What I'm discovering is that the board is much more like a close knit community with all the advantages and the baggage that comes with it. So theoretically it would be nice if everyone could say whatever they wanted as long as they did it with respect and civility. In actuality, every post is judged based on how long you've been here, what your contributions to the community/fandom have been, how much of an effort you've made to befriend other members etc.

See, you say that as if it's a bad thing. I think our sense of community is one of the strongest things about this board, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

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Wolfram, change isn't really a popular thing around here. Or at least it's not a popular thing amoung the Buffistas I know well.

Not to drag in the old business, but to show a pattern of behaviour. When Table Talk started going wonky and we had to find someplace else to use (Worldcrossing) there was trepidation about that. It looked different. There were pictures. You couldn't subscribe to invidual threads. And then TT went pay to play and we had to go there. Some people decided they hated WX so much that they never made the move, they went to other free forums. Gradually though, the group got to accept the way of WX.

Natter was not popular when it was first suggested, people were against it.

I'm pretty sure there was some debate over the Firefly Thread.

I know that when we started talking about how the community would change when ME shows got cancelled or ended that wasn't a popular discussion. People didn't want to think about that but also everyone had a different opnion of what the Buffistas were like. Some people are really here for the shows and said that when the shows ended they'd probably leave (this was back on WX), some people saw us more as a community. No one's vision exactly matched.

Wolfram, you've seen the community as it stands now tryign to decide something, it hasn't much changed since the population has grown.

Buffistas.org as a board took a long time to actually come about, or that's the way it feels. I'm not sure when everyone started talking about building our on board but I think it was about the time Salon announced it was going to start charging for Table Talk. The planning started then. We've been live for what? Six months? Not a very long time considering how long it took get through the planning and building stages.

The dust hasn't settled yet, we're still working out the kinks. And while it seems that there's a lot of work still to be done to make it perfect, or it may seem that way to you. Many of us just want to sit back and enjoy the fact that we're here and keep the tinker to the absolute minimum.

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What I'm discovering is that the board is much more like a close knit

community with all the advantages and the baggage that comes with it. So theoretically it would be nice if everyone could say whatever they wanted as long as they did it with respect and civility. In actuality, every post is judged based on how long you've been here, what your contributions to the community/fandom have been, how much of an effort you've made to befriend other members etc.

Dude. What did you think it was, if not this?

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Announcing bannings isn't airing dirty laundery. It's letting the community know about the resolution of a situation that effected almost everyone.

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I believe Wolfram is coming at this from a utopian ideal of equal voices for all, regardless of community capital for good or ill. We have government in this country because communities do not always act for the common good and interpersonal relations are not always the best basis for making decisions. History shows that lots of people who have long relationships with each other do not necessarily have the best interests of other people in mind.

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So if, say, Jon B advocates a change it's different then if I advocate the same change. Jon has been here for years and his opinions don't rankle like mine do.

My feeling is that there's a difference between suggesting and advocating. If anyone suggests something, it'll probably be at least considered. What gets frustrating to me is when people who've been around for awhile and have experience in how the dynamics of this community work say, "That might work in other situations, but it would create more problems than it would solve in this community," and someone who hasn't been around for too long and therefore doesn't know as much of the history and culture of the community keeps arguing that it should be done.

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Announcing bannings isn't airing dirty laundery. It's letting the community know about the resolution of a situation that effected almost everyone.

I agree.

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{{{Wolfram}}} If I may interject, I kind of had a quicker awakening than you did, I think, when I came in posting like I owned the place at the very beginning. Reality is, if I were Rio when I did that, it would have been cool and wonderful and awesome, but I wasn't. It wasn't. After being hurt and unhappy about it, I tried to look at it from everyone else's perspective. Just because I'd been all stalking and lurkery and liked everyone and I am, of course, a wonderful, kind, adorable and sexy person whom everyone should know and love, doesn't mean anyone else saw me that way (no, they didn't. I don't understand it still).

Since Firefly died, I don't think I've seen you post anywhere but here, asking why things are the way they are, sounding like, whether you intend it or not, as if you want to make everything uniform -- hyperbole, forgive, please --maybe better to say as if good enough isn't good enough, instead of building relationships outside this thread. Maybe you've been posting elsewhere and I haven't seen it. If so, my apologies, but I think the point still stands. I don't think a lot of people have seen it, seen you, outside this thread.

I want to see you in another thread. I want to know how you feel about the fact that your wife will be having a little wolfie in June, and whether or not you're prepared to name him Buffistino Monkeypants Wolfram. I want to know if you like practicing law and what kind you practice and whether or not you give change to bums on the street. I want to get to know you outside of preferential voting or revisiting old issues.

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I think that in the case of your posts it's more a case of --"Okay, here's how I think you want to structure the board." And when folks say, "Well, we already structured the board the way we all wanted it and it took a lot of work." Your response is "But I think you should make it be *this* way." When people tell you that your suggestion was considered and rejected, you want to consider it AGAIN.

Scrappy, what you are describing is not the way I post, but how you interpret my posts because I never said those words you quoted. If you read my posts from back then you'll see that I didn't accept what people said as the "end-all, be-all" because there were other people who said otherwise and the discussion was open. In the future, I'll pay more attention to who is saying that they disagree.

See, you say that as if it's a bad thing. I think our sense of community is one of the strongest things about this board, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Me neither. I just understand it better.

Dude. What did you think it was, if not this?

I thought it was a place where everyone could say whatever they wanted as long as they did it with respect and civility.

I believe Wolfram is coming at this from a utopian ideal of equal voices for all, regardless of community capital for good or ill.

Naive right? But that's past tense, I get it now.

...someone who hasn't been around for too long and therefore doesn't know as much of the history and culture of the community keeps arguing that it should be done.

Yeah, I could see how that can be damn annoying. Now I'm starting to piss myself off.

In all seriousness, I'm glad that we're having this discussion. And I hope that other newbies learn from my mistakes, because I have been talking out of turn. And to paraphrase what Kat (I think) said, in this thread it's easier to lose social capital than to gain it.

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cereal: put me in the post to press corner.

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