h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm a lurker and proud of it, you don't half pick up some interesting gossip

There are two groups on h2g2: those who lurk and those who lurk (but claim not to).

And I have the badge in my PS to show which camp I live in.

I'm the type that lurks but never posts.

Reef, that last comment makes you the ultimate paradox!

A pair-a-ducks? Quick, hide 'em, ... local hunters may be about.

It's a misnomer to assume that there is no golden age of any website. You can track any large internet community, from inception to collapse, through various stages. What becomes increasingly apparent the more you examine it is that there is one common factor between all of the failures of these once-great websites: the lack of administration which is due either to a "policy of fairness and acceptance" or a "policy of abstract favoritism with rule enforcement only for those not on 'the list'."

At some point you have to stand up and administer. Otherwise it becomes just another website, with just another lackluster community, brought down by the concept that "everyone is equal and deserves a chance." Look, folks, you can't have it both ways. Either you bunt the people who don't learn and aren't willing to play by the rules out or you deal with their actions and the consequences. This is the internet, not group therapy. Everyone doesn't add value just because they exist. At some point you're going to have to figure out who doesn't add value and be done with them or you'll lose this publicly funded little exercise in humanity to the dogs.

Ahem... s/misnomer/misconception

Proofreading is next to Godliness, and I'm an atheist.

Ok, I meant to say Post in the threads I'm lurking in

Ancrene - You ignore the point made in post 35 above which links to the basic question asked in the link thread ie

Mr. Dreadful - You obviously understand the point that I am making. Why not reply to that ?

AB, a lot of the people in these current discussions were involved in that journal entry. They presumably read and posted and considered the issues at the time.

As a result, some people undertook to stop unprovoked baiting of LW, but obviously not enough to prevent the recent stushie from taking place.

It's clear that the Italics had been thinking about similar questions (to what excent is the community at large responsible for these sorts of events), and we can see the results in their posting yesterday in "You should be ashamed".

A single thread is not going to change the world, but I was more than happy to let that one die a natural death.

Ben

<>

It seems to me that you're just joining the gang of people who think there's an organised group who deliberately seek out people to victimise.

Mr. Dreadful
Proud Member of the Az Cabal - h2g2 Uber Alles!

Ancient Brit - it wasn't my intention to ignore any question that was posed.

Perhaps I misunderstood your post; as I read it, it seemed to me that the thread to which the link was posted was being upheld as some kind of proof of a 'pack' which exists with the sole intention of hounding people that they find disagreeable.

My response to post 35 was a defence of the thread in general, since I feel it genuinely made some people rethink their position / reactions (although utimately it proved not to have helped some people a great deal ), and the part of the conversation to which I drew attention was an attempt by the group to find a less public way of settling disputes / confrontations.

If I misunderstood the intent behind your post then I apologise, and state below my personal observations on what has been happening recently concerning 'packs' hounding 'lurkers', 'stalkers' or 'trolls'.

I am relatively new to H2G2, since I joined in April but didn't start posting regularly until several weeks ago, and have not personally found there to be a 'pack' problem.

What I have found is a group of people that have been friends for a long time, but nevertheless are welcoming and respectful to new people providing those people are respectful to them.

This is a reflection of what happens in real life, as I have experienced it. If I went charging into an established group conversation in RL without taking the time to listen to the people who are already involved and introducing myself to the situation gradually, I fully expect to be either ignored or treated with the same disrespect that I have shown to them in that situation.

The equivalent online situation is the person that gradually introduces themselves to a conversation being made welcome, rather than the one acting like a complete ignoramus, barging in and basically 'shouting' over everyone else with comments that are totally irrelevant to the current topic. The response of people that are already in that established conversation when someone behaves 'badly' - i.e. ignorantly - is naturally going to be prickly.

Not for one moment am I saying that people are unwelcome to join in any conversation on H2G2, but the manner of conduct during one's period of introduction to a conversation will necessarily have a bearing on the way one is received.

From a personal point of view I believe 'pack' action to be counter productive, both in terms of the effect it has on the person perceived to be the root cause of the problem and also on the members of the 'pack'; all it does is generate bad feeling across a wide spectrum of people, creates frustration on all sides, and promotes pig-headedness - once people have aired their mutual animosity publicly, neither is going to back down - that would be a "loss of face".

I've said elsewhere, and I'll say it again; agree to disagree and move on. If you have a really big problem with another individual, take it somewhere private and sort it out between you - that way the situation does not become inflamed by people taking sides in a public conversation, and therefore avoids the issue of a 'pack' being created, no matter whose 'side' it is on.

How right you are about RL, Ancrene!

We all belong to RL as well as hootoo. Surely it's natural that, at least at times, hootoo should seem like RL?