Are you seeing specific posters doing the latter here? You seem to have given that impression to several people here, myself included.

That impression would be accurate. Yes. A few posters are definately quite selfish and unwilling to accomodate the wishes and needs of others, and instead persistently require others to accomodate their wants and opinions.

It would be neither here nor there, if that were the extent of it. However good posters are negatively impacted by it. Perhaps even more importantly in the long run, the very character and core strengths of *this* board (openness, intelligence, humour, comraderie , accpetance) are being gradually worn away because it continues, grows increasingly more common, and remains unacknowledged. And given the *ahem* tone of some of the denial seen when the issue is even suggested, it may have become accepted.

Please note - I'm not suggesting that anyone is evil, bad or wrong - not the newbies, not the soft-spoken folk, and not the activists or memes. Nor am I suggesting any new change to this forum, the board, life, liberty, happiness or the New Jersey Nets.

I am simply suggesting that there has occured a subtle (or not so subtle depending on your perspective) shift in the discourse here, and that it has become one sided, and that good people are bleeding away.

But...who left? When? After what?

And how many stayed?

I am not sure that those are answerable in a braod sense. I left the board as a whole, I think 2 years ago and for about 6 months. I was annoyed with the minutia debates in the show threads, a few personalities, and I think an influx of people had just happened.

I left Bureau twice. Once before the voting discussion was in full swing and once after I had proposed a vote on, I think, a warning, suspension, and banning procedure. I left both times becuase the endless back and forth without any concession on points was making insane. In fact, my whole point in coming in to propose the vote I did was because I was sick of hearing about the endless discussion.

Unfortunately, the topic at hand is not something that can be written up into a proposal and voted on. People have vastly different opinions about what is good for the board, people have vastly different tolerances for debate and tone, people get their feelings hurt at different points, and people leave for different reasons.

I'm gonna go away now. I have work to do. It's not personal! Let the debate continue...

*flys away from bureaucracy to policyland*

I was just expressing my personal perception of the board.

Yep. And I'm expressing mine. I think you're right that it depends on what threads you're reading. The extreme case is if you were only reading Bureaubalhblah, you'd go completely bonkers.

A few posters are definately quite selfish and unwilling to accomodate the wishes and needs of others, and instead persistently require others to accomodate there wants and opinions.

I agree that there are a bunch of posters who would LIKE to require others to accomodate their wants and opinions, but they are only successful some of the time -- when they want what enough other people want.

I understand the desire for concrete examples, but let's keep the convresation about tone? Please?

The thing is, I couldn't tell what Rafmun was getting at. Was he speaking in broad-brush tones about how it should be done, or was he insisting that it's gotten a bit too nasty sometimes? Especially when he got to "Beer Bad" level.

ETA: Ah, the joys of crossposting...

I'll tell you something that bothered me, and I'll be specific.

Steph complained that she didn't like having post counts in Press go up so that she had to go see what was up, and then found it was "only" Deathmatch notices. Since she doesn't participate in the deathmatches, they're of no interest--to her. And she didn't want them there.

Several people, including me, mentioned that we saw no problem with them, that we liked being notified of a new match, and that if they were a problem for Steph she could just scroll past--as many of us do for OC rehashes, discussions of slash, other subjects which hold no interest for us, but are of considerable interest for many people on this board. It's no hardship for us to scroll, but apparently it was for Steph.

Plei added her support to Steph, and at that point the outcome became pretty much a foregone conclusion. Elena offered several times to hear alterative methods of posting deathmatch notices. As far as I could tell, the subject was pretty much dismissed, not because it isn't a popular thing with many posters, but because a few high-profile and vocal posters had no interest in it.

Finally, Elena stopped trying to find a satisfactory solution, and simply withdrew. Politeness lost, vocality and a higher profile won.

I'm not discussing whether this outcome was right or wrong. I'm simply pointing out that because some people aren't bred, or trained, or adapted by personality or character to battle, that arguing isn't meat and bread to them, that they don't get an adrenaline rush when they "win" a point, but rather argument drains them, is difficult and stressful and hard, that it's more sanity-saving for these people to accede and accomodate to the rule of the vocal--whether or not they in fact are a minority.

It doesn't make tham amy less worthy members of the board, or their concerns any less valuable, just because they're not brawlers. I'm one of them. And I'm shaking all over and trying to decide whether or not to hit "post." I do not want to stir a shitstorm, and I don't want to alienate anyone. But I can't help what I feel.

Good on you, Beverly, for having the courage to speak your mind.

The discussion stopped on the Deathmatch posts because Elena withdrew them. After that it was moot, no? There was no decision to stop them or to change Press or Beep Me. It wasn't taken to a vote, and Elena could start posting back there again if she wanted. There's no rule against it, and the general consensus was that people were fine with the way Press and Beep Me were being used.

Here's how I saw the deathmatch posts in Press issue: I liked them. Because I'm really really fucking lazy. I'm subscribed to Press, but not to Quotable, so I liked having a handy-dandy link in my face when a vote was going on. However, it is not a hardship to either subscribe to Quotable, or just check out the front page of b.org every once in a while. If there are new posts in Quotable, there's probably a deathmatch on. If not, no big -- I've already committed to wasting time deathmatching, so I don't mind seeing some non-deathmatch discussion. Either way, it's really not a huge deal to me. I thought the anti-post-in-Press people were overreacting, frankly, but I myself did not care enough to advocate either way.