I am just me. I read at all sorts of places. I was registered at Dkos for a while, and now I am registered here. I am an older woman, I am English and British, I am Pro-choice, I am anti-capital punishment, I am mostly a Liberal-Democrat, I am loosely Pagan, I am a charity worker, I am a youth worker, I am a drugs worker, I am a mother, I am divorced, I am a dog owner, I am a cat owner, I am a car owner, I am a walker.
I am all of these things and may be considered to be part of a group in any of these categories. However, I am also an individual and may disagree with other individuals in those groupings on any number of issues. I will also behave differently from everyone else in any grouping, as other individuals will behave differently from me. All of this may seem obvious, yet the natural inclinations of humans everywhere is to group and generalise.
Generalisation is almost always destructive in some measure, and will upset or offend someone. I am very aware of the process of change and that this place, Booman Tribune, has been put under tremendous pressure by such a large and sudden influx. It will only work if everyone (incomers and older residents alike) takes responsibility for their own, individual interactions and doesn’t either behave as if they are part of a smaller group or treat others as part of a seperate group. Every one of us has our own rules of interaction that we have developed through our whole lives and when different rules and cultures come together, there is always potential for tension. One of my ‘rules’ is that I believe everyone deserves to be treated with respect, which I always try to do: others may have different rules and I have the right to walk away from them.
I hope this doesn’t come over as preachy, it isn’t intended to be: it is a plea to not think in terms of BMT-ers and kos-ers, but to see individuals who have arrived simultaneously. This happens to be where I have stopped for a while on my journey: I am a lone traveller, not part of a group tour.
Respect is certainly the key. The past few days I have felt a little like I brought a guest to a wedding who proceded to get drunk, hit on the bride, insult the other guests and and then throw up on the dance floor.
I know it’s been crazy busy around here since the big pie fallout and those who run Booman have been awesome hosts and have worked their collective butts off to make sure things run smoothly and that we all feel welcome.
Let’s not fart in the church, ya know?
Well, you know how it goes…
He who farts in church sits in his own pew.
I now spend much more time here, in large part to contribute positively instead of getting caught up in individual issue wars. I sure hope we all can keep the Booman Tribune’s original tone, which I perceived as respectful and inviting to all. We choose what language we use to communicate, and we, individually, are responsible for the tone we put out to those who don’t agree with us.
Attacks generally only create another useless thread. Listening and responding intelligently usually creates some kind of bridge to be nurtured and developed.
Thank you for your wonderful post! Generalizations are so often wrong and IMO the result of lazy thinking. After the last six months on Kos I was ashamed to drive around in our new SUV (“Reblicar”). But the size was perfect for toting around our precious dog’s travel crate!
Very well said, Boudicca. And not preachy at all, in my opinion.
Things are still very much in flux at the moment, with people settling in and others running ragged welcoming in and the little flares of this or that here and there. So far, though, I think most everyone is handling things well. I am so totally impressed with everyone, new and old.
To address your other point, treating people as individuals and not as a group tour ;), I think this also is very important. Mind you, that will probably come anyway as things go along, but I’ve always found it’s good to begin as you mean to go on. There really should be no delineation between “newbies” and “oldies”, and “kossacks” and “bootribbers” when dealing with people, in my opinion. In most circumstances. (All of this is only my opinion, by the way, so I won’t keep typing that). Although I did I identify myself as a “Bootribber” when addressing a couple of people in one diary, because I was entering into a conversation about an issue that i was not involved in, so I wanted the people I was typing to to realize I was only addressing one specific part of the diary/issue.
I think there was more of the emphasis on blog age and location this week, just because of the somewhat unusual circumstances, but in general I pay no attention to user id numbers, as I think that when someone signed up to a site really has no bearing on the content of their posts, or their ability to reason and so on. I love the breadth of talent and thought that is on this site, in general, and I just hope we can grow in ways that preserves that.
Anyway, thanks for the reminder.
Thank you all, I am so glad you are taking it in the spirit that it was intended š
This reminds me of a diary I was going to write so many times but didn’t. With titles such as “I’m an Idealist, No I’m not, Yes, I am” and “You Call Yourself a Democrat?”, my point was the same as yours. We sometimes categorize ourselves to our own detriment.
We are many different things throughout each day. We are never all of them in each individual moment. I can be an optimist one moment, a pessimist the next. I can be liberal one moment and conservative the next. I can be an idealist one moment and a realist the next. We’re not fixed. We’re constantly in flux. So, while many overall labels give us a general description, they don’t define us 100% of the time. Our gender and race are fixed, but beyond that (unless I’ve forgotten something really obvious), everything else is subject to change.
We sometimes forget the complexity of our colleagues and settle for categorizing in simplistic terms. Thanks for the reminder.
Boudicca, very nice diary and greatly appreciated. I am still suffering from overload so I will keep this comment short.
Thanks for the diary!
What she said!
AND WELCOME!
Thank you for this!! It echoes my sentiments exactly. Very few of us have met in RL, more of us have met online, but really, we all must learn to refrain from the “X is _, or X wrote/said_, so she/he must also be __” kind of assumptions that get us all in so much hot water.
Take the time to ask and listen, that’s all I ask, and, yes, of course, be respectful.
I think it’s a good idea to spend a little time on a bit of “meta” about this site and it’s future. For many of us, it’s not just a web site, it’s a community that we value highly. But as you point out, we all belong to several communities and can further be “grouped” if anyone wants to look at it that way.
For myself, I’ve loved being here for a while, and confess to a little nervousness this past week about whether our generally laid-back, positive interactions would suffer from the growth spurt.
But I have confidence that it’s all going to shake out just fine. I am energized and thrilled by the influx of new members. A discordant note here and there, but mostly it’s been great. So many thoughtful people and wonderful writers to converse with on-line – I’ve spent more time than usual here this past week just drinking it all in. I feel like I am being nourished by so much intellectual food that my brain is undergoing a growth spurt of its own.
It’s just a matter of remembering BooMan’s Rule and his further thoughts on What really matters.
Thanks for summing up my thoughts so well in your comment! I’m so glad to see that we are all working toward maintaining a comfortable atmosphere here, and it amazes me how many talented people haven’t dared to post elsewhere. I’m glad they’re here.
Now how am I ever gonna keep with all his reading? :^)
I thought you would post with your preferred term for those who frequent the Frog Pond– BooTribbles!
Not preachy at all: you wrote an excellent diary I can relate to. My own personal theme song is that old song “Don’t fence me in!” I’m a sort of itinerant blogger, dropping in here and there to exchange energies and learnings with folks for as long as it works out and feels right to me. Some places are more welcoming than others: this place certainly has that skill down pat!
Maybe we need a sense of fully “belonging” to a particular community more at some stages of life than at others. As I age, I find that need declining, and I am enjoying a more “footloose” way of operating. I’m not getting any younger, and there’s still so much to learn.
Oh, and about generalizing, that has changed for me too. The more I learn about people of all ages, the harder it is to generalize, or see things in nice simple “black and white” terms, as I once did when younger. In discovering the “grey” in between the blacks and whites, I’ve discovered a whole new world of softer, yet brilliantly varied colors that are so fascinating. Who knew?!
I’ve also finally figured out that it not only isn’t “weak”, it is often very wise, to move on from any setting that is draining my energies or dampening my spirit, because there are always other places ahead where they can thrive. I don’t want to miss out on them.
Thanks for your words.
The older I get, the more I also find it impossible to generalize, to label. I’ve started meditating again after a long lapse, and my aversion to generalization has increased with the length of time I’ve been meditating. Connection?
I’m suspicious of any group that would have me as a member. I go my own way as you can see by my signature and yet I believe strongly in community and being my brother’s keeper. I live in that space between the two.
Woody may have said it too. I think Groucho said something like “I wouldn’t belong to any group/club that would have me as a member.”
That is, if my brain cells are working right…:)
Woody opened Annie Hall with a monologue citing the quip from Groucho, yes.
And thanks boudicca. Well said, and timely.
But Woody Allen DID say “Life sucks and then you die.”
No, what Woody really said was life’s like this: Two women are sitting at a restaurant in the Catskills and one of them says “You know, the food here’s really terrible.” “Yeah, and such small portions,” replies the other. š
I miss Woody Allen.
Not preachy at all. But, I’m sorta preachy sometimes myself so I might have trouble spotting it;-)
I hope it won’t make people suspect when we feel the same as you. I have no axe to grind with anyone. I read blogs and comment because I want to talk to smart funny people about the things I care about.
Oh, and I forgot to say “And I don’t care where I find them.” Sort of important to the point.
Thanks so much for this diary. It speaks to something very near to my heart. I am not the labels that others or even myself, at times, think I should be wearing. I really am on a secret mission to destroy all the labels in the world. Someday it will be wonderful to be a community of humankind able to explore our differences as well as our common goals and interests . . . and without the need to label them.
It has felt to me that this small community within ever larger communities is just a very fine place to begin to rid myself of and suggest to others that we don’t need labels to define us. And surely any and all of the labels come far short of the amazing and beautiful people we each are.
Nothing preachy about your words. Just a lot of wisdom and caring.
Brava!
What you said about living in a community without labels I really identify with. To me thats part of the struggle of being a progressive. Treating other people as humans and not particular labels when people don’t reciprocate the behavior. Wonerfully said.
The recent conflagration has caused me to contemplate, again, the nature of group dynamics, the tribal mind, and the struggle for individuality. It seems almost impossible to avoid the kind of clubbiness that was exhibited so stunningly on Daily Kos and I wonder if it isn’t inevitable here, as well. Personally, I think maintaining individual sovereignty and participating in community is a fundamental human struggle. It requires effort, and does not, necessarily come naturally. What does come naturally is the upheavals that occur when the group-think reaches oppressive levels. Anyone who names an elephant in the living room becomes a threat to group cohesion, and the “enforcers” of norms go into action. That’s the problem, anyway. The solution? I don’t know.
I wondered about this too. There is little worse than coming to a new place and walking straight into cliques… I think (without any evidence at all) that that is one reason for the stridency and in-your-faceness (not a word, I know) of some other sites… people trying to get noticed, known, become part of the crowd, get on the recommended list, get a gazillion 4’s for saying they have a stubbed toe, etc.
I’m sure some of that will probably occur here, but with one major difference… people who join walk instead straight into the Welcome Wagon/Mat (if they wish to), which is a ‘tradition’ that had a sort of accidental start, but one which has made a major difference with the current events, and I think will make a difference in the future (even if there isn’t a crisis), giving people a safe and friendly spot to surface, so to speak, and to get acclimated before they wander off into the big wilds of the pond.
Okay, well that’s a bit sappy, but I do think the welcomers have a huge impact.
It’s how “we” are.
But–what sort of clique? Imagine going to an ACLU meeting and saying, “Gosh, I think this First Amendment sounds like Commie propaganda.” Of course you’re not going to fit into THAT group.
So I suppose the trick is to find a clique or club that more or less suits you, warts and all, and try to keep it honest. Or just be a loner. It worked for Thoreau and Hunter S. Thompson.
It has been my observation that organisations take their cues from the leader(s)–whether that person is the website proprietor, the President of the United States, or the head of the local Kiwanis.
Yes, leadership matters. When a prominent person adopts a nasty personal tone, for example, others feel free to emulate that. While there will always be enforcers of norms, beginning with some important rules helps. The rules are:
And, this is not a rule but a reminder–websites depend on free contributions! DKos, Smirking Chimp, Democratic Underground, BooTrib–none of these chaps could afford to pay us a penny a word (which is far more than my words are worth…I’d say more like a penny per thousand would be fair compensation, and that’s on a good day). The websites provide us with a forum to write and to be read, and in return we provide them with free content that is (usually) interesting. It’s a fair bargain so long as the proprietor doesn’t mistake participants for employees and the participants don’t mistake the proprietor for their cult leader who will take them to the Promised Land.
Now, I’m here on BooTrib for a number of reasons, but one of them is that thus far, the proprietor of this site doesn’t seem to mind constructive criticism and has–gasp–actually changed his mind when new information has been brought to his attention. As for the ratings system–well, I’m the lone voice of dissent on that, which is why, erm, I defended lone dissenters.
So I’m not a Boomer nor a Kossack nor anything but me, a free thinker who will agree with other people when I really do agree, and who will dissent whenever I don’t.
Hi Shadowthief,
I think cliques are inevitable too, but I think they may matter less if the overall tone of the site is welcoming. We’ll see.
Well, I think we have that one on its way. Of course, no one is expecting perfection in how matters are handled, or anything, either.
My first real interaction with BooMan was a disagreement. Something or other happened and he set up a diary and said, basically, “Here is what happened, here is what action I took, use this space to tell me how you agree or disagree with me”. While some were saying things like you mention above.. “it’s his site, he can do what he wants or say what he wants” etc, BooMan never did. He just listened and responded to concerns and so on. I liked that (and while he was right to do what he did, I still disagreed, lol. Confusing!).
So sorry to take away your “lone dissenter” status, but there are others of us who also are not very fond of the system. We’ve had diary discussions about it, in fact. Mind you, I saw it work really well the other day, when someone made a comment, got a couple of 2s… and took a step back, publically stating the realization that things could have been handled better, or better put. I was most impressed… but then again, I’ve spent the past week in awe of just the sheer quality of the people who arrived recently and who are joining daily. Very bad for getting other work done, however.
Whether the power is centralized or decentralized the problem seems to be the same. In sites where the moderator is responsible for reprimanding trolls, and removing comments, or people, when they really get nasty, the power can be abused radically. I’ve seen it. And, it can create a dynamic of obsequiousness to management, that is disturbing. Management becomes a kind of deus ex machina, resolving conflicts and magically fixing dynamics. With the rating system, it’s decentralized, but it tends to carry out the perceived management intent, anyway. It can very quickly become “mob rule” punishing and marginalizing minority viewpoints. There is also no way to simply rate “agree/disagree” so people fall into a habit of giving 4s when they agree and calling people trolls when they do not. No way is that logical, or constructive. I hit the 4 button quite a bit, because it saves me the trouble of typing “Wow, dude, you are so spot on!” over and over again. And I only low-rate something if I think someone is trying to pick fights or is being abusive. I’m not happy with this system, but it is the one I have been given, and I really have no better plan.
of affirmation to you. (it was something we did instead of clapping in a board I served on)
Brava on another great diary from one long traveler to another. Places like this remind me of the characters in the Cantebury tales, each sharing perspectives from their journies. With different lenses, past lessons, and education levels we can all learn something new.
Your Guatamalan diary from Friday is a perfect example of the reason I frequent this site. I’m interested in the global rights situation as well as foreign perspectives on the U.S. Thanks boudicca, I emailed your diary to a friend who works with a lot of spanish speaking, legal immigrants in the D.C. area.
I just clicked on my own link and realized it was to a TOTALLY different place than I intended it. Geez, my apologies if anyone thought I was being a jerk. Here is the real link.
I first read this diary this morning, and just now I read all the comments. When I saw my comment upthread I was surprised I had made one. Well I was tired, what can I say.
This is just a beautiful diary and comments and it really makes me happy that you all feel the community spirit we have here.
I am so glad that we had the vehicle ready (welcome wagon) and all tuned up and ready to go so that the transition would be easy for you all.
The ‘refugee camp’idea was so true and we oldies really felt like we were ministering to your needs.
For all those who feel at home here you really have to thank the core group of us who have worked so hard to make this site function the way it does.
We did this by having many diaries on how we would proceed, ratings, ideas for the sites, etc. and then that grew into a team things and we started forming teams to do tasks and that worked so well I am still thinking of new teams we can form to get the most benefit possible out of the great talent and energy we have here.
In the past many project ideas have come up that we kind of sidelined due to not enough member participants, but now some of those will be brought up again and perhaps activated.
We are really trying to make our focus more active and less nitpicking discussing to death. Although we do that too.
I feel such a dynamic energy coming from these pages now that is astounding and it seems to be gathering us all in and making us even stronger.
Thing here is we talk to each other a lot, on all the different diaries, and emailing each other and so on, many offsite friendships have blossomed as well. The recent comment section allows us to see what everyone is talking about, and allows us to contact each other.
There is no one dominate member of the group we all see each other equally and we all work to help each other and mend each other with kind words if need be.
Many of us have brought our personal problems to these pages to be met with the most loving kindness from the others.
Well I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, we have got a great bunch of the most talented, witty, intelligent, writers and thinkers that I can imagine. Each and every one of you is unique and appreciated by me and all the “oldies’ of this site.
Tempers flared a little at times, but I think we have a grip on it now.
Hugs to you all……
Thank you.
You and I and those who have posted a comment want to be seen as more than a “label.”
If this is true for us, then why not for all people? How can we connect with people who think differently if we think of them in negative terms, e.g., “Repugs?”
Can we be unique without getting caught up in “us-them” dichotomies?
The events of the past week have given us a mirror. Do we “walk” our “talk?”
Lots to ponder.