Have the SL forums become dysfunctional?

Yes, but he has played both with equal aplomb. The sycophant thing has been more recent, and backfired - the stirring of the pot has gone on for awhile.

We are on target - part of what has made it dysfunctional is the intentional disruption of threads for no purpose other than to derail them for sport.

Cristiano, while I have to admit there have been a couple of posts here and there which were for more enjoyment then content, I am hardly the only one guilty of this.

Also, reading the motives of people is a trick Prok likes to play. How about we leave that out of the discussion.

on target:

i wanted to vote, but find i can't. it seems ages ago i personally relegated the forums to a non-serious role in my sl. i think when people started declaring themselves forum celebrities because they posted thousands of times, i lost any idea that things can be seriously discussed here.

i recall a period of time when there was not a general category in the forums and everyone chose a topic and posted this stuff there. so this type of category is going to occur whether there is a formally named general topic forum or not.

as to the observation that things are more mean spirited now than in the past?? uhmmm...
some of you have short memories.

someone else mentioned this earlier, and i find it very true. unless i speak with the poster themselves in game, when i try to talk about something on the forums with another person in game, i get a blank stare, and this "forum??" look. the forums really just dont represent a large swath of the community at all.

so sayeth:

marilyn

I haven't been on the forums nearly as much as I used to ...

I find that I'm just not interested in getting into a shouting match with people. I also find that many more of the "non forum-posters" have been getting into posting in the forums -- NOT that it is a bad thing, mind you, but add more people into the mix and you've always got a little elbow-shoving.

There has been an influx of new posters. Has anyone else noticed that? I am relatively new compared to some of the posters on the forums, but it seems that lately there have been more and more newish people joining in the fray. I wonder if it is because more people have been saying, "Check the forums," or "Ask people on the forums," or if it's simply because SL is getting bigger.

The forums are a pulse-botton of Second Life. They offer a great deal of perspective into the SL community (and I use the term loosely).

However, are they dysfunctional? No ... I don't think so. The technical forums are still reasonably helpful. And the Classifieds section gets a lot of traffic. Is it merely because of Prok's sheer persistence, and Blake's sympathetic views with Prok, that you ask this question, Aimee? When did the last person rock SL's world? Was it Anshe? Was it Torley? FIC is such a common term now.

No ... I think the forums are just experiencing a VERY loud trend.

Actually, other than one person, I really think the general politness of things have improved very signficantly.

Perhaps because that one person held up a mirror the community and they didn't like what they saw, so they cleaned up their act quite a bit.

Blaze,

When part of the issue at hand is the purposeful destruction of threads for pleasure, the topic is germaine. You yourself have admitted now in multiple threads that you have at times done that. You are nowhere close to doing it in the relentless, mean spirited way that Prokofy does, but the topic of behavior is relevant, because it is that very behavior that is causing the dysfunction.

Y'all are spellin' it wrong. Its spelled "sociopath".

"One who is affected with a personality disorder marked by antisocial behavior."

I done looked it up on the internet. Sycophant means:

"A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people"

I just don't anybody like that around here.

I think you spelled shit-stirrer all right though.

I couldn't really vote in the poll, because I've only been around for 6 months, and didn't start reading the forum posts regularly right away, so I don't have a good basis of comparison. But I agree with Aru Opel. I get a lot of benefit from the other discussion areas (particularly New Features, Scripting Tips, etc), but I rarely look at General (or Land & Economy, for that matter). For example, today I only glanced in because this thread happened to be in the "newest post" spot, so I thought I'd check it out. Too bad, as General ought to have been a good place to kick around new ideas, but not the way it is now.

On the other hand, if there were no "General" forum, the junk would probably just show up everywhere else, so maybe it's good to have a place you know to avoid....

neko

Buster,

I originally referred to Blaze as an incendiary sycophant when he was contorting himself in every direction to be a spokesperson for Prokofy, prior to Prokofy casting him aside as damaged goods because he doesn't stay in lock step with the party line. The word as chosen very carefully.

*pout* No option for poooooork and bean. PORKANDBEANS!

In nearly 2 years of reading SL forum posts, I have noticed that certain hot button topics come up, generate lots of posts, then fade away. Next we go through a brief quiet time, then the next big thing.

Controversial posters come and go. I guess they either get bored or give up on the forums. Things die down, then a new self important, egotistical forum whiner rises.

The topics change, the players change and the cycle continues. A year from now, a new crop of forum whiners will be in place. Trust me, I've seen this all before.

can any one say dysfunctional comic book or live Soap Opera lol ...
that how i see most of the forums ... to funny beyond words ... lol i laugh at you all your just too silly thanks for making me laugh every day when i read the forums

we are all a silly bunch of coconuts ........

I second that notion, Zephria, about the coconuts, lol.

Now, to be serious - I couldn't vote on this poll because I have been here only two months. I came in to find people burning my friend Prok at the stake, and now they're trying to run him out of town on a rail.

Very disconcerting. Apparently Blaze here has been portraying two people, pretending to think one thing while actually thinking the other, as the mood struck him, I guess to fool Prok, maybe to fool you, maybe as some intellectual exercise - I just don't know. Whoever he is, I liked him, but I know I don't trust him any more. And I still don't know who he is. I guess he's not brave enough to be who he is.

But, here is what I would like to say. While you are so very busy blaming every ill in the universe on Prok (and giving Blaze a free pass, as not being as "mean-spirited", why don't you think of some of the REAL harm that gets done around here.

I realize it has been most horribly painful for all of you to have to listen to Prok, but you know, you are reacting as a group, against one person. How about some of the pain inflicted on other individuals, on purpose, cruelly, for no reason other than to punish them for not going along with the crowd?

I speak, of course, of the misery of being accused of being an alt of someone else. A NEW person constantly assumed to be an alt of someone else, no less. In addition to just generally being treated harshly for whatever opinion I might profer. And we all know why.

How come it is that you aren't as concerned about that as you are about protecting your ears from words you don't want to hear - when you could easily skim over them? How come Blaze gets to actually BE an alt, but no one has said one word of apology to me for accusing me of being one when I'm not? It just isn't important, is it?

You take every word Prok says awfully personally, but you don't really care if some new player gets raked over the coals and slandered and libeled. That just passes under your radar, I suppose.

When you are talking about making the forums a better place, how come nobody mentions that?

If you ask me, that's a FAR worse problem with these forums. But - I suppose I have "deserved" it, because I dared to say Prok is nice. Right? I believe that IS the way it works in grade school.

So while you are busy "cleaning up the forums" and providing a "better community spirit" or whatever the heck you are doing, give a thought to how you yourselves treat other posters, including Prok, and most especially, the new players posting. Ones like me, who actually say what they think, whether or not it is the popular thing to say. And the ones who run in to pipe up that they agree, then run out before they can get flamed to cinders. What about them?

Now I don't really care what Blaze did, and ordinarily it would just roll off my shoulders as not very important at all. But when I compare that to my own treatment - and your welcoming him back into the fold - and your "shunning" of Prok - well, then I know there IS a fold, and it ain't nearly as nice and sweet as you apparently think it is.

So says this outsider.

coco

And that, Coco, is precisely what I was trying to say.

And I agree with Prok about certain things and not about others. He is like everyone else around here, imperfect.

Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong.

As for not publically agreeing with him anymore - what choice do I have? The forums have spoken.

I am to be shunned unless I turn Prok in.

Cocoanut,

While I cannot speak for anyone else but myself, I know from my own experience of reading your posts, and of seeing you and Prokofy both online at the same time, I did not seriously believe you were one and the same. Are there some major similarities? Certainly, but I find your posts to generally be genuine, concise, pleasant, and grounded in serious thought. It is why I have been responding to them. I am sorry that you got caught up in being accused of being an alt.

As for why Blaze is being given a free pass, I don't think that he is at all, it's just that overall it has been small. His little flare up of late has been minor compared to months of relentless abuse hurled at people by Prokofy in thread after thread after thread. Whatever valid points there may be under all that hyperbole, it is lost by the sheer volume and tone of everything. Nothing is ever constructive, it is always destructive - it is always about privilege and collusion and SL being like Soviet Russia and labelling people and trying to divide them. The end result is people have actually become closer to one another, and just tuned out Prokofy altogether. Prokofy does not want to be part of this community - you can't be a part of it and be critical in the way he needs to be critical, for whatever reason.

Blaze has a genuine love for SL, he just needs to stir things up it seems. Blaze has done his mea culpa, and time will tell if it makes any difference or if it will just be more of the same. However, I hope that whatever problems you have faced are finally over. You certainly won't get any hostility from me, I have been impressed with your posts, even when I have disagreed with some of them.

Blaze,

This post shows that you really don't get it. It seemed that you were starting to, but your signature, and the last line of your post there shows you are just towing the line. That is a shame, because you do have a lot to offer.

tl;dr

Cristiano, I think you need to take a page out of Soviet Russia and have some literature professors convene a concilium or panel. They could tackly an analysis of my many pages and see if they really do those awful things you say they do.

I think if I sat down and made a clipping book of my posts and whatever sharp critiques I've administered, and pasted them side-by-side with all the really vituperative and horrible slams on my person, it would be a hands-down, no-brainer that I'm not that thing you think I am.

blaze, where are you going to "turn me in" *to*? For...what...exactly?

LMAO Teeny, does this mean I need to keep the buckets of Chum available for the new school of whiners enroute?((hugs))

With the arrival of the first "chum" reference I would like to thank you all for participating in this thead This gives us a good feel for the state of the forums leading us to the next step, reform.

Please take your valuable ideas to the following thead:

/120/7b/44410/1.html

Uh Aimee Gee now I will never get rid of these damn buckets....

Chum frappes? I'll have one!

I would make you one but someone stole the Propane with the Yacht that was free to copy so ...Kinda without fire right now...LOL

I would say the General and perhaps Land & Economy sections of the forums are a mess, largely because of the actions of a few self-important folks and trolls.

I still skim the forums so as to catch warning about permission bugs and hopefully good news about my friends, but reading them with the frequency or depth that I used to is both a waste of time and detremental to my good temper.

The forums have taught me one thing in the past few months. Save your breath. Trying to reason with an asshole only excites them and annoys you.