Why is it so difficult for people to look at the gestalt atmosphere of a community and see the general bitchiness? And how do I define and implement rules to fix it?
The "gestalt atmosphere" of a community is an emergent phenomenon, not necessarily capable of intentional social engineering; perhaps the "butterfly effect" applies and there are too many complex interactions to predict what manipulations might get desired results. A butterfly flapping its wings might cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, but any attempt to prevent hurricanes by removing butterflies is doomed to failure because you have no way of knowing which butterfly is critical; your changes might actually cause a worse storm to occur.
Where social interactions in a community are concerned, trying to end an "atmosphere of bitchiness" by making and enforcing heavy-handed rules is probably self-defeating, at least if the people involved are of the contentious sort in the first place; any new rules will just give them more things to bitch about.
Agreed. I think one of the main things to do is leading by example. And, given the size of the Forums, having other people (presumably reasonably frequent posters) who will do likewise. Be positive, encourage others to be positive, and don't be demeaning. (The posts of yours I've seen fall in line with this.)
If the things that are being bitched about are addressed directly and respectfully, even if the "bitchiest" out there continue to be bitchy, at least the vast majority of the audience (mostly lurkers at that) will recognize the genuine efforts as apart from the mere bitching.
I don't see generals bitchiness. I see specific bitchiness. If I see that Person X or Person Y is in chat, I know that bitchiness will be present, so I don't go there.
Any rules necessary to "fix" specific bitchiness already exist. The issues are (1) following them and (2) enforcing them.
3 comments:
The "gestalt atmosphere" of a community is an emergent phenomenon, not necessarily capable of intentional social engineering; perhaps the "butterfly effect" applies and there are too many complex interactions to predict what manipulations might get desired results. A butterfly flapping its wings might cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, but any attempt to prevent hurricanes by removing butterflies is doomed to failure because you have no way of knowing which butterfly is critical; your changes might actually cause a worse storm to occur.
Where social interactions in a community are concerned, trying to end an "atmosphere of bitchiness" by making and enforcing heavy-handed rules is probably self-defeating, at least if the people involved are of the contentious sort in the first place; any new rules will just give them more things to bitch about.
Agreed. I think one of the main things to do is leading by example. And, given the size of the Forums, having other people (presumably reasonably frequent posters) who will do likewise. Be positive, encourage others to be positive, and don't be demeaning. (The posts of yours I've seen fall in line with this.)
If the things that are being bitched about are addressed directly and respectfully, even if the "bitchiest" out there continue to be bitchy, at least the vast majority of the audience (mostly lurkers at that) will recognize the genuine efforts as apart from the mere bitching.
I don't see generals bitchiness. I see specific bitchiness. If I see that Person X or Person Y is in chat, I know that bitchiness will be present, so I don't go there.
Any rules necessary to "fix" specific bitchiness already exist. The issues are (1) following them and (2) enforcing them.
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