*Yawns, peeking out from under the hat again*
Tis morning, so I greet you all with fresh eyes and a sluggish mind. Let's see if I can keep the word count down this time. (I failed, you've been warned.)
I see a lot of "Don't take it personally" statements and that is sadly not good enough. We are complex organisms with an even more complex emotional system embedded in our brains, we will take things personally for a thousand reasons that seem like sheer poppycock (love that word) to others around us. The variable is in the word-spew. Some, like myself, generally do not release the kraken from our minds and find personal ways to resolve whatever is making us feel salty. Others look to outside sources. However, just like none of us have the capacity to control the weather, we cannot control the emotional responses of others.
Unless you develop superpowers.
So really, statements like "People need thicker skin" and "Don't take it personally" are wasted words. -I- think that better statements would be "People SHOULD take a step back from any altercation and think it through before posting" and "Be respectfully open to the opinions and feelings of others". That's just me. I'm a hat.
NEXT!
I feel the desire to point out that buzzwords like "toxic" actually damage these conversations. Psychologically, the colors red and green trigger stimuli in our minds that tell us human critters that we're hungry. Neat, right? This happens with words too and more often than not, it is the lynchpin in the lynch mob. Group mentality feeds on buzzwords to take a "temperature" of a situation. So I'd like to suggest that while we discuss the state of affairs here in our beloved forum, we do our utmost to avoid buzzwords. I know, I know. tl;dr. But give it a try, watch the perceived tone of the conversation change.
NEXT!!
I adore all your little voices (Buzzword, see what I did there? I bet some of you went "Little? .....prick") but in reality, we're all little voices in a large room. Consider that analogy and some of the perceived concerns about cliques might become clear. Some little voices are heard by more, some little voices are drowned out. This is normal, this is natural. Everyone cannot be heard all the time, all we can do is try to listen more acutely.
NEXT!!!
While the compliment thread and silly threads are cute and funny, they are not team-building or community inspiring. They're like 80 pages long (I may be exaggerating) and when you tl;dr something that long, you skim for points. When skimming reveals six to seven of the same names in a revolving blur over and over and over and over again, a theory is born out of perception. Is anyone at fault? No. Perhaps it might be time to excise the super-old pages? I dunno. I don't post in them because I personally do not feel that they add anything to my experience.
NEXT!!!!
This is a two-parter about participation. Bear with me.
First, I took time and effort to write two fantastically absurd tales about Captain Seishuku and post them to the forum RP section. I labeled it "Open". No one engaged the thread. How did that make me feel? Pretty damn shitty. I was hurt, because I went into it thinking "This should be great for a lark, it's funny, it's absurd, and it'll get my crazy character out there." and I walked out of it going "....what a waste of time. Maybe no one likes my character concept." So I poked around the town hall for other thread RP to get into and as indicated in the above section, I found gobs of long threads that either were labeled "closed" or had weird time period lengths like two months between posts. So I stopped looking at Town Hall. I gave up.
Second, I spent at least a month wandering around RP events trying to engage people in RP. With the exception of the one Grindstone event I threw the Captain into, I walked away from that experience thinking "Maybe, it IS my character." And frankly, Warren was the only one at the Grindstone that actually gave the Captain the time of day, Gods bless him. The Arbiter, busy doing event moderation, took time to chat, answer questions, and joke a little bit.
Second, part two. I've had Zealous Oak at three Grindstones so far, that's the only RP event other than the masquerade ball that Oak's been in and the masquerade ball was so delightfully cliquey that it actually felt like High School. (High School was 20 years ago for me, people. Just a point of reference.) So much so that I laughed at my screen and spent the next hour participating in the moogle circle instead. The Grindstone, Oak's been part of the healer platoon which allows for sporadic, brief moments of RP between duels. What's most notable about these events though? The first grindstone, Oak was treated like a medbot. HEAL HIM. HEAL HER. OKAY, GO TO YOUR NEXT MATCH, PEOPLE. Which was entertaining, but made me feel less like an RPer and more like a utility. The second Grindstone, some of the healers talked a little bit about their skills and I got to illustrate Oak's devotion to the mythos of Conjury. YAY ME. That felt good. The third Grindstone, Vahl'Sae (Sorry if I butcher the name) actually stopped and complimented Oak's new robe. Awesome! Later, he had a few brief conversations with combatants and took some time out to further heal one's wounds before the next round started.Â
You might be wondering why I'm rambling on about this? Well, I'm illustrating to everyone that involvement isn't instantaneous, it takes time and effort. Unless you're flamboyant like Reddard (Yes, Kudos for being amazingly outlandish), PLEASE be patient and stay involved.Â
Cheers!
-Black Hat
Tis morning, so I greet you all with fresh eyes and a sluggish mind. Let's see if I can keep the word count down this time. (I failed, you've been warned.)
I see a lot of "Don't take it personally" statements and that is sadly not good enough. We are complex organisms with an even more complex emotional system embedded in our brains, we will take things personally for a thousand reasons that seem like sheer poppycock (love that word) to others around us. The variable is in the word-spew. Some, like myself, generally do not release the kraken from our minds and find personal ways to resolve whatever is making us feel salty. Others look to outside sources. However, just like none of us have the capacity to control the weather, we cannot control the emotional responses of others.
Unless you develop superpowers.
So really, statements like "People need thicker skin" and "Don't take it personally" are wasted words. -I- think that better statements would be "People SHOULD take a step back from any altercation and think it through before posting" and "Be respectfully open to the opinions and feelings of others". That's just me. I'm a hat.
NEXT!
I feel the desire to point out that buzzwords like "toxic" actually damage these conversations. Psychologically, the colors red and green trigger stimuli in our minds that tell us human critters that we're hungry. Neat, right? This happens with words too and more often than not, it is the lynchpin in the lynch mob. Group mentality feeds on buzzwords to take a "temperature" of a situation. So I'd like to suggest that while we discuss the state of affairs here in our beloved forum, we do our utmost to avoid buzzwords. I know, I know. tl;dr. But give it a try, watch the perceived tone of the conversation change.
NEXT!!
I adore all your little voices (Buzzword, see what I did there? I bet some of you went "Little? .....prick") but in reality, we're all little voices in a large room. Consider that analogy and some of the perceived concerns about cliques might become clear. Some little voices are heard by more, some little voices are drowned out. This is normal, this is natural. Everyone cannot be heard all the time, all we can do is try to listen more acutely.
NEXT!!!
While the compliment thread and silly threads are cute and funny, they are not team-building or community inspiring. They're like 80 pages long (I may be exaggerating) and when you tl;dr something that long, you skim for points. When skimming reveals six to seven of the same names in a revolving blur over and over and over and over again, a theory is born out of perception. Is anyone at fault? No. Perhaps it might be time to excise the super-old pages? I dunno. I don't post in them because I personally do not feel that they add anything to my experience.
NEXT!!!!
This is a two-parter about participation. Bear with me.
First, I took time and effort to write two fantastically absurd tales about Captain Seishuku and post them to the forum RP section. I labeled it "Open". No one engaged the thread. How did that make me feel? Pretty damn shitty. I was hurt, because I went into it thinking "This should be great for a lark, it's funny, it's absurd, and it'll get my crazy character out there." and I walked out of it going "....what a waste of time. Maybe no one likes my character concept." So I poked around the town hall for other thread RP to get into and as indicated in the above section, I found gobs of long threads that either were labeled "closed" or had weird time period lengths like two months between posts. So I stopped looking at Town Hall. I gave up.
Second, I spent at least a month wandering around RP events trying to engage people in RP. With the exception of the one Grindstone event I threw the Captain into, I walked away from that experience thinking "Maybe, it IS my character." And frankly, Warren was the only one at the Grindstone that actually gave the Captain the time of day, Gods bless him. The Arbiter, busy doing event moderation, took time to chat, answer questions, and joke a little bit.
Second, part two. I've had Zealous Oak at three Grindstones so far, that's the only RP event other than the masquerade ball that Oak's been in and the masquerade ball was so delightfully cliquey that it actually felt like High School. (High School was 20 years ago for me, people. Just a point of reference.) So much so that I laughed at my screen and spent the next hour participating in the moogle circle instead. The Grindstone, Oak's been part of the healer platoon which allows for sporadic, brief moments of RP between duels. What's most notable about these events though? The first grindstone, Oak was treated like a medbot. HEAL HIM. HEAL HER. OKAY, GO TO YOUR NEXT MATCH, PEOPLE. Which was entertaining, but made me feel less like an RPer and more like a utility. The second Grindstone, some of the healers talked a little bit about their skills and I got to illustrate Oak's devotion to the mythos of Conjury. YAY ME. That felt good. The third Grindstone, Vahl'Sae (Sorry if I butcher the name) actually stopped and complimented Oak's new robe. Awesome! Later, he had a few brief conversations with combatants and took some time out to further heal one's wounds before the next round started.Â
You might be wondering why I'm rambling on about this? Well, I'm illustrating to everyone that involvement isn't instantaneous, it takes time and effort. Unless you're flamboyant like Reddard (Yes, Kudos for being amazingly outlandish), PLEASE be patient and stay involved.Â
Cheers!
-Black Hat
What a colossal waste of time and energy.
