Last year's the Foamies thread.

Occam would suggest, however, that it's not

When did Occam register? t /picture an emoticon there; I refuse to use one

I'm wondering what the interpersonal online expectations are, and why they seem to be so different from meatspace expectations.

I'm quite new to the Internet-community-ing, and the Buffistas are the only place I've ever posted in. My expectations (and the way I try to behave) are pretty much based on 'what would I do if those people were actually in front of me'. I'm talking to people, after all, not to the screen and the computer-resident-demons.

Okay, ita and Nilly express it perfectly for me. I remember someone in Firefly saying something like (and I'm paraphrasing PLUS I truly don't remember who said it) "I expect to fight on discussion boards," implying that they're more a place to go debate and argue and see who wins.

But that isn't what we evolved into, and I think we're actively trying to maintain what we evolved into. Which is, as I see it, a community that's remarkably similar to a (nice) meatspace community. Meaning, we *know* each other -- at least a good handful of us do -- and we *like* each other. Look at all the Buffistas in the same cities who get together with each other. Look at the F2F. And all the random packages, etc.

Maybe the difference is just that we aren't like other discussion boards -- we've moved past that concept, and maybe that's what causes friction with new people who don't know what to expect.

Last year's the Foamies thread.

Isn't she just the Nillyest?

t Nillylove

Okay, ita and Nilly express it perfectly for me. I remember someone in Firefly saying something like (and I'm paraphrasing PLUS I truly don't remember who said it) "I expect to fight on discussion boards," implying that they're more a place to go debate and argue and see who wins.

We certainly are very much about the discussion and debate, though.

We just aren't wholly defined by our little struggles and flamewars. Instead we have discussion and debate that is civilised and oriented with a vague goal towards community, and that's kind of, isn't it, basic to the definition of this board? It can't change now.

Instead we have discussion and debate that is civilised and oriented with a vague goal towards community, and that's kind of, isn't it, basic to the definition of this board? It can't change now.

In the past we've had some very intense debates/discussions (on hot topics like abortion and rape) that were very respectful even though people came from all parts of the spectrum. I think the fact that we had those kind of discussions in a civilized way reinforced our sense of community. That this was rare, and that this was something we chose. We defined ourselves in part by our ability to have those kind of talks, and chose those values.

We defined ourselves in part by our ability to have those kind of talks, and chose those values.

This is a big part of why I post (occasionally) and read (much more frequently) here. And I think that a group of people can say, "This is how things work here." It's not like anyone's saying that new folks shouldn't join (at least, not that I'm seeing), just that they should have the courtesy to look at what they're joining and the common sense to see if it's a community that they'd enjoy participating in.

The idea that other boards are open to different standards of behavior seems like a non-issue, especially once it's been pointed out to the uncivil that this board is not. It reminds me of a UNC basketball game. One of the opposing team members got injured, and the UNC fans cheered. Dean Smith (then UNC's coach) walked out onto the playing floor, turned to the UNC fans and just looked at them until they quieted down. Then he said, "We. Don't. Do. That."

I've only been here a few months, but one of the big reasons I like being here is that we don't do that.

I was wondering what would happen when the daylight Buffistas showed up.

t going to the window, looking at the sun, liking the sun, reassured that I'm a diurnal Buffista

Lovely folk, all of you. Yep, all of you.

I've been thinking about this whole Lots of New Members/Explosion of the Board/Buffista Island thing. And I wanted to poing out a few things.

I realize that a lot of people are freaked out and want to stay the way things were, but we can't do that, while on the one hand it would be nice to have our own closed community we would stagnate.

Because we like to think "oh! we've been together forever and it's grand!" But that's not true, and I'm not pointing fingers or trying to make anyone feel bad when I say this, but there are people who we feel close to and would probably be considered "core Buffistas" or very active, involved Buffistas who haven't been around as long as we might think, maybe even less than a year.

So I wonder how they would have felt if we'd been "Buffista Island! New comers scary!" when they'd shown up, because I know if I'd discovered this board right now and found Bureaucracy right off I'd never post and go away because I figure y'all don't want me. Or maybe I would have posted some but by the time I got around to reading Bureaucracy I would have felt awkward and stopped posting. And trust me I would have ended up reading this thread because I'm like that.

Also just because we have 700 registered members doesn't mean there are 700 people who actively come back to this site to post or lurk. How many people here have registered for a board, checked it out, and then never gone back? I know I've done that on more than one occasion.

We can find out how many people are actually posting, and we can find out how many people activiated their accounts. But what we can't find out is how many people activated their accounts, perhaps lurked, and then went away and never came back. Every non poster maybe lurking (Hi!) but that's probably not true.

Not to mention that there was no way of knowing how many people were lurking when we were on Worldcrossing. Think about how many of us ran over to Worldwide Communications to look and laugh. Although I'm not sure if there was a way to track how many people were lurking at WX, I know I've added and then left and then added communities back on WX and just kept lurking.

Change is scary.

I remember when people hated Woldcrossing. They hated the lack of subscriptions, they hated the way the folders were organized. They hated the pictures. Worldcrossing was an icky change no one wanted, but we were forced into it. And Worldcrossing wasn't so bad. Okay the constantly going down sucked, but people learned how to navigate through Worldcrossing, the pictures turned into a popular feature and overall it wasn't horrible. Some people never even went to Worldcrossing because they hated the format so much but found other places to talk about Buffy.

Obviously this is a bit different than moving to Worldcrossing, but it was a huge change and people freaked out over it.

I keep seeing this fear of new people and I'm hoping it's not so much a fear of new people as a fear of all these new faces all at once.

Because I've seen a board implode on itself and it's not pretty. And I've seen a board not be able to gain new members and turn stagnate. Neither scenario is a pretty sight. One is a messy, ugly death with lots of hurt feelings. The other is a slow, sad pathetic decline where you hope for a mercy killing.

I don't want either for The Phoenix Board.

Change is scary. But not changing is death, and that's worse.

And that's all I got to say.

Now, I can hold a note for a long time.. actually I can hold a note forever.  But eventually that's just noise.  It's the change we're listening for.  The note coming after, and the one after that.  That's what makes it music.