plax
09-22-2015, 08:00 AM
It's true. At times I become both hurt and angered by the behavior of various members here. For example, there was a recent incident involving a member who was invited to PP by one of our longstanding Super Moderators. The invited member is a prolific poster and has somewhat of a social following. As such, a number of new members followed him here and our activity began to rise.
So what happened? This member and his friends began to post among our various forums and all seemed well. They also developed a rapid affinity for our Games section. The member and his friends initially seemed to be enjoying our community. At one point, one of those friends approached me via private message and explained that she was concerned because the 'Recently Active Forum Threads' sideblock display was virtually dominated by posts from the Games section. She said she thought that this may be deterring new users from joining our community. It was nice to hear from a member who was clearly concerned about the well-being of PP. And her point was indeed valid! So I created a quick workaround that filtered the Games posts from the sideblock display. This workaround did not keep our members from viewing the Games section activity within search queries or on the Top Stats display; it only removed the up front display of Games section posts from the index page. The result was that our bird-related posts became the dominant items appearing there. I felt it was a good compromise.
Well, as it turned out, one of our senior members became somewhat disturbed since the Games section posts were dominating the search query returns (i.e., the recent activity pages called up by the 'Posts From Last Day' and 'Posts Since Last Visit' links on the navigation bar). I thus made a second effort to mitigate the problem. I implemented permission-based, member-selectable access to the Games section. This solution seemed acceptable to everyone at first. Perhaps it even continued as such... I'm really not sure. But for whatever reason, things continued to deteriorate. In fact, the Games section seems all but abandoned now. My guess is that's because the aforementioned prolific new member has opted to mostly avoid our website. When he's not here, apparently none of his friends feel as comfortable posting and enjoying the games and other resources we have to offer. I suspect they have other venues with which to gather and conduct their social interactions.
It's somewhat ironic that the member I speak of had some great enhancement ideas for PP which he shared with me, some of which I implemented as a result. Unfortunately, he felt that several of our longstanding regular members didn't appreciate his vision and effort to help modernize this forum community. His view in this regard was based upon their avoidance of the new features and, I think, perhaps upon some less than favorable remarks concerning the utilization of said new features. This is a perfect example of how it's really impossible to please everyone as well as how conflicting opinions about certain trivial matters can transform into actions that are harmful to a community like PP.
I am also under the impression that the aforementioned new member may have begun to feel that some of our older members were not interested enough in his posts and content, and I think he may have taken offense from that perception.
So, what can actually be done to mitigate animosity in a situation like the one I've described involving a small online community like ours? As the owner/administrator of this website, if I embrace one side, the other side may well become offended and angry. And if I do nothing, I'm probably going to be blamed for not taking any action. So in either case I stand to injure feelings and lose some members.
And therein lies one thing that I truly dislike about operating a forum community. People are repeatedly going to become angry with one another and go somewhere else. As I've stated before, that's because different folks have different likes, values, and perceptions. Once a person becomes angry, he or she often refuses to empathize with the other side. And that typically precludes any pursuit of a compromise.
It's difficult to merely keep a low-volume forum site like PP reasonably active and enjoyable enough to be worth maintaining. And please know that I have enough of my own serious personal problems at present to make me wonder why I even bother with the complications here. The situations that transpire on this website involving members who get their noses out of joint over other members not behaving the way they would like them to behave are far from serious enough to be compared to the huge life and health problems that emerge in each of our lives from time to time. I'm here to say that I really get feeling burned out from trying to be friendly to everyone after being repeatedly slapped in the face for circumstances beyond my control. I think it's a rather ugly side of human nature.
Now I'm sure that each of you has your opinion as to whether I should have publicly posted about this matter. I'm guessing that some of you may feel that I should have handled the situation in a different way or simply ignored it. Well, to those folks I'll just say that I created this particular subforum, 'Controversial Topics', for members to air their complaints. That's what it's for! And that's just what I'm doing now! I believe in speaking my mind and I support others who do the same. At times I think that my venting may keep me from engaging in conduct that's much worse.
So there you have it... another of my rants!
So what happened? This member and his friends began to post among our various forums and all seemed well. They also developed a rapid affinity for our Games section. The member and his friends initially seemed to be enjoying our community. At one point, one of those friends approached me via private message and explained that she was concerned because the 'Recently Active Forum Threads' sideblock display was virtually dominated by posts from the Games section. She said she thought that this may be deterring new users from joining our community. It was nice to hear from a member who was clearly concerned about the well-being of PP. And her point was indeed valid! So I created a quick workaround that filtered the Games posts from the sideblock display. This workaround did not keep our members from viewing the Games section activity within search queries or on the Top Stats display; it only removed the up front display of Games section posts from the index page. The result was that our bird-related posts became the dominant items appearing there. I felt it was a good compromise.
Well, as it turned out, one of our senior members became somewhat disturbed since the Games section posts were dominating the search query returns (i.e., the recent activity pages called up by the 'Posts From Last Day' and 'Posts Since Last Visit' links on the navigation bar). I thus made a second effort to mitigate the problem. I implemented permission-based, member-selectable access to the Games section. This solution seemed acceptable to everyone at first. Perhaps it even continued as such... I'm really not sure. But for whatever reason, things continued to deteriorate. In fact, the Games section seems all but abandoned now. My guess is that's because the aforementioned prolific new member has opted to mostly avoid our website. When he's not here, apparently none of his friends feel as comfortable posting and enjoying the games and other resources we have to offer. I suspect they have other venues with which to gather and conduct their social interactions.
It's somewhat ironic that the member I speak of had some great enhancement ideas for PP which he shared with me, some of which I implemented as a result. Unfortunately, he felt that several of our longstanding regular members didn't appreciate his vision and effort to help modernize this forum community. His view in this regard was based upon their avoidance of the new features and, I think, perhaps upon some less than favorable remarks concerning the utilization of said new features. This is a perfect example of how it's really impossible to please everyone as well as how conflicting opinions about certain trivial matters can transform into actions that are harmful to a community like PP.
I am also under the impression that the aforementioned new member may have begun to feel that some of our older members were not interested enough in his posts and content, and I think he may have taken offense from that perception.
So, what can actually be done to mitigate animosity in a situation like the one I've described involving a small online community like ours? As the owner/administrator of this website, if I embrace one side, the other side may well become offended and angry. And if I do nothing, I'm probably going to be blamed for not taking any action. So in either case I stand to injure feelings and lose some members.
And therein lies one thing that I truly dislike about operating a forum community. People are repeatedly going to become angry with one another and go somewhere else. As I've stated before, that's because different folks have different likes, values, and perceptions. Once a person becomes angry, he or she often refuses to empathize with the other side. And that typically precludes any pursuit of a compromise.
It's difficult to merely keep a low-volume forum site like PP reasonably active and enjoyable enough to be worth maintaining. And please know that I have enough of my own serious personal problems at present to make me wonder why I even bother with the complications here. The situations that transpire on this website involving members who get their noses out of joint over other members not behaving the way they would like them to behave are far from serious enough to be compared to the huge life and health problems that emerge in each of our lives from time to time. I'm here to say that I really get feeling burned out from trying to be friendly to everyone after being repeatedly slapped in the face for circumstances beyond my control. I think it's a rather ugly side of human nature.
Now I'm sure that each of you has your opinion as to whether I should have publicly posted about this matter. I'm guessing that some of you may feel that I should have handled the situation in a different way or simply ignored it. Well, to those folks I'll just say that I created this particular subforum, 'Controversial Topics', for members to air their complaints. That's what it's for! And that's just what I'm doing now! I believe in speaking my mind and I support others who do the same. At times I think that my venting may keep me from engaging in conduct that's much worse.
So there you have it... another of my rants!