Post by Basement Cat on Aug 4, 2018 7:34:24 GMT -5
Well. I guess it has come to this.
Before I begin, I have to stress something. None of the following is personal. It is what I have personally noticed over the past two years.
In order to solve a problem, often people have to do and consider things they don't like. To solve a math problem, sometimes you have to remember your quadratic equations. With personal problems, sometimes you have to assess yourself and look at what you struggle with in order to become a better person. And with community problems, sometimes you have to look at how the community is behaving.
Well, to be blunt, I do not think the current tension going on is new. Only that it has finally surfaced beyond being passive aggressive. Since day one, there was always tension.
As stated, to solve community problems, sometimes we have consider things we don't like. And that's understandable, confrontation can be stressful. But bottling things up and sweeping things under the rug only makes things worse when the animosity can't be contained anymore.
So that begs the question. What is the problem? Why do so many topics end up being locked or deleted? Why is there so much tension?
In short, I think it is because the community has forgotten why they are a part of this fandom in the first place.
I know people may not like me saying this, but I'm going to be transparent. I'm really tired of the pretentiousness. This isn't a high quality college debate class where we can show off how smart we are. It's a forum. About cats. We takes these books way to seriously.
I remember back on the old forums, when this section was full of fanclubs for characters, 200 page topics (that inevitably went off topic), silly 5 page topics on why RiverClan would definitely love watermelon, or that Dustpelt hates tomatoes, serious topics that brought forth discussion, and yes, topics that caused flame wars. But it was all part of the experience.
What happened to the heart? Now it's just topics about the same thing over and over again, we fight over the stupidest things, we make discussions essentially boiling down to a single word. It's like a machine, calculated, mechanical. There's no heart, no passion, no fun. Guys, I can't remember the last time this section was fun.
I'll be honest. I genuinely think a lot of this animosity could be reduced if we all just took a step back and tried to have a little fun. It's not childish, and it doesn't make you immature. Sometimes it can be fun to just make silly topics about the characters and not take the books so seriously.
So, I suppose I'm calling an intervention. If we allow this to continue, people are going to leave, because they aren't going to feel welcome.
What are your thoughts? This is a community-wide discussion we need to have, not just me. What do you think the problem is? What do you think we can do to solve it? And what do you want to see more of on this section of the forums?
Before I begin, I have to stress something. None of the following is personal. It is what I have personally noticed over the past two years.
In order to solve a problem, often people have to do and consider things they don't like. To solve a math problem, sometimes you have to remember your quadratic equations. With personal problems, sometimes you have to assess yourself and look at what you struggle with in order to become a better person. And with community problems, sometimes you have to look at how the community is behaving.
Well, to be blunt, I do not think the current tension going on is new. Only that it has finally surfaced beyond being passive aggressive. Since day one, there was always tension.
As stated, to solve community problems, sometimes we have consider things we don't like. And that's understandable, confrontation can be stressful. But bottling things up and sweeping things under the rug only makes things worse when the animosity can't be contained anymore.
So that begs the question. What is the problem? Why do so many topics end up being locked or deleted? Why is there so much tension?
In short, I think it is because the community has forgotten why they are a part of this fandom in the first place.
I know people may not like me saying this, but I'm going to be transparent. I'm really tired of the pretentiousness. This isn't a high quality college debate class where we can show off how smart we are. It's a forum. About cats. We takes these books way to seriously.
I remember back on the old forums, when this section was full of fanclubs for characters, 200 page topics (that inevitably went off topic), silly 5 page topics on why RiverClan would definitely love watermelon, or that Dustpelt hates tomatoes, serious topics that brought forth discussion, and yes, topics that caused flame wars. But it was all part of the experience.
What happened to the heart? Now it's just topics about the same thing over and over again, we fight over the stupidest things, we make discussions essentially boiling down to a single word. It's like a machine, calculated, mechanical. There's no heart, no passion, no fun. Guys, I can't remember the last time this section was fun.
I'll be honest. I genuinely think a lot of this animosity could be reduced if we all just took a step back and tried to have a little fun. It's not childish, and it doesn't make you immature. Sometimes it can be fun to just make silly topics about the characters and not take the books so seriously.
So, I suppose I'm calling an intervention. If we allow this to continue, people are going to leave, because they aren't going to feel welcome.
What are your thoughts? This is a community-wide discussion we need to have, not just me. What do you think the problem is? What do you think we can do to solve it? And what do you want to see more of on this section of the forums?