This is fascinating for me because it's challenging my worldview. I take it for granted that if you're friends with A,B, and C, you will occasionally quietly say to C "What IS with A lately?" and you assume that B sometimes does the same about you. I think that that sort of quiet venting helps keep the larger friendship alive; if you sit on the resentment and never vent it, it builds up. If you do a reality check with one person, you get to vent, and you also get to find out if you're misbehaving. I think of it as midcourse correction; now I'm learning that some people think of it as betrayal.
Wesley: All right. I'm going to let you all in on something you may have trouble comprehending. I assure you however-- Gunn: Vampires are real. Wesley: I was telling!
'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier
A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
Betsy HP - Jan 20, 2003 3:18:22 pm PST #3333 of 10001
If I only had a brain...
Miracleman - Jan 20, 2003 3:18:50 pm PST #3334 of 10001
No, I don't think I will - me, quoting Captain Steve Rogers, to all of 2020
Well, like I said, I'm sorry if my talking about back-channelling makes people uncomfortable. But I'm not sorry I do it, because otherwise my head would explode.
I have no problem with it. I call it "venting".
Jesse - Jan 20, 2003 3:19:22 pm PST #3335 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
If you do a reality check with one person, you get to vent, and you also get to find out if you're misbehaving.
Yeah, exactly.
askye - Jan 20, 2003 3:19:41 pm PST #3336 of 10001
Thrive to spite them
I feel bad because I don't want our community to implode or explode or go up in a flamey explosion. I want us to keep our identity.
But I want growth as well, I don't want change to adversly effect us but I do want us to evolve.
I think that's reasonable.
P.M. Marc - Jan 20, 2003 3:19:46 pm PST #3337 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Well, like I said, I'm sorry if my talking about back-channelling makes people uncomfortable. But I'm not sorry I do it, because otherwise my head would explode.
Honestly, I think a little bit of backchannelling is good for the soul.
A lot of it *is* "Did I go overboard? Should I apologize offthread?"
Some of it's "I'm going to SCREAM NOW PLEASE DOBLERIZE ME!!!" venting.
Either way, they help.
Daisy Jane - Jan 20, 2003 3:20:19 pm PST #3338 of 10001
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
Putting it that way, Betsy, makes me more ok with it. I know I do it with my friends. I guess it's just the thought that I wouldn't know if I upset someone, and I wouldn't have a chance to make it up to them.
Connie Neil - Jan 20, 2003 3:20:29 pm PST #3339 of 10001
brillig
A private eyebrow-raising between friends about someone else seems the least explosive way of dealing with an odd situation.
Jessica - Jan 20, 2003 3:21:10 pm PST #3340 of 10001
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
(Not to be Little Miss Obvious, but the back-channeling was going on before anyone admitted it, and would have continued to go on even if no one had brought it up. So nothing's changed here.)
"Take it to email" has been a pretty standard way of cutting flame-wars short since I've been online.
§ ita § - Jan 20, 2003 3:21:16 pm PST #3341 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I know the attitude before about new people was "one of us! one of us!" and now the attitude is "prove yourself."
Hmm. Perhaps I'm all Allyson and stuff, but I never felt all "one of us! one of us!". I don't think we ever were, though there might have been a pretense put up.
P.M. Marc - Jan 20, 2003 3:22:00 pm PST #3342 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
Oh, and another thing re: growth and speed.
For a long time, most newbies were peeps who (like me) were told about the place, not peeps who stumbled across it linked on Whedonesque or Slashdot or the TV Guide channel. Friends of friends, well, you already know you've got a little someone in common, so yeah, there was less of a learning curve/period of adjustment.