BBS malaise in general on the internet?
 

(pardon the interruption)
I've noticed of late that of the half-dozen or so message boards I check in on at varying intensities, a general increase in latent hostility and just general unpleasantness. (not this one, thank goodness)
Its really souring me on such things.
Making me wonder about what I want from being online, and what I'm getting/contributing overall. Anyone else feel this way?

Seems like a 6-8 month cycle, or at least that was the cycle I noticed at the other place I used to hang.

Personally, I've been traveling too much to notice anything of late. I hate job realted travel, and it has been non-stop for two months now!

ARGHH!

I think it is "the holidays".
This crazy non-stop time from Thanksgiving to New Years is horrible. We have turned the season into everything that it is NOT supposed to stand for. Everyone is stressed trying to be a good consumer, college kids are dealing with finals and getting home for the holidays.
We all need to relax, and try to remember why we have holidays.

It does seem that July and December are pretty rough months. Maybe it's the holidays, or maybe it's pre-MacWorld tension, hoping that the 'one more thing' of your dreams is in the offing. ;)

I seem to remember last December as inspiring us to undertake this little venture.

Personally, I think people all over the 'Net are being too rational and civilized. There's nothing like a mud-slinging nut to really fire people up. That does bring it's fair share of burnout, though. Maybe everyone's taking a breather because the wack-a-doodles are on vacation or something. Call this a working theory...

OH YEAH???? :mad: (Runs off many variations of the word 'crap').


J/k, Andy. I think you know what I mean. ;)

Actually, I'm speaking in general terms, but a certain self-proclaimed "provocateur" does spring easily to mind. I'm a big Star Trek junkie and the board I frequented was just flat taken over by a guy who proclaimed undying love for Star Trek but decided he hated Voyager. He then spent all his considerable time and energy on that board outlining every last problem with that series, down to the tiniest detail. He said he had a job, but I began to wonder--how do you type 500-1,000-word posts so frequently and still find time to get your work done?

Sound familiar?

Anyway, the last straw was after Sept 11 when this same guy, this architect from St. Louis decides he knows what's best for NYC and that more parkland in the form of a monument to the event would be some sort of travesty to the Greatness of Cities. Then he decided that on Sept 12 I didn't get a call from my brokerage firm that had offices in the WTC telling me the organization was still intact and not to worry about my investments, when in fact I did.

Wack-a-doo, man. I still shake my head, wondering how some people can be so terribly, obviously wrong and still be so convinced they are unquestionably right.

Still, he just burned that board up, sucking more and more people into it. And the truly weird thing was the acolytes--for lack of a better word--he picked up along the way. People who apparently were unable to think for themselves who joined him in his condemnation to the point that it became embarrassing to express a positive interest in the show.

Soon after, I left that board. I've been lurking there recently and it appears this guy only visits sporadically. Since he has nothing new to say (he hates the new show, natch), he doesn't seem to post very much. So either that board is burned out or taking a breather, because it's now a shadow of its former self.

People like my Star Trek Critic ultimately kill--or at least maim--communities. But it's amazing to watch while it's going on. And after it's all done the tired survivors often wander around looking for new direction. I think it takes time and new blood for these damaged communities to regain strength, and until they do they can seem pretty dead.

I think anonymity on these boards is the killer. Somebody you don't know can easily flame you to hell and back and not give a damn. It's like those action movies where the body count increases and the "hero" just keeps on killing and the audience keeps on watching. Faceless entities are just easier to hurt. It's just a movie and the sublimation of a rich fantasy life, it just makes it easier to be insensitive.
That said, it also makes it easier to make points which are hard to digest and in some cases offensive, depending on your threshold.

As Allen Ginsberg once said:

"Because systems of mass communication can communicate only officially acceptable levels of reality, no one can know the extent of the secret unconscious life. No one in America can know what will happen. No one is in real control."

I think the internet was breaking these rules for a while, now it's more net commerce. BBS are becoming like a de facto service industry in some quarters. "Tell me the advice I want and screw you if you have any criticism, this is your job etc. etc.".
We can all take hope from this little piece of paradise, that is "MacOSXHints". I think the moderators here have done a fabulous job so far of keeping things in line. I've learnt more from this site and the sister hints page than any Pogue book and gets close to the use I got out of MacOSX Unleashed book. That says something about the integrity here.

This place is wonderful, but I'd sure like the Coat Room to loosen up a bit. Just once I'd like to see some folks really crack into an issue on something more than just a superficial level. The problem with that is many of us are old vets from other boards and have pretty much 'been there, done that.'

Still, wouldn't it be interesting? Guess I should put my money where my mouth is...

I moderate a political forum at the boards hosted by my group of gaming buddies. As you can guess, most of the "discussions" breakdown into the predictable slam-fests between the right and the left. Over the last few months, a couple of regular posters who are not part of our gaming group have decided to slam this one other guy ANY time he posts. It exhausting WORK (the boards were supposed to be an enjoyable diversion) reading nearly every post on subjects I may not really be interested in AND fielding complaints from those who have either been offended or feel slighted by another poster.

After conferring with the other moderators, we decided to start issuing warnings for any personal attacks. 5 warnings and the offender is banned.

One of the two regular miscreants got a warning issued to him for posting "Why don't you F*** OFF!" and had the audacity to say that it wasn't a personal attack because it was posed as a question, hehe.

Well, the idea of issuing warnings only redirected the ire of these two individuals towards ME. Apparently I am a Nazi, a book burner and a host of other things because we don't want to let some outsiders devolve our community into an arena of acrimony. My hope is the two party poopers rack up enough warnings to get banned QUICKLY.

lower your warning count to one.

We've never had to issue a second warning to anybody here, that I can remember. My theory has always been to not let precedents be established that would be regretted later on.

I see Andy's point, though, and Lerk and Phil have expressed similar thoughts, from time to time. If you want to give it a try, go ahead.

Agreed on the warnings. I give one on the discussion board on my web site, and send an email to the provacateur as well. Second offense and they're history--banned IP and all. I've had to do this several times so far, but it preserves an atmosphere of civility which makes discussion possible.

-----

I think that with Mac discussion forums, the spikes correspond to Significant News™ from Apple like .Mac, or not-booting OS 9 next year; releases of a significant upgrade like 10.1 and 10.2 are also prime times, enabling the detractors to find ever-new reasons to say 'tis naught but crap' while the aficionados wax more elequently than before on the strengths of the OS.

We're in a down time now . . . not much big news from Apple in awhile, and the Jag upgrade quickly becoming a distant memory.

Lerk, not seeing it personally, but then again I've grown much more selective in what I'll click on.

However, I might agree with the idea that I was seeing many more interesting topics and discussions say three years ago, as compared to today.

>>I see Andy's point, though, and Lerk and Phil have expressed similar thoughts, from time to time. If you want to give it a try, go ahead.

Maybe someday. Right now I'm in the middle of it on another board with a guy whose myopia over a single subject seems to cloud his entire world.

Again.

Anyhoo, I don't know why I'm drawn to these cases. I guess I'm just fascinated that with such a rich and varied world, it's entirely possible for one single issue to engulf a life. Perhaps it's this sort of thinking that creates a Ghandi or MLK. Or a serial killer or essayist...

Hmmm, yes, I see that. Living a life with a single auto-filter turned on for everything sure does make for an unhappy existence.

Both Gandhi and King were people with vision, not myopia. And the strength to actually do something with their vision, which is the much harder proposition.

It reminds me of what I respect about Steve Jobs; he both has a vision and will take a chance to actualize it. I do not put him in the same league as those other two, of course.

Perhaps Steve, as a businessman not a social visionary, is not in the same class as the other two, but he did change the world in his own way.

'Course he had a lotta help, but then so did the other guys. :)

OSXHints Coat Room "discussion"
 

I have overlapped with Lerk on another board, and he and I have often had great conversations (IMO. But Lerk may think I'm a flake...). Sometimes it was diffuclt to pick through the detritus, and sometimes we were arguing the same point from different perspectives. It was pleasant when "the adults" (not that I'm suggesting an age group) talked in a civilized manner about controversial issues such as school vouchersor "religion vs science". I miss those discussions with Lerk and others, but in the end, I bailed from the other board because of the sheer rudeness and lack of respect. I don't mind people thinking my ideas are somewhat messed up, but the personal attacks were way out of bounds. I found that I was being baited all the time. And I din't like my response to that.

So I pose this to the mods....is there really a way to can keep controversial discussion from becoming a flamefest on a public/anonymous board? I would very much like that. It really came down to 2 or 3 people messing the whole thing up. When people got banned, they would reregister with a different name. I use dynamic IP adresses at the school, so banning the IP doesn't always work either.

Other thoughts on how to do that?

Well, I'll love to hear Lerk's and Phil's and Merv's thoughts on this. And especially Rob's. (OK, I'm cheating here; I already have heard some of them).

My stance is plain: I don't want to be put in a position of needing to ban anybody. That's a lose-lose proposition. It's not worth it to duplicate the Lounges at other places if it's just going to be same-same with the names changed. Might as well just stick with the devil you know.

The only way to prevent that is for the readership to take an active hand in keeping things in line. 'Cuz we mods are outnumbered about 1800 to 1.

Re: OSXHints Coat Room "discussion"
 

sbur, I'm all for having discussions here, especially if they're somewhat related to OS X or at least Apple and computers in general. We've never really been overtly discouraging of that; it just hasn't happened.

I would not favor allowing discussions of politics and religion, as these do get over-heated pretty quickly and they can go on and on, consuming bandwidth and server space. There are plenty of other places for that.

As for trolls and flamers, I know they'd show up and re-register when bounced. That's OK. Deleting their posts and bouncing them again doesn't take much work and after awhile they get the message and move on. I've noticed that on other forums this can go on and on and on before addressed by a moderator. That wouldn't happen here. There are five moderators here who have no qualms about banning offenders, which is one reason why, I suppose, some of the problem people from other forums haven't made trouble here. Also, the community of "regulars" here seems to be healthy and would be willing to help deal with offenders.

Ultimately, it's up to Rob, but you'll note that there's really nothing to prevent anyone from proposing a good discussion topic on this forum. I'd say that if anyone has something they'd really like to discuss, go ahead and start us off - or at least contact one of the moderators to see if we'd support it.