Posted by ClearSkies on January 20, 2008, at 8:33:48
In reply to What happened???, posted by muffled on January 19, 2008, at 13:53:03
I think that what I've seen since I've been posting, (that would be 2003) is a dynamic change in the population, as people come and go in the community. Some of us stay and have been distraught at the comings (not usually) and goings (most often) of the posters. The longer I'm here the more I see a pattern of the people who remain throughout those changes, noticing them, remarking on them, and grieving those changes. I think it's natural and normal to have these changes happen, and also to be upset by them.
The other thing that has happened has been an evolution of the guidelines, which, overwhelmingly (to me) has had a positive influence on how the boards run. If you take a look back in the archives to 2003 I think you see maybe more flaming going on, more people being hurt unintentionally by flying debris of escalating threads, as passions rose. This has almost entirely disappeared with the implementation of the "notification" button, which took all the complaints, and most of the resolutions, off the boards altogether.
It makes for a quieter place.
I personally don't do a lot of communication via babblemail, by choice. Same with chat, where I've had some unfortunate experiences. The more private the communication vector, the greater the risk for miscommunication, perhaps? And so, the change there has been in how I've decided to communicate with others here, which is mostly by posting. And at any time, if someone has chosen to take their communication with me to that less visible place (chat or babblemail), it's entirely MY choice to say, "I'm not comfortable with this." And I quite often do. Either by leaving the chat room, or by not replying to b-mails.
But mostly, I see babble as an organic place, always changing, always growing, never static. That's one of the things that I actually love about it; that it's not just black words on a vanilla screen. So we can mourn the changes we see here, or we can embrace them.
That's my take on it, anyway.
poster:ClearSkies
thread:807691
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080114/msgs/807889.html