How do I question an unexplained ban?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 hours ago, Klytyna said:

I took him exatly at his word, he openly admitted going to a popular noob welcome sim, he openly admitted that he im'd more than one girl with offers of a trip so some exotic a rated destination for whatever purpose, he openly admitted that several said no,

What I didn't choose to believe was "the sim owner monitors tp requests" because thats horse manure, nor did i believe the stuff about how the girl who said yes was obviously some alt of the sim owner and part of a honey trap, especially as 'honey traps' are designed to get something out of the victim, where as here theres no demand for blackmail money etc.

The evidfence is n the posts... Class -2 Loiterer, caught fishing for noobs at a public pg rated hangout by the management and banned for being suspected as a predator... theres the explanation right there, nothing rude about it just the facxts the poster admitted to in their posts... plain logic.

As for your points about bible thumpers for example...

Personally I consider them serious criminals deserving of jail time...

Spiritual Kidnapping: Our invisible friend has your dead relatives, if you want to see them again do as we say...

Demanding Money with Menaces: Give me 10% of your earnings or my invisible friend will hurt you

 

Well, I still think that you're filling in a lot of blanks here with an unnecessarily negative reading of his actions. You move from a few scant facts to motivations and intentions, which are always a bit slippery, no? And, as you yourself point out somewhere above, there is no real "harm" being inflicted here.

On the whole, I think (as Maddy says above) the benefit of the doubt is the best approach. I'd rather be overly-generous in my judgements, than walk through life believing the worst of people. I guess that's a personal choice.

In any case, I don't think this is worth pursuing further, although I will just note, in passing, that an approach that subjects new posters to this kind of sceptical scrutiny and speculative criticism isn't going to help attract new people to the community.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

We can debate all day about whether Reg is a predator who lures innocent young girls to nude beaches, or whether the sim owner is a priggish sort who bans people for trivial reasons or for personal ones.  That's loads of innocent fun for everyone.

But the bottom line is Second Life's Golden Rule:  He Who Owns the Land, Makes the Rules.  A landowner can ban anyone she pleases, at any time, for any reason or even for no reason at all.  

We can even debate whether that's a good rule or not.  Me, I think it is...but then, I am a landowner!

Well, if the stakes were higher, I'd argue with you about the wisdom, justice, etc., of this kind of system. It reminds me of the "good old days" in Britain and the US when the franchise to vote was limited to those (men) who possessed a minimum amount of wealth or property. As I said above, that's not actually very surprising: American libertarianism is mostly founded on principles from that historical era.

However, as I say, there is not a lot really at stake here, so I'm not about to die on this particular hill. Ban me to your heart's content! I'll weep silently and copiously, of course . . . but somehow I'll pull through.

(And hi Lindal!)

[Madelaine McMasters]

8 hours ago, Klytyna said:

As for your points about bible thumpers for example...

Personally I consider them serious criminals deserving of jail time...

Spiritual Kidnapping: Our invisible friend has your dead relatives, if you want to see them again do as we say...

Demanding Money with Menaces: Give me 10% of your earnings or my invisible friend will hurt you

 

As an atheist and an engineer, I can't follow the logic of your "consideration".

Let's say I'm a member of your police force and I'm called to the scene of a spiritual kidnapping. The victim exclaims "Scylla says my dead aunt lives in a place called Heaven (also known as Toronto) and I probably won't get to see her after I die unless I give 10% of my earnings to help the Crisis Clinic!". I don't believe in souls, so who do I arrest, Scylla or the man who's telling me the irrational story of being told an irrational story by Scylla?

Our local jail is already overflowing with "criminals" convicted of irrationality. Construction of a much larger facility awaits passage of a referendum increasing property taxes to 10%/yr, from their current 2.2%. I exercise my best judgment and hand the man a complimentary baseball card bearing my visage in blue and wish him a good day.

The very next day, Scylla arrives at my door and tells the previously purported story via a "pamphlet" she wrote herself, weighing fourteen pounds three ounces. The story reads like a drug fueled fantasy, mixing interesting observations of human behavior with antiquated notions of how the world works and significant conspiracy theorizing. Though I remain unconvinced by her pamphlet, I rub my strained shoulder and hand her $14.19 for the Crisis Clinic. I reason that it's better to hand her $14.19 once than to hand the tax assessor 10%/yr. Scylla walks away thrilled, having got more out of me than she expected.

Her perfume (Johnson's Baby Powder?) has barely cleared my foyer when the door bell rings again. This time it's a little doe eyed girl, selling a hedonistic lifestyle of cookie debauchery. Rather than ply me with fourteen plus pounds of drug fueled fantasy, she shows me box after box of sugar fueled reality and walks away with $48 and a hefty tip. I spend the next two weeks gaining weight, fighting off 4AM cravings, and checking my insurance to see if diabetes is excluded as a "lifestyle choice" disease.

Face it Klytyna, life is full of perils... and people.

Oh, and please do give generously to the Crisis Clinic, they need all the help they can get...

 

ETA: My use of "Scylla" here should not be construed as revealing any opinions I have about her. Had I actually done that, she'd have been the girl scout.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Perrie Juran]

12 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Well, it's funny. In some ways, or in some contexts, we've never been more "free," sexually speaking, than we are now. In most urban and well-educated environments, anyway, it's now pretty acceptable for a woman to be interested in just plain ol' sex. And I really think that's important, because I think that women have driven the sexual revolution of the past 50 years, for a variety of reasons. It was, after all, the widespread introduction of female contraception in the 60s that really got the ball rolling (so to speak) on this. That liberated women not merely to have sex -- i.e., be the newly-attainable object of male sexual desire -- but to actually seek it out.

At the same time, of course, there remain corners and contexts where "***** shaming" and old-fashioned priggishness remain. And, more importantly, the relationship between sexual desire, and how we articulate that, has become much more complicated because the old rules regarding dating, courting, and the other rituals that used to establish the foundation for sex, have kind of gone out the window. And then there's the issue of consent, which, because it can no longer merely be "assumed," is now another complicating factor.

And finally, there is context. Klytyna suggests just walking into a room and publicly announcing that you're looking for a sexual partner. In some contexts (in both SL and RL), that would be fine. In others, it would be a disaster. Not being entirely clear on those differences, and the different social conventions that adhere to each, means catastrophic failure.

So I think that what you are detecting is really the confusion that arises during transitions from one set of social conventions to another. We're still working out how to talk about this, really.

I guess this is where the importance of having a "Social Barometer" comes in. 

One of my teachers in college used to say that most problems in marriage centered on money or sex and that the first step in solving was communication.  People still have trouble with that.  Sometimes I still have trouble with it.  It's relatively easy for me to discuss sex in an anonymous forum, but in RL I tend to be a bit more shy.  Actually it is not that hard to get me to blush.  That's probably still more the norm.

[Perrie Juran]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

As an atheist and an engineer, I can't follow the logic of your "consideration".

Let's say I'm a member of your police force and I'm called to the scene of a spiritual kidnapping. The victim exclaims "Scylla says my dead aunt lives in a place called Heaven (also known as Toronto) and I probably won't get to see her after I die unless I give 10% of my earnings to help the Crisis Clinic!". I don't believe in souls, so who do I arrest, Scylla or the man who's telling me the irrational story of being told an irrational story by Scylla?

Our local jail is already overflowing with "criminals" convicted of irrationality. Construction of a much larger facility awaits passage of a referendum increasing property taxes to 10%/yr, from their current 2.2%. I exercise my best judgment and hand the man a complimentary baseball card bearing my visage in blue and wish him a good day.

The very next day, Scylla arrives at my door and tells the previously purported story via a "pamphlet" she wrote herself, weighing fourteen pounds three ounces. The story reads like a drug fueled fantasy, mixing interesting observations of human behavior with antiquated notions of how the world works and significant conspiracy theorizing. Though I remain unconvinced by her pamphlet, I rub my strained shoulder and hand her $14.19 for the Crisis Clinic. I reason that it's better to hand her $14.19 once than to hand the tax assessor 10%/yr. Scylla walks away thrilled, having got more out of me than she expected.

Her perfume (Johnson's Baby Powder?) has barely cleared my foyer when the door bell rings again. This time it's a little doe eyed girl, selling a hedonistic lifestyle of cookie debauchery. Rather than ply me with fourteen plus pounds of drug fueled fantasy, she shows me box after box of sugar fueled reality and walks away with $48 and a hefty tip. I spend the next two weeks gaining weight, fighting off 4AM cravings, and checking my insurance to see if diabetes is excluded as a "lifestyle choice" disease.

Face it Klytyna, life is full of perils... and people.

Oh, and please do give generously to the Crisis Clinic, they need all the help they can get...

 

ETA: My use of "Scylla" here should not be construed as revealing any opinions I have about her. Had I actually done that, she'd have been the girl scout.

I would have never guessed that "Girl Scouts" was one of your fantasies.  I thought that was usually more a male thing. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Perrie Juran said:

I would have never guessed that "Girl Scouts" was one of your fantasies.  I thought that was usually more a male thing. 

Oh yes, "innocents" coaxing the "wise" into self-destructive behavior has long been a fantasy of mine. I'm not the only one here who puts Scylla's innocence (or my wisdom) in scare quotes.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

As an atheist and an engineer, I can't follow the logic of your "consideration".

Let's say I'm a member of your police force and I'm called to the scene of a spiritual kidnapping. The victim exclaims "Scylla says my dead aunt lives in a place called Heaven (also known as Toronto) and I probably won't get to see her after I die unless I give 10% of my earnings to help the Crisis Clinic!". I don't believe in souls, so who do I arrest, Scylla or the man who's telling me the irrational story of being told an irrational story by Scylla?

Our local jail is already overflowing with "criminals" convicted of irrationality. Construction of a much larger facility awaits passage of a referendum increasing property taxes to 10%/yr, from their current 2.2%. I exercise my best judgment and hand the man a complimentary baseball card bearing my visage in blue and wish him a good day.

The very next day, Scylla arrives at my door and tells the previously purported story via a "pamphlet" she wrote herself, weighing fourteen pounds three ounces. The story reads like a drug fueled fantasy, mixing interesting observations of human behavior with antiquated notions of how the world works and significant conspiracy theorizing. Though I remain unconvinced by her pamphlet, I rub my strained shoulder and hand her $14.19 for the Crisis Clinic. I reason that it's better to hand her $14.19 once than to hand the tax assessor 10%/yr. Scylla walks away thrilled, having got more out of me than she expected.

Her perfume (Johnson's Baby Powder?) has barely cleared my foyer when the door bell rings again. This time it's a little doe eyed girl, selling a hedonistic lifestyle of cookie debauchery. Rather than ply me with fourteen plus pounds of drug fueled fantasy, she shows me box after box of sugar fueled reality and walks away with $48 and a hefty tip. I spend the next two weeks gaining weight, fighting off 4AM cravings, and checking my insurance to see if diabetes is excluded as a "lifestyle choice" disease.

Face it Klytyna, life is full of perils... and people.

Oh, and please do give generously to the Crisis Clinic, they need all the help they can get...

 

ETA: My use of "Scylla" here should not be construed as revealing any opinions I have about her. Had I actually done that, she'd have been the girl scout.

This "Scylla" character sounds thoroughly dodgy. I think I like her. Thank god she's fictional!

It's odd that you, Maddy, thoroughly embedded in the STEM disciplines, should so often speak (so well) through parables, whereas I, trained in literature and poetry, rely instead upon prolix and turgid explication. I tried to come up with a cute little narrative sequel to respond, but I couldn't get past the part where "Scylla" is elected President of the United States on the strength of her ability to sell speciously attractive fantasies to people who desperately want easy answers.

The view of John Milton -- and he was admittedly talking explicitly about print -- was that all ideas, whether good or bad (except Catholic ones) should be permitted to public view, because from the dialogue and debate that they engendered the Truth would inevitably emerge (unless it was a Catholic truth). That always used to seem to me a pretty sensible and liberal approach to the circulation of ideas (after all, I'm not Catholic), but I'll confess that recent events in the US and Europe have shaken my faith. So too has my unacknowledged faith that we are all slowly but inevitably moving towards a more liberal and generous culture. Sometimes, it turns out, the Truth is unpalatable, and the Fiction too seductively "reasonable." Sometime people aren't well enough trained to distinguish in a reliable way between the two.

I guess that I still believe that even the snake oil salesmen need to be permitted to peddle their wares, because I don't know of anyone (with the possible exception of Maddy, of course) whom I'd trust to determine what is permissible, and what is purely malicious fraud. The answer, I think, maybe, is to teach people to "read" what they hear, or are told, or witness, well enough that they can make that determination for themselves. That's difficult -- very difficult, in fact, particularly in today's political climate. But at least it distributes the knowledge, and the skill, and the power. And maybe the "Scyllas" of the world will be just that much less successful in selling their 14 lbs of nonsense to the vulnerable, ignorant, and desperate?

PS. I was never a Girl Guide (as we call them here); I never made it past one year of being a "Brownie." I'd have been lousy at selling cookies.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:

I guess this is where the importance of having a "Social Barometer" comes in. 

One of my teachers in college used to say that most problems in marriage centered on money or sex and that the first step in solving was communication.  People still have trouble with that.  Sometimes I still have trouble with it.  It's relatively easy for me to discuss sex in an anonymous forum, but in RL I tend to be a bit more shy.  Actually it is not that hard to get me to blush.  That's probably still more the norm.

How does a Martian blush? (That seems a much safer question than the other obvious one involving Martian physiology.)

Well, the fact that you've discovered a place (SL) where it is relatively easy to talk about that sex thing suggests you've employed the "social barometer" well? You, and a great many other people I've known, have discovered in SL a place to interact and engage with more comfort, in part I suppose because of the "anonymity," but also because the social codes and conventions here are different.

Although, actually, I'd question the importance of the anonymity. You aren't anonymous, and neither am I. You are Perrie, and you are known to and recognized by, I'd hazard a guess, a pretty broad and extensive range of people. Here, I'm "Scylla": I've developed a (somewhat tattered) reputation and history. I've embarrassed myself here countless times, and I can assure you that I've felt it deeply every time it has happened.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Oh yes, "innocents" coaxing the "wise" into self-destructive behavior has long been a fantasy of mine. I'm not the only one here who puts Scylla's innocence (or my wisdom) in scare quotes.

Yeah, but I only do that because I want people to think that I'm edgy and cool.

But tell me, who else puts my "innocence" in scare quotes? Does that mean it's working????

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It's odd that you, Maddy, thoroughly embedded in the STEM disciplines, should so often speak (so well) through parables, whereas I, trained in literature and poetry, rely instead upon prolix and turgid explication.

Let me get my sneakers on before I start quoting Shaw.
...
...
...
Okay, ready...

"He who can, does...

... starts running.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Let me get my sneakers on before I start quoting Shaw.
...
...
...
Okay, ready...

"He who can, does...

... starts running.

 

[Redacted: A whole bunch of completely inappropriate stuff that not only misrepresents Germaine Greer, who is an absolute GODDESS,* but also would undoubtedly offend a great many of the Virtuous and Upstanding Residents of SL and here on the forums, as well as raise the eyebrows of the Mods here who are, I'm sure, wonderful custodians of civil discourse and in every way totally liberal enough to overlook a mere jeux d'esprit, a momentary lapse in judgement.]

*[ETA: Except for the stuff she says about trans women, which is entirely and completely wrong, and also weirdly inconsistent, although I guess 2nd Wave Feminism . . . you know?]

Edited March 26, 2017 by Scylla Rhiadra
Because, you know, community standards and stuff.

[Madelaine McMasters]

16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Oh yeah? Two people can play the "quotation" game! Allow me to respond with this gem from Germaine Greer:

"You are ****** and ******, and I'd advise you to *********** **** the **** and stick it high and hard up your ****** ***** ******."

("Innocent" my ***!)

...swoons.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

14 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

...swoons.

See? I can't even shock you competently.

(I should, perhaps, note that the "quotation" from Germaine Greer is entirely fictitious: she's pretty potty-mouthed at times, but more elegant and articulate than I've suggested. I was going to remove the post before the mods took offense, and did it for me . . . but there seems to be no way to delete posts! Ack! I'm on record FOREVER!)

[Madelaine McMasters]

13 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

See? I can't even shock you competently.

(I should, perhaps, note that the "quotation" from Germaine Greer is entirely fictitious: she's pretty potty-mouthed at times, but more elegant and articulate than I've suggested. I was going to remove the post before the mods took offense, and did it for me . . . but there seems to be no way to delete posts! Ack! I'm on record FOREVER!)

I know, I Googled "greer stick it high and hard" and found nothing. Just as I Googled "those who can't" to find out who first said it, only to discover that I've been paraphrasing the quote all my life. I don't think I've ever read Shaw.

And this could start a whole 'nother discussion about how, with the advent of the Internet, we're all getting stupid as we believe we're getting smart.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Does that mean it's working????

It is. But I do not think it is what you think it is.

Would you feel better knowing that it works for me too?

There's a risk this discussion will lead at least one of us to conclude there's no such thing as free will. So...

Did you get rain today?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

On 3/22/2017 at 2:38 PM, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. I have had a reply from the landowner. So my explanation is: met a girl, chatted with her, asked if she wanted to come and sit on a beach. She said yes so we did.

His explanation is that she was "one of their accounts" and I lured her to an adult beach. So, a Honey Trap.

Judge me if you like but I didn't know it was wrong to meet someone on "General" land, strike up a friendship and go to Adult land when the person in question agreed. If she had said no then I would have respected that.

Oh well, we live and learn.

Some landowners get very angry if you dare take anyone from their land to someplace else. I once got yelled at by a sim owner because i said to my gf in local that we should take the two guys we were chatting with home with us. The land owner said if i ever tried that again, he'd ban me. 

I'm sorry but that's like meeting a guy at a bar in rl and not being allowed to take him home with you. Like seriously?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

14 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

. . . like meeting a guy at a bar in rl and not being allowed to take him home with you.

/me blinks

Why on earth would you want to do that?

Do you have a small plumbing job that needs doing? Something you require from a shelf that's too high for you to reach?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

It is. But I do not think it is what you think it is.

Would you feel better knowing that it works for me too?

There's a risk this discussion will lead at least one of us to conclude there's no such thing as free will. So...

Did you get rain today?

I don't know what "it" is. I will never know what "it" is. I live in an unfathomable and indifferent universe.

In other news, it rained lightly this morning, but we've even had a few periods of sunshine! I raked the bit of grass at the front of where I live, to get rid of some of the flotsam and jetsam that's accumulated there over the winter.

[Perrie Juran]

20 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

How does a Martian blush? (That seems a much safer question than the other obvious one involving Martian physiology.)

Well, the fact that you've discovered a place (SL) where it is relatively easy to talk about that sex thing suggests you've employed the "social barometer" well? You, and a great many other people I've known, have discovered in SL a place to interact and engage with more comfort, in part I suppose because of the "anonymity," but also because the social codes and conventions here are different.

Although, actually, I'd question the importance of the anonymity. You aren't anonymous, and neither am I. You are Perrie, and you are known to and recognized by, I'd hazard a guess, a pretty broad and extensive range of people. Here, I'm "Scylla": I've developed a (somewhat tattered) reputation and history. I've embarrassed myself here countless times, and I can assure you that I've felt it deeply every time it has happened.

The importance of the anonymity here is the cushion of safety we feel from possible RL backlash.  Although I know I'm actually harmless, I still think it would spook you if I showed up at your front door and said, "Hi, I'm Perrie from SL."  Still, I will add that I have some friendships that started in SL that now extend to RL.  But those are very, very few.  I do see who I am in SL as a part of my whole self.  I've said on occasion that SL can be like a Mirror where we are looking at who we really are.

On the whole, how often do any of us ever discuss our personal sexuality with anyone in RL, a conversation I have had with several people in SL?  It appears to me that the conversations in RL are usually limited to participation in some kind of therapy.

Edited March 26, 2017 by Perrie Juran

[Rhonda Huntress]

[Treasure Ballinger]

Bet the OP learned something about posting to the forums, the way this took off and his (alleged and assumed) character has been shredded, stitched back up, and shredded again) Ya larn early 'round here.  I wouldn't have posted something like this, because I know how people turn to attack mode, on the slimmest possible info.  (what was he REALLY doing) Bet he won't do it again.     

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:

The importance of the anonymity here is the cushion of safety we feel from possible RL backlash.  Although I know I'm actually harmless, I still think it would spook you if I showed up at your front door and said, "Hi, I'm Perrie from SL."  Still, I will add that I have some friendships that started in SL that now extend to RL.  But those are very, very few.  I do see who I am in SL as a part of my whole self.  I've said on occasion that SL can be like a Mirror where we are looking at who we really are.

On the whole, how often do any of us ever discuss our personal sexuality with anyone in RL, a conversation I have had with several people in SL?  It appears to me that the conversations in RL are usually limited to participation in some kind of therapy.

An interesting perspective, which seems to me to sort of straddle the augmentationist / immersionist line . . . or maybe complicate it, which is probably a good thing.

I take your point about SL functioning as a mirror, but with this caveat: I don't think I possess a single identity. I think I am different -- sometimes very different -- in different contexts, and Second Life is no exception to that. Indeed, I'd say I have multiple Second Life identities, or even multiple forum identities, not just in the obvious "OMG SHE HAS ALTS" kind of way, but in the sense that I take on different voices here according to context. I've actually really noticed this about myself on occasion: sometimes, for instance, I'm really earnest and serious and . . . prolix and boring? And sometimes I'm playful and a bit idiotic. That's just two; there are variations. It's not, obviously, that those different identities are not all recognizably "me," because I think they are. But they constitute not just different ways of writing, but different ways of responding and, often, actually thinking about stuff.

Sexuality in SL is a particularly intriguing subject because I think it's such an important part of why many people are here, and it often becomes a really important element of self-expression and identity-creation. A really large percentage of residents, I suspect, are sexually quite different here than they are in RL, sometimes subtly (as in your own case as you describe it), but, obviously, sometimes very radically. Gender-bending, experimentation, and so forth are the obvious things. I've known so many people who were "gay" only in Second Life. And a lot of it is about fantasy, obviously. But that all varies from person to person.

In any case, I think it's more complicated than "I can do stuff here I wouldn't do in RL." I think, more fundamentally, "I can BE a different self here than I am in RL." So, if you are more open about sexuality, talking sex, and so on here, it's not so much because you are "hidden" here: you have become someone different, by the very process of acting differently. You are performing a new self.

(The above is probably an example of me in full-flight "Earnest and Boring" mode, btw.)

[Scylla Rhiadra]

34 minutes ago, Treasure Ballinger said:

Bet the OP learned something about posting to the forums, the way this took off and his (alleged and assumed) character has been shredded, stitched back up, and shredded again) Ya larn early 'round here.  I wouldn't have posted something like this, because I know how people turn to attack mode, on the slimmest possible info.  (what was he REALLY doing) Bet he won't do it again.     

Yep. Of course, it's not just this particular version of the forum that does that, or even just SL forums. It's a pretty common thing, I think. Communities are happy to absorb people who "they" judge not to represent a threat to an established social order, but not so good at accepting people who are obviously different, because such people can change the entire dynamic.

And, too, one way to define a "community" is by exclusion. Being ultra-judgemental about someone is one way of drawing the line between who's in, and who's out.

It's sad and unfortunate, because all communities need new blood, and new perspectives, or they become echo chambers. At various different times that I've been around, the forums have devolved into that: self-obsessed, cliquey, and unwelcoming.

[Madelaine McMasters]

11 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yep. Of course, it's not just this particular version of the forum that does that, or even just SL forums. It's a pretty common thing, I think. Communities are happy to absorb people who "they" judge not to represent a threat to an established social order, but not so good at accepting people who are obviously different, because such people can change the entire dynamic.

And, too, one way to define a "community" is by exclusion. Being ultra-judgemental about someone is one way of drawing the line between who's in, and who's out.

It's sad and unfortunate, because all communities need new blood, and new perspectives, or they become echo chambers. At various different times that I've been around, the forums have devolved into that: self-obsessed, cliquey, and unwelcoming.

I recommend to everyone that they join a new forum somewhere (or some RL group) at least once a year, just to remind themselves what it's like to be an outsider.

Edited March 26, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I recommend to everyone that they join a new forum somewhere at least once a year, just to remind themselves what it's like to be an outsider.

Great advice, actually. But very uncomfortable.

Actually, one of the interesting things about starting again with Laskya was having to find, and try to integrate myself into, new communities in-world. It proved more difficult than I'd thought, although I did find one club that wasn't too bad.