ATC seldom says anything about BWW or its posters. But that has much to do with the way it's styled as anything else, right. Talking about BWW would be off-topic and (and please correct me if I'm wrong) veering off topic on anything is pretty much a no-no there, right?
I don't care who posts where, but one board is enough for me and I prefer this one. Sure, there's ugliness and sure, I contribute at times, but I'm long past the days when I'm just gonna troll to troll. Even when I disagree with people fervently on here, I like to think that it mostly remains civil, and if I have crossed a line, I do try to make amends for it. But that doesn't mean that I always think I cross a line and that doesn't think that I, as a member of this community for like seven years (Yes, I had an original account called "Kringas" that was shut down, and it's no big secret. I'm not unmasking anything about me that the vast majority of longtime posters don't already know. That's why sometimes people will call me Kringas on here and confuse others by it. I also have a dog called Kringas so you can see just how deep this rabbit hole is) don't have some say on how we operate on this board. And I know many other posters feel the same way. If we're to be a community, we get to decide upon community standards (unless, of course, they conflict with moderator rules and/or whims, but that's really another discussion).
The vast majority of people I may have scuffled with here know it's not personal, and I've spent a lot of time in PMs with people that I have may have had difficulty with, trying to come to an understanding. I'd never try to claim that I'm all sweetness and light all the time, but being all sweetness and light all the time isn't any more valid that being downright nasty all the time. And let's face it, very few posters are downright nasty all the time. I can think of very few that fit that bill, and certainly no one who posted on this thread thus farwould be included on that list.
But you know, this
is its own community, and we do seem to be given some leeway in how we want that community to flourish. And for every nasty comment that might not be warranted, there's a nose out of joint in overreaction to something innocuous. Sure, people can be a dick when they point out there's already a thread about something when someone posts a dupe, but let's not pretend that sometimes people who get it pointed out to them nicely that that's another thread. And if someone has a problem with me now, or thinks I'm being disingenuous in what I say about this subject, I invite you to have a discussion with me about it. Again, I'm not saying I have zero problems with anyone on here, but I don't think I'm just indiscrimiately nasty to people on princople. And often times, when I do come off too nasty and the person calls it to my attention, I realize how I sound and DO try to step back a bit and come back from a different angle. As much as I like to complain (and I like to complain about a lot of things, and I don't think that makes me unusual here, or even in the world at large) I do like to come here, to interact with the smart people. To laugh with the funny people. To gape at the crazy people.
I keep coming back the the main board I like to dicuss theatre. I keep coming back to the OT board because I like disccuing other things. And I have learned a lot from many posters here and I've had my opinions swayed on more than one occasion about something because of a persuiavise arugkment from one of this board's many intelligent posters. And no, we don't all have to agree on everything, but I'd never expect that. But if you A) Can't make any positive contributions to a discussion and/or just try to be detrimental (we all know what time that happens) B) If you make no effort to make your comments easily understood (by using correct words/spelling/etc) (and those posters are myriad) or C) Can not let anything GO (someting even I can be guilty of at times, but it's one of the many thing about myself that I'm constantly working on), please don't expect me to just magically have all sorts of respect for you. And like everything, there are exceptions to rules, and I also KNOW that just because this is how
I feel doesn't mean every single other person feels this way, so I happily invite discussion about what someone might think is incorrect about anything I've said here.
If the board isn't what you want it to be, and you find others don't want it to be that way either, perhaps this just isn't the forum for you. That's not to anyone in particular, that's a general comment.
But the things that get me
really all het up on here (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc) are the same things that get me het up in real life. And you can bet that as soon as I'd tell a poster here what why I thought what they said was inappropriate (and I give a wide berth to inappropriate) I'd say the same to that person in real life. I know that there are discussions about "people are just like they are on here as they are in real life"/"No, who you are on the board is NOT who you are in real life") but I think that BWW's Phyllis Rogers Stone and Bradley [surname redacted] are pretty close to being the same person, and I think most of the friends I've made here that have become real world friends would agree.
So, like everything else, this is just my own two cents.
Updated On: 8/4/12 at 03:34 PM