Role-Playing & XJW Discussion Boards.

by hillary_step 89 Replies latest jw friends

  • Simon
    Simon

    I don't think some people are quite aware of how many silly games some people play. The exJW community seems to be riddled with a few hardcore idiots who have made disruption of forums their sole purpose in life (sad lives!). I guess they want to achieve "something" and this is all they can manage.

    Unfortunately, these "few" are very vocal and end up disrupting things for everyone else and try to get others involved in their games. Some take the easy way and join in, catering to their silly behaviour simply because they want to be popular.

    I really don't give a shit about being popular and will keep booting them off as they appear and reappear. They always show themselves up with the usual bleating.

    The forum is here for a purpose and will stay here for that purpose. Anyone who doesn't like that should not imagine that they have any sort of home here or are welcome.

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    LT,

    An online board may be "cyber" life, but nonetheless it forms a significant part of the lives of the participants. I hate seeing it demeaned, just because some don't hold that view.

    I can understand what you are saying. My premise though is that if an on-line board, where one cannot even hear the voice of the participant, let alone interact physically with them becomes 'significant' in a persons life, is there not some need for alarm.

    You mentioned in another thread that being offended if a person upsets you on a telephone call is similar to how one can offend another on an on-line discussion board, but it is very different. Vocal tones tell as story, digital words can often be, and are very often, misconstrued. A while ago someone wrote their own words to a popular song on this Board and it sounded so tortured I wrote to them. They then told me that it was a joke. I had completely misunderstood the tone, that would not have happened on a telephone call.

    Given these circumstances, getting too sensitive about what happens on these boards is not healthy. People often feel that I am angry in my posts, but they could not be further from the truth. Only one thing angers me, and that is when a persons privacy is compromised, or when someone is deliberately 'outed' with a view to harming them in their real life.'

    The rest is not worth the energy required for getting upset, or offended imho.

    Best regards - HS

  • Odrade
    Odrade

    Simon, I think the operative here is "some" people play. I think we are all quite aware that there are some people here and on other DBs who have the sole mission of getting people wound up. Some of them are just out and out trolls, trying to get a rise out of folks, some have a "cause" that they trot out to get others stirred up.

    (love the paragraphs:))

    But are they necessarily "role-playing?" which is the discussion here, mostly in the abstract I think. I know plenty of people in "real life" who seem to live for picking fights. That's the real personality. It's not an act.

    I really don't see where anyone was criticizing you in this thread for your handling of the players, unless I missed the whole point of this particular thread.

  • jeanniebeanz
    jeanniebeanz
    I don't think some people are quite aware of how many silly games some people play. The exJW community seems to be riddled with a few hardcore idiots who have made disruption of forums their sole purpose in life (sad lives!).

    Guess I never thought of *that* as much a role-playing game as a determination to have ones way despite the fact that it's not their call to make. More of a disruptive temper tantrum than a role-play, but I see the point...

    J

  • minimus
    minimus

    In real life we can and do---play roles. If these boards though, are not meant to be helpful to real people, the whole idea of this db is a joke. Certainly, there are those that are suspect as to their honesty. But I do think that most people are what they say they are. For example, if a man says he's currently an elder and does have doubts, I tend to believe him. But if someone says they were an elder but doesn't know what BOE means, they get caught. We have to be wary at times---whether we be in cyber-space, on the phone or person-to-person.

  • itsallgoodnow
    itsallgoodnow

    Yeah, it seems to me like most people on this discussion board are really just themselves, not showing off too much or trying to get lots of attention. Compared to another discussion boards (not JW related) I'm part of, where people gang up on you just to get noticed by their favorite forum celebrity, or the ridiculous bragging and personas that don't seem real, and the high-school-ish popularity contests, yeah it's pretty normal here. Mayber there's a teeny bit of that here too but it doesn't take over every thing, this forum is just way to big for that.

  • Simon
    Simon
    You mentioned in another thread that being offended if a person upsets you on a telephone call is similar to how one can offend another on an on-line discussion board, but it is very different. Vocal tones tell as story, digital words can often be, and are very often, misconstrued. A while ago someone wrote their own words to a popular song on this Board and it sounded so tortured I wrote to them. They then told me that it was a joke. I had completely misunderstood the tone, that would not have happened on a telephone call.

    The other difference is that the cowardly types who like to say such nasty things and act so tough on what are essentially anonymous forums would probably be less brave in real-life.

  • minimus
    minimus

    A lot of little man's complexes here.

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    How interesting.

    I for one think there is no such thing as a "true me". "I" am basically a fiction.

    As Jacques Brel put it in one of his songs,
    Jojo pretended he was Voltaire,
    Pierre pretended he was Casanova,
    I, the proudest of all, pretended I was myself.

    Every new relationship brings out from my face a somewhat new "mask," related to yet different from the others, with a part of unsuspected truth and lies. Fall in love and you'll feel changed. Get trapped in a messy relationship and you'll feel changed too. Relationships draw the best and the worst out of ourselves.

    As Jez put it, we sometimes get more true with an alias and an avatar on a db than we are in so-called "real life". There is a truth of carnival. Something like the "magical theatre" with its love and hate games in Der Steppenwolf (HS will get this one).

    Neither "ourselves" nor "the others" are to be taken too seriously imo. Of course some people come here with real problems and distress and can be either helped or hurt. Fortunately most of us try to help, not hurt, in such cases. Moderation is needed to avoid hurt as far as possible. But in many cases the persona game is part of the cure. Jmo.

  • SixofNine
    SixofNine

    Ah, I nu there was more 'ance to be had from Narkissos. ;)

    Fascinating discussion Hillary.

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