--- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > We reached a consensus on the excessive posting issue and > all but a few rebels have appreciated and adhered to the > guideline. How about if we reach a similar consensus > regarding abusive language? I'd like to hear some feedback > on how people feel about this sort of behavior, either > observing it in others, being the brunt of it, or even > dishing it out? Do you actually feel better after verbally > abusing someone, or does it leave you feeling polluted? If > I were to mandate behavioral guidelines, it would violate > the democratic, community spirit I've tried to establish > on FFL. But if we can collectively agree upon some basic > standards of respect and decency, perhaps we'll all feel > motivated to live up to them. Also, I won't be playing the > "heavy" if I have to ban someone for a week for violating > something we have all agreed to.
I'll weigh in on this one, gladly. This little break I just took from FFL taught me a lot. I was moving, and thus didn't have much time *to* read things here, so I got more discrim- inative about it. Because I like to read posts in the order in which they are made, not in threads, I still like reading via the Web reader. But now I go straight to the 'Messages' page, and just scan down the list. And I find myself, after two years or so here, "voting" not only with my Next key but by never clicking on many messages in the first place. There are about six posters here whom I have learned I will *never* hear anything useful from. So why bother? There are another six whom I read every word they write. The rest I just scan the first few lines and see if it's about a subject that interests me and then react accordingly. As a result, my FFL reading experience now takes me about five or ten minutes to complete. No muss, no fuss, and no more getting lured into draining discussions with vibe vampires who are cruising for attention. As for the issue of "bad language," as a writer I plead guilty to using it *intentionally* from time to time to create a kind of Tantric cognitive dis- sonance in the reader. For example, in the middle of a glowing passage about some cool spiritual exper- ience I'll throw in the adjective fuckin'. There is a very real purpose in my doing this; the word is NOT incompatible with the experience, and only the belief that it IS somehow incompatible with higher spiritual experience is IMO one of the reasons that a lot of people aren't *having* higher experiences. They have convinced themselves that some things and some words are incompatible with enlightenment. Well, nothing is, as far as I can tell. As for the "offending Subject header" that someone was wailing about here, it was *clearly* a joke, a reference to the olde Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Ackroyd and "Jane, you ignorant slut" bantering back and forth. To pretend to be uptight about that is IMO to prove once and for all that one either has no sense of humor or one is able to pretend not to have one *for the express purpose of dumping on someone*. The latter is the real issue. Some people use this forum and the other posters on it the way they'd use a punching bag, as a release for their tensions, their stress, their frustrations in life, and their general level of unhappiness and unfulfilment. These people are in PAIN, man. It just *reeks* off of them. And while part of me can feel compassion for someone who has to live with that level of PAIN, another part of me resents their attempts at self-medication by spreading the PAIN around and trying to make other people feel it, too. There are people here who seemingly LIVE to make others feel their PAIN. Who CARES what language they use when doing it? It's the INTENT that is the issue, not whether they do it in flamboyant Oscar Wilde prose or gutter language. These peoples' intent is to HURT, to make someone else feel bad -- about themselves, about their actions and thoughts and opinions, about everything. It's just the clearest and most obvious INTENT I've ever come across, especially when the behavior is repeated for weeks and months and years and in some cases, decades. That is just what these people DO. It appears to be all that they CAN do, because the people who do it the most often *also* rarely contribute anything original or creative themselves. Hurting people is their form *of* creativity and self expression. I'm tired of it. I'm voting with my discrimination and my Next key. I would *not* advise any form of "moral guidelines" here, because they would be subjec- tive and by definition imposed upon those who don't agree with them, and they would force Rick or the other moderators to become "cops." I would not wish that on them. The easiest way -- and in my opinion the most effec- tive way -- to deal with people whose language or whose intent or whose actions or opinions piss you off is to IGNORE THEM. If they've established a history of getting under your skin, JUST DON'T LET THEM. It's effective, and more than that, as a strategy it also falls into the category of "Living well is the best revenge." One way or another, the chronic abusers of others here are all seeking one thing, attention. *Not giving it to them* is the thing that bothers them most, and bothers them the most. Just *watch* how they react when someone publicly announces that they're not reading their posts any more if you don't believe me -- they go ballistic, and redouble their insults and their attempts to get them *to* reply, and thus feed their attention addiction. Just don't do it. Be MEAN, just as mean as these assholes are, and deprive them of the thing they want most -- attention. It'll be better for your state of attention, and in the long run it'll be better for theirs as well. The longer we get into the head-to-head conflicts that some are trolling for here, the longer we prolong behavior that is causing them to *devolve*. Ignoring them, not feeding the behavior, is actually a favor to them because it keeps them from repeating hurtful behavior that is going to leave them less evolved at the end of their lives than they were when they entered it. Just my opinion, of course. And equally of course, if anyone feels that *I* should be ignored, go for it.
