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I'm noticing that my posting style has become more restrained, and my courtesy improved
This is obviously good in its own way, but it's weird seeing that I've grown so much since I first joined TVTropes.
Comments
I don't even remember how I posted when I was a TV Tropes!IJBM regular. Lots of shitposting and caps, I think.
If anything, I've gotten less mature and more of a shitposting smartass, so yeah.
I can see that I'm definitely a better poster from my GameFAQs/Comic Book Resources days.
Low bar there, but still.
I think we've all grown substantially over the IJBM2.0 period. While we'll a small, insular community, I think we've also established a kind of organic social regulation. In a forum as big as TV Tropes, you can no doubt find a handful of people that will reward any kind of behaviour with positive attention; here, among the two dozen or so of us, we have narrower standards -- and not only because we're a smaller community where there's no such thing as a powerful individual.
It's been a rocky ride, hasn't it? I only joined in the middle of last year (or thereabouts) and I can remember dozens of dramatic incidents. Between Chagen's disruptions, Vorpy's genuinely wonderful trolling, page-dominating forum fads and the like, there's been a lot of periods where we've all had the same experiences in the same context. And the thing is that we wrote them down in Drama Chronicles, discussed them, tried to reach some kind of mutually agreeable alteration to the rules and discussed what was acceptable behaviour.
One thing I really like about IJBM2.0 is that we're a microcosm of a democracy. Around here, the staff isn't some kind of "other" group -- just other members that happen to help run the place. Kind of like if every staff member were Bobby or Morven back at TV Tropes. We're under good leadership in that our staff make level-headed calls, but I think we also owe ourselves some praise for collectively contributing to a forum, albeit small, that has this kind of easy atmosphere while retaining the capacity to have serious discussion. Controversy here is more likely to be even-mindedly discussed than turn into an actual argument; there are a minimum of personal insults; everyone here is sympathetic to the struggles of everyone else.
That kind of thing can't be enforced. To have a forum like this requires the cooperation of pretty much every member and that's where we are right now. Truth be told, I miss some stuff about old IJBM2.0. Mostly, I miss Vorpy's intelligent bullshit trolling, but I also miss the Chagen drama, the way this placed used to take problem users from TV Tropes and more. But IJBM2.0 today is much more intelligent and open, and much stronger for it. Given a choice, I'd choose IJBM as it stands over any old iteration, including IJBM as it was on TV Tropes.
This is honestly the strongest example of a small forum I've ever seen, and I've been an internet user for fourteen years. As small as this place is, I think we can honestly say it's ultimately come to a success. TV Tropes might have been the common thread, but we're very much our own community with our own community standards these days and much better for it.
Good that some of us have become more courteous (glares inward).
"but I also miss the Chagen drama"
Maybe just a little for me. Without him, the forum has become more boring, albeit in a "This peace is what all true warriors strive for!" way.
I need to learn how to do this.
I... am the same as I've ever been?
At least, I don't think I've changed much in posting style and whatnot in the past couple years.
Other than the fact that I sometimes used to actually start threads and I apparently don't do that anymore.
I have to admit that I miss the Chagen drama, too, in a way. But eh.
I also miss Vorpy, not gonna lie.
The drama-hounds made the place a lot more active, but I'm still glad they're gone.
I sort of miss Chagen too, he was too over-the-top terrible for me to react to with anything other than amusement.
As for posting habits, I don't think I've really changed that much. Then again that's not something I'd probably notice, and none of you guys really knew me from the early days of TvTropes.
I tend to jump all over the place depending on where my life is, really. --shrug--
I kinda like being inconsistent, even if in a sort of way, I am pretty consistent.
I think a lot of us have our posting styles negatively affected by depression.
I think I've matured. I certainly shitpost less here (although I really couldn't resist that Slowpoke thread yesterday)
I haven't noticed much change in my behaviour, either. Well, I know I used to joke about coming off as creepy on TV Tropes more often (you can guess why that's changed), and for the most part I've actually started threads here (though not anymore).
I don't think these differences will be noticeable except on longer timescales, of several years. I think back to the stupid things I did on internet forums in my past, but significant change isn't apparent unless I look a few years back at least.
> IJBM 2.0
This is 2.1 btw :P
I'll retreat the point if contradicted enough, but I think I've observed a strong degree of change in a reasonably short amount of time. Myself included.
I would prefer it if Chagen never came back. I never even saw him and I know he's horrible. No idea who Vorpy is.
I know I've changed a hell of a lot, even in just a year's time. By which I mean I've outgrown the woefully out-of-character, emote-spamming, text-coloring persona that I adopted in the Jammies thread. And I've learned to stay my tongue when I think someone's being stupid (not that that happens much around here anymore).
I'd be kind of curious what people thought of Metalhead467!Forzare back in the day. Or if people even noticed me, I don't think I actually posted that much.
^^^ Chagen had a lot of issues, but the chief one was that he would get set off by anything. Extremely emotionally reactive. This was compounded by how he took his subjective opinions as objective fact, plus his tendency to contradict himself. Basically, there was no way not to have drama when Chagen was around. Plenty of us tried to help him, but he just wouldn't have it.
Vorpy was someone who could go from intelligent discussion to trolling in a heartbeat, or even mix the two things. She was a great source of humour and perceptive to boot. On the other hand, she also linked to a Google search for child porn, which pretty much meant we had to ban her. Pretty much everyone wants her back, but we can't bend the rules for that.
So was she a legit pedophile or linking to child porn "ironically" like the other guy?
^^ Don't forget about his insistence on mentioning his fetishes (which were often considered disgusting or creepy by the rest of us) and getting up in arms when we called him out on sharing things we didn't want him sharing. And incessantly bringing up his issues with his parents and how he couldn't leave them, in spite of what he considered to be abuse, because they bought him stuff. Which is not to say that he didn't (or perhaps, doesn't; I doubt he's come so far as to get rid of all his problems in half a year) have legitimate issues; he was just unpleasant all around.
^ She's the one who started the brief-but-unfortunate trend of linking to child porn. She meant it as a joke that even she admitted was in bad taste, but we still couldn't just let it go. Then another dude decided he was bored and knew doing the same thing would get him banned (which it did). Then the guy you're thinking of flounced, giving a hateful farewell capped off by the Google link.
"I would prefer it if Chagen never came back. I never even saw him and I know he's horrible."
If you know that just from second-hand information, imagine what it was like for us to put up with him. The worst part was that we couldn't ignore him because he loudly made his presence known everywhere.
On the plus side, being forced to put up with him for months made us all learn the error of our moderating ways and that no negativity wasn't going to cut it with people like him around.
She didn't actually link to child porn. It was a link to a "Let me google that for you". Not quite as bad, but still pretty low.
Oh, there is, don't get me wrong. Your posts are even longer. >:[
And we're not the only ones who had to put up with him. Chagen has an account on many other internet forums, and is even a minor internet meme.
I sometimes wonder if Chagen is Anonymous. It'd actually explain a lot, really.
...I wonder. If, in theory, Vorpy made another account and we all knew 100% it was her, but she never explicitly stated that it was her, would the mods have to ban her for ban evading?
^^ I still feel a bit bad for him
Honestly, were that to happen, I'd probably not give enough of a fuck to ban her for that.