I want everyone to know, I spent a great deal of time deliberating about whether I should make this post. However, the double-standard I have complained about in the past is so obviously occuring right now, that I feel I must point it out.
Earlier this week, Holby was very upset at something that happened on the board. His subsequent actions have caused what can ONLY be described as a board-wide disruption, many of which he has played a large part in, in the past. No less than 5 threads have been split off or started to deal with this (yes, some were jokes, but at least one didn't stay a joke). Holby has stated quite clearly that he won't let this kind of thing keep happening (although, it's obvious that this kind of thing specifically almost never happens, so I'm not clear what he is referring to.), so he's "not going to let this go."
I also personally think Holby has said some pretty nasty things to a couple of people.
Now, it's quite true, that I have serious personal issues with Holby, and I started this post with the idea of just saying "a poster" or something like that, but that's just silly, as I am talking about a specific poster. However, I want to stress that I am not trying to single out Holby in this case. I only reference him because he is the center of this disruption.
Besides, he's not the only cause of this disruption... he only started one thread, the rest were started by others.
The last board-wide disruption, was caused by me. I won't dispute that, although I still maintain that I was reacting to unfair treatment that I wasn't going to take any more and I was "not going to let it go." Still, making it board-wide was my fault. I should have done it differently. How, I'm not sure, as at the time, I felt I had no options, but anyway...
To get back on point, here we have a board-wide disruption, that has been caused by several people. Everyone is calling it "drama" Some people are very upset about it all. It has personally caused me a great deal of grief off the board.
And yet... is it the people that started this board-wide disruption that are being blamed for it? No, it's the people that argued it shouldn't be a big huge issue. IT's the people in the minority, who feel that making a big deal out of it, is what leads to board-wide problems and pissed off people. IT's backwards.
Why is it that way? Because people like Holby. They wish he was around more. I'm pretty sure they wish he would show up when there was NOT drama going on more often.
Some of these same people dislike me. And when I had a problem, it was all about blaming everything on me (which some have even tried to do in this bit of drama), and they added to the drama then, and helped make what shouldn't have even been an issue into board-wide drama.
We have people on this board that don't like each other. This is not at all abnormal. In any group of people some aren't going to like each other. THIS is what causes drama. Everyone jumps in on a side, and suddenly there's board-wide disruption. It's not one person (ie. me). It's not one small group. IT's not people seeking attention or acting like children.
It's just US. This is Board77. This is a community that likes to argue. We like to debate. We like to help our friends. We're good people, and good people like to stay together, even when they violently disagree.
So what's the problem? We've forgotten that. We've forgotten that the people we seem to always disagree with are good people too. We ALL have. We've all got people in little boxes where we know how react to them in a standard way. Hal is the drama-maker. Holby is the jokester who likes to post pictures of scantily clad women. Ang is the monkey.
Labels cause us to forget there's a person on the other side. It's a problem in real life, but it's an even bigger problem on the internet. We're not even talking heads... we're posts on a board, where we're practically hiding the fact we are people ourselves.
Labels aren't fair. I've had serious problems with a lot of people around here because all they see is the label that's been (I think unfairly obviously) applied to me. I tried to get people to see that label a couple of months ago, in the hope that seeing the label, would force people I know are good people, to re-evaluate their use of that label. However, it did not work.
If you label someone a troublemaker, and don't let them get away from that label. And every time they disagree, you (collectively as a board) say they are just trying to make trouble... that hurts. If that's not a persistant set of harrassment over a long period of time... I don't know what is. But who am I supposed to say needs a hearing? The whole board?