certain BoingBoing contributors: “Proposed legislation might mean the end of X, which means WE’RE ALL DOOMED!!”
This question merits topic status. I don’t see obscurity and invitation-only helping to achieve critical mass. Invitation-only, if done by individuals, can still let in disagreeable elements.
What helped me rein in my worse impulses was the understanding my IP address would be blocked if I were banned, but I shared it with a regular. Other communities use invitation after a group discussion, with the guideline that the sponsoring inviter be responsible for the behaviour of the candidate invitee, who the inviter knows or trusts to be good, kind and loving and mature, calm and effective in handling misunderstandings and disagreements.
Incentives to look at the Community Guidelines could be promoted. I was shocked to learn that the percentage of accounts created on bbs.boingboing.net that had read the Community Guidelines was a little over 9% (as of this typing, 1048 have read Community Guidelines and 11357 accounts have the Basic badges).
