I went for my neighborhood walk to think about this and I’m still not quite sure what to post. I have a ton of stuff I could write but I want to keep it on point (if possible). I also want to note that I’m speaking only for myself here.
Let me start by addressing your last point first. I sincerely apologize if my post made you think that you might not be welcome as a poster. I’m not going to be able to say it as well as @seities did in his excellent post (really, it’s good, peeps who haven’t seen it should go read it), but it takes all types of posters to make a forum community great.
I’d also add that in my mind it’s not about low content vs. high content. Short or low content posts are fine–they can be amazing when done well. For me it’s more about how posts express respect vs. lack of respect, consideration vs. fuck your feelings, indifference vs. the understanding that there are real people on the other end of the conversations.
My impulse here is to lay out some examples here of what I am talking about in terms of “good” and “bad” posts, but honestly I think everyone who is an adult and been on the internet for a few years should have a good handle on this already, so I won’t. I hope what I have said helps you understand what I’m hoping for.
To put my thoughts into some context, I’ve realized that part of the reason I’ve felt so much angst and spent so much time thinking and fretting about this forum (seriously it’s a lot, too much) is that, for better or worse, it has become a big part of my social circle and community.
Like most people here, COVID has pretty much devastated my typical social situations. I’m an introvert who historically has been fine on my own, but 10 months of not seeing my family except over Zoom, not being able to hang out with my meatspace buddies, not being able to go into a taproom and BS with people there about beer and sports, and shit, even not seeing my coworkers in person has hit me pretty hard. As a result I focus a lot of my social energy and emotions on this forum, which is frankly probably not super healthy but it is what it is. (I should note here that I’m incredibly privileged to have what I do have and recognize that many people have been hit much harder.)
I say all that because what stems from it is that what I “want” is to be able to interact with the cool people here without worrying that someone will hit me with some mean-spirited comment, or feel on edge when people are bickering, or feel bad when somebody attacks another poster for no good reason.
Now, I know that many people here don’t want the same thing that I do, that’s why I wrote “different people have different visions of what they want this forum to be.” And it’s also why I have made a concious effort to say my piece about this stuff and then drop it. I know I’m not the only one whose opinion matters for this forum. And I’m also not the enforcer who polices it (we’ve seen several examples of how badly it goes when someone decides that’s their role).
I will say that I kind of agree, kind of disagree with this:
Agree that the bickering hasn’t taken over the main forum, but there has been some, enough that it bothers me. I don’t want to make a list of examples and have to litigate them, but there have been several mentioned in this thread and the C-word thread. (Actually the one that I’ll point to specifically is what has been going on in the COVID thread for months and months.)
So I hope that helps you get where I’m coming from. I do realize that my dream for the forum may be unreasonable, unattainable, and even undesirable for many, so that’s why, like I said, I’m just putting in my $0.02 and letting it go.
This post got super long in spite of me trying to keep it short, so thanks to anyone who read the whole thing. If I can clarify or expand on anything let me know.
