I haven't seen so much posted on Minearverse for ages. When I saw the numbers, I almost thought I was looking at Natter! It does my heart good to see it here.

Plus, the background is fascinating. Instead of feeling less a part because the stories don't include me, reading the stories (especially Allyson's "Bible") I feel more a part of buffistas. Which is great, because I am Lilty in that:

I'm sad that I missed out on so many valuable years of Buffy discussion when I could have been there. I mean, I was sitting around in a dorm room, watching all the Buffy my roomie could stomach, trolling around the internet. Did I ever think to put the two together and look around? Nooooo. Of course not. That would have been too clever of me.

The Nilly stories have done the same thing for me. I'm really enjoying having such a positive reaction instead of being uber-jealous. I don't know if this is the community, or me growing as a person, but I think we should each take the credit! t /psycho-babble

I was going to say something about the Bronze, but I think instead I'll just put up a link to this post I made in Bureaucracy this spring about Bronze history and how it's relevant to the Phoenix Board. The ol' brain seemed to be working better back then, and I know I gave it a lot of thought before posting.

oh Matt, that is a thing of beauty.

I am intrigued by the draw of negative attention. I see it in kids. I am not sure why attention of any kind is not equal in value, but it clearly isn't. It makes me think that there has either been a lack of positive attention, so they do not understand it, or that the people they desire attention from the most only reimnforce negative attentiona nd so it becomes their default way of behaving.

I have had long talks with a friend with a Ph.D. in child psychology about it and they are very interesting.

Matt - that was a very nice post.

we definitely had our share of "any attention is better than no attention" posters at the bronze/bronze beta. thankfully most of them have been banned at this point.

Is it possible that one of the reasons for "any attention is better than no attention" is that it tends to be much easier to get negative attention, especially if one is not as skilled in the social graces as one would like? What do people think?

I think the fact that some people are just assholes plays into it as well, if we're talking about general behavior that elicits negative attention rather than something specific like Munchausen's-by-Internet. I can quickly think of at least two or three trolls that were smart and well-spoken enough to garner positive public attention, but chose the route of flaming, provoking arguments, and manipulating people instead.

I don't really know. I can distinctly remember different instances where I moved from wanting positive attention from anyone to wanting it from only specific people and getting frustrated with how to make that shift (late jr. high, second-year of college), but I can never remember ever desiring attention in any form from even specific people.

Negative attention, even from those I liked has always been bad in my world. I most often equate it as equally as bad as exessive unwanted positive attention.

I think the fact that some people are just assholes plays into it as well

the simplisity and brilliance of that statement made me laugh out loud.

there is a danger in being too accommodating and nice. I like it that Buffistas.org is somewhat sarcastic, and not politically correct, and doesn't suffer fools gladly. I like it that people get called on their bullshit, and that intelligence and command of the language are not merely encouraged, but at least by implication demanded.

Tim posting here brought me to buffistas, but this is what keeps me here, Matt. I've tried other boards, and have enjoyed intelligent, insightful and fun conversations on them. But buffistas is consistently intelligent, snarky, and polite respectful caring. The crap ratio on the other boards I've tried has just overwhelmed me after awhile.

I think the fact that some people are just assholes plays into it as well

the simplisity and brilliance of that statement made me laugh out loud.

I've given a version of that statement to children in grade school. Mostly my nieces and nephews.

I generally get annoyed at the blanket "They tease you because they like you" crap well intentioned parents babble out.

Its amazing how well children take an honest "Some people are just going to be mean to you and not like you. You can't do anything about that. Just find the ones who do like you and play with them."

ETA: Which is sort of how the Buffistas work as explained by Matt, really.