Jeez, you guys -- when I got off-line, you were all supposed to, too!

Anyway. The thing about overtly stating your tone? The most common real-life equivalents are "No offense, but..." and "With all due respect..." The speaker is obviously trying to disguise the mean thing they are about to say with an overt statement that they aren't being mean. It doesn't work in real life, and it doesn't work online.

NOT that I think Rafmun was neccessarily being obnoxious on purpose, but many of his posts did come across that way, to several people. And this kind of ties back to our Action procedure, in a way. Note that I am NOT AT ALL saying Rafmun's post are inappropriate in any way. This is just a comment on the group dynamics of offense. We agreed (or at least the majority of people stating an opinion agreed) that only a few (10) people had to be offended for something to be deemed officially offensive. The bar is set pretty low, which I think is a good thing. It's not a popularity contest, it's not about the lurkers supporting you in email. If 10 people are upset enough to say so, that's enough. If several people interpret your posts the same way (even wrongly), it's on you to reconsider the way you're posting.

RESOLVED: that all Buffistas shall forthwith, unto the ending of the world, (1) strive to speak and listen with a minimum of obnoxiousness, and with a maximum of empathy; (2) consider before posting anything, and double on anything composed under circumstances of high emotion; (3) acknowledge that word choice, phrasing, amount and extent of quoted material, and even those stupid emoticons constitute "tone" as practiced in an online environment, and that the sum definition of "tone" as set forth herein matters; (4) speak outright and specifically any resentments, dislikes, grudges and feelings, or not speak about them at all, an honest debate being greatly preferred to a veiled one; and (5) strive ceaselessly to groom one another verily like unto monkeys, preferably the nice soft giggly kind and not the kind that throws its shit at people in the zoo.

Yes. This.

You can't mandate the board into a place I'm always happy in without driving someone else away. People, new or old, will leave.

Also this. I appreciated Matt's post a lot. This is not a place for everyone, and it shouldn't be. I may be sad when someone I like leaves, but life goes on. If this becomes a place that isn't for me, I'll go. It's not the end of the world. I promise. Like msbelle said earlier, it really is possible to leave an internet community and not die.

I don't want to get into listing people's names, because you know I'll forget someone, and they'll think I hate them, but there were many excellent posts last night.

I've been following this discussion since last night, off and on. Some of it drove me nuts, other parts had me nodding along in agreement. I think that Juliana wound up coming closest to summarizing my opinion:

I would like to reiterate a position that a lot of people have taken: that we do not slap down newbies willy-nilly. A lot of people have delurked and fit in just fine without a belly-flop in the guac. Some people have delurked straight into the guac, some people have hung about for a bit and tripped over the guac, and some people have set up the damned party and still managed to get guac all over their dress recently.

I also came to the realization that not everyone here is necessarily going to like me, or agree with me. There are people on this board I feel closer to than others. Some of these people have been here since TT, others have only come to my attention in the past couple of months.

Also, there are times when I will feel like everyone is ignoring me. Conversely, there are plenty of times when Buffista A's posts will set my teeth on edge through no intent of his or her own. Assuming I normally like this person, I might just skip/skim A's posts until the tooth-grindy subject goes away. If I think that A has said something out of line, I would point out what I thought was out of line, and why. Whether I do this on-board or through back-channel would depend on a number of things--was the statement obviously offensive? was it a matter of 'tone'? what is my history with this person? what is my history with this segment of the board?

I probably get on some people's nerves from time to time, and I'm pretty sure I've said things that have offended people on occasion.

All I would ask is that if I have managed to trail my lacy sleeve in the guac, that someone would point it out to me so that I can clean up the mess before the stain sets. I'd rather have my feelings slightly bruised than find out later that everyone was letting their anger at my lack of guac-skillz fester and build into grudges.

Because what seems "bullying" to one person might not seem so to another. And it isn't surprising in a board this size that there would be differing perceptions of such.

I'm moving past debate on this issue, Steph.

I posted my observations above, and people responded in various ways. Fair enough. I Got drawn into a debate on the minutiae even after stating upfront that I thought such misdirection was part of the problem.

I should have simply let the original observation post stand for what it was intended - just my $0.02 - take it or leave it, and allow the thread to evolve such that it proved or disproved the points asserted. I think that's what happened, though I fear that the soft-voices are again being overlooked. I acknowledge that by being drawn into the tangential, off-topic issues, I contributed to clouding the results, and inadvertently played into the drowing out of the voices I most wished heard.

So what I'm going to try to do now, lest a moot debate is prolonged unnecessarily, is move onward, go have fun and lemur groom.

I should have simply let the original observation post stand for what it was intended - just my $0.02 - take it or leave it, and allow the thread to evolve such that it proved or disproved the points asserted. I think that's what happened, though I fear that the soft-voices are again being overlooked. I acknowledge that by being drawn into the tangential, off-topic issues, I contributed to clouding the results, and inadvertently played into the drowing out of the voices I most wished heard.

I guess I'm misunderstanding you. What exactly was your main point? Because, from my perspective, we've spent the past several hundred posts discussing your post. What were we supposed to have been discussing from it that we weren't?

I'm moving past debate on this issue, Steph.

Conveniently allowing you to not address my comments. Very nice.

And by the way, the tone on "very nice" was acidic.

I fear that the soft-voices are again being overlooked.

You -- and everyone else -- have no way of knowing this.

Shit, I knew I'd forget something: I do think there's a significant number of "I'm sorry, could you clarify?" posts, and I really don't think the "smackdown" is a regular part of our discourse. Granted, it could be going on in threads I don't read, but that's not my impression of Buffistas.org in general AT ALL.

I guess the main point was that there are certain posters who feel aggrieved because they don't have the desire or the will or the ability to be heard and other posters get their way more often and are driving the first group of posters away. and that by discussin it ad nauseum, we are making it difficult for the "soft posters" to talk.

Or that's what I took out of it.

Here's the thing, I feel put upon more not because the board is a more snipey unwelcoming place. But because (1) I've pissed off people and they are justifiably less tolerant of me (2) I have less time to spend and less time means less posting which makes me less known and (3) I'm not as popular as I was or maybe my own perception of my popularity is wrong.

People haven't changed. The people I feel aggrieved by today are the ones who are saying that there is a small handful of aggressive activist posters who force board culture to be X because that conversation is derailing us from a greater conversation of what to do if people feel upset. By framing the debate in that manner, defensive has been the result, predictably.

So, what should we do when even long time posters feel unhappy?

But I don't care that I'm aggrieved. It doesn't drive me away, per se. Though the tone of this discussion especially from Rafmun's side (intended or not) has caused me to not want to post, because what's the point?

He's sees X. I see Y. We aren't going to agree. For him to continue to argue with just me (which he isn't) would be ridiculous. It would be like arguing with the refrigerator. The light goes on. The light goes off. But there isn't much more that will occur that hasn't been mechanically programmed to do.

I guess I'm misunderstanding you. What exactly was your main point? Because, from my perspective, we've spent the past several hundred posts discussing your post. What were we supposed to have been discussing from it that we weren't?

A number of people have asked this question of Rafmun, and he hasn't answered it. That's not helpful to discourse.

A failure to agree with you does not constitute bullying.

Yes. This ties into Jilli's question from yesterday as well, about whether part of the issue, insofar as there IS an issue, might not be unresolved bad feelings about earlier decisions from people who'd been in the minority faction when the decisions were made.

I've been gone for a couple weeks and am many thousands behind in all threads. No sense even trying to skim, it is skip to recent time for me. I had popped in to peek at the right hand threads to give a positive thought and/or YaY privately when appropriate. Imagine my surprise when I saw over 800 posts here.

I also had been skimming F2F since it was not as burdensome post count-wise as say Natter or Tim's thread. I saw the newbie posts there and quietly smiled at her enthusiasm because I felt much the same when I first discovered this place so long ago. Personally I feel she would have been a valuable member of the community if not for the way things were handled.

Way back at post 7676 Hec wrote:

Ahh, the dreaded right-hand threads where sour stomachs are fomented.

So, after watching Beej get the smackdown in Minearverse I would like to broach (to a chorus of groans, no doubt) the issue of newbie handling and indoctrination. I know she caused bristling and, as accurately noted in the rebuttals, crossed some cultural lines which are known but invisible.

Could we be a little gentler with the newbies, though? It takes a while to get the lay of the land, and her posts were not flamebaity or purposefully offensive, but shading towards lecture-speak. Which we're all familiar with. It was her second smackdown in a short period of time, and she apologized for the first one. I realize that the surest way to rile the board is being patronizing, but I don't think she intended offense.

While I agree that it helps to get to know the culture for a while before posting, we can probably afford to swallow our ire a bit, and more gently redirect folks.

Tone is subtle and I think the tone that we cultivate here (with much work) has a great deal to do with our community's longevity. It encourages interest and engagning talk, but is respectful and civil at the same time. Plus funny.

Even in a fraught political debate, though, I think we could rise above and make the effort to suggest how things could be better worded, instead of simply saying, in effect, shut yer yap until you've earned your stripes.

Otherwise, instead of being inclusive and welcoming new blood, we run the danger of being insular.

What. David. Said.