I would like to fully support dlonie (tbh since maha has disappeared I couldn’t find anyone I enjoyed so much to read each time) about how the dungeon community behaves sometimes.
Aww, thanks. I wasn’t sure if I’d end up getting flamed out of existence for my posts over the last few days, but it sounds like there are a lot of us who were sick of the treatment ‘outsiders’ would get here.
The rest of your post made some good points. It’s usually the same…maybe 10 (?) of us that actually ever post in here, and it’s pretty easy to feel like no one else is reading it. I’d like to see more lurkers start contributing to discussions, though it’s not always easy to jump into conversations here, especially if you don’t have a thick skin or follow the herd.
EU Player here and I’d understand said emoticon exactly as you would. But there’s one thing to keep in mind- it might be valid to say “we in the US”, but EU =/= EU. There are more or less big cultural differences between european countries, so I won’t claim to speak for every EU player. E. g. someone from portugal might interpret one of your sentences differently than someone from finland.
TBH, it’s not really fair for me to do the same about the US. Having lived in the rural south and the progressive northeast…let’s just say there are some very stark cultural differences between the two. I love New York
As we can see, some people just get annoyed or mad quite quickly. Is this something bad? Not necessary, it is in their personality. Add to this the fact that they are aware of this and apologizing and this is why I have faith in Us as a community.
And honestly, most of us have tolerated this sort of behavior for a long, long time. I don’t know if we’ll ever change it, though I’d love to see this subforum earn a friendly reputation. But I can’t completely blame the people who get hostile — most of us have been watching that stuff happen for years without stepping in and trying to bring any reason.
There are bingo threads, and then there are decent people trying to get answers or find help. I honestly don’t mind seeing bingo threads blow up — especially when the OPs initiate the hostility or are refusing to discuss things maturely. Gloves are off at that point!
But we do often to react to any non-meta post as a bingo thread, and that’s a piece of the problem that would be easy for us to fix. I have tried to step in and defend a poster when I see this happen, but a lot of times it just feels futile. The trick is to do it without trying to shame anyone who might have been lighting fuses, and just point out that an OP hadn’t really done anything wrong and might have just needed a bit of guidance. Otherwise it’s just throwing fuel on the fire (which I fully admit to doing at points in the healing guard thread… :P I’m not above anyone!).
Best kitten ever :P
During the course of change, I find a lot of topics have become quite disagreeable to me, but I’m not going miles to wage wars and fight for my own justice. However, if there are posts which respectfully deserve attention yet buried in tons of ill-willed, snarky, raging, trolling, passive-aggressive replies, I’ll come to their defense and empower them – for Lilith’s share, too.
Last but not least, I am far from a part of this dungeon and fractal community. I’m happy as an outlier, I speak for myself and for my casual friends who never ever post here and I wholeheartedly support people who come to learn.
I think just a handful of people doing this can help turn things around. It’s worth a shot, anyway. +1
Back in university, my prof would often include emoticons in his replies to my text/emails and sticky notes.
Similarly, I got in the habit of over-using smilies when I was an online tutor during undergrad. Having to constantly tell people over chat that they’re doing something wrong….one learns to do everything they can to soften the blow, else you end up wasting a lot of time waiting for them to fix up their pride and start paying attention again. Apparently I’d just be kittening people off by doing that if they were from elsewhere in the world, lol.
I live in Norway, and the fact that you experience emoticons in a complete other way does make sense to me. I’ve heard from several Americans living in Norway how unwelcoming and unsocial we can seem. Prime example is people sitting on the bus, people will go out of their way to not have to sit with a complete stranger and having to engage in a conversation.
I honestly think it might derive from the law of jante which is still situated in Norway after quite a long time.
The law of jante for those unaware.
Good stuff! This kind of information is always interesting. I’d not heard of the law of Jante before, and it sounds quite soul-crushing, tbh. The tone of the wikipedia article made it sound like most Norwegians dislike the concept, and it reminds me of some of the harsher socialist ideologies. I can see how that would tint a culture’s interpretations of social interactions compared to a more individualistic community.
As for sitting on the bus, I dislike social interactions with strangers in general, though there are people over here who feel the need to make small talk with everyone they meet. There’s a mix over here of outgoing people who want to talk to everyone, and the rest of us who wish they’d just leave us alone, heh.
I’m german, I’m not gonna claim generalizations about my people. What I will say is that we/I generally enjoy more direct and blunt forms of communication, and as such, to give my take on the topic we all keep talking about, an in my eyes (read this) passive aggressive sentence full with falsehood and ending in a wink might be considered a taunt.
I answered in bluntness, which may likely have been unappropriate, but that’s how we roll, you know.
Reminds me of a german chemist I knew. He told me a story about going through a checkout line at a store in the US and being a little freaked out by the cashier asking “How are you today?”. While we brush these off as meaningless small talk (we just say “fine” and that’s the end of it — you never actually give a real answer in these situations) he felt it was intrusive for a stranger to ask about something personal like that. Unexpected things happen when cultures collide
For the love of Melandru, I really need to stop with these walls of text >.<
