Sunday of my Life

(this post is really a rambling collection of thoughts, put down into text as they came out of my head, so I apologise if the thread becomes hard to follow)

Every couple of days one of the many things I do presents me with a dillema, and I find myself asking myself the same questions.

See, I’m an administrator on a web forum and, with increasing frequency lately, we get people who are disrespectful to those around them. Now, this is really the kind of thing I don’t like. It’s not good for a community atmosphere and that’s one of the things I try to help maintain there. A group of people from diverse backgrounds and skill-sets who come together for whatever reason they may personally have to discuss random things and help people with questions. See, I like to help people. It’s always a real buzz to think that you’ve helped to spread the good knowledge just that bit further, that the clouds of confusion have parted for someone else and they now have a new piece to their puzzle.

This buzz gets a little ruined though when I see someone post in a thread words to the effect of ‘I can’t believe you’re such a moron for not knowing this, here’s the information, now fuck off and stop wasting my time‘. It really gets up my nose so it does. Normally it’s someone new to the board who does this, but occasionally it’s a regular member who does it, and very occasionally one of the other admins. When it happens that a regular member whom I don’t know that well or a new member does this kind of thing, I always make sure I comment on it and remind them about our rules of respecting those around them, and then I find myself thinking ‘am I doing this becuase it’s bad behaviour or becuase it’s bad behaviour coupled with someone new?’ Should I really be trying to remind the more regular members more often than the newer ones, really they should know better so perhaps when they do it it should be a slightly more serious thing.

There are a couple of members there, one’s a very touchy character who tends to go aflame at the slightest hint of criticism directed towards him and the other just isn’t a patient person (but both of them have huge amounts of knowledge to share) and I find myself not saying anything to them when they begin to be disrespectful to others becuase, well, I know them and I know that this is the way they are and that nothing I’m going to say will change it. But is that really why I’m doing it or am I making a flimsy rationalisation to myself?

If you hadn’t noticed I tend to question myself and my actions a lot. It’s an old habit, and sometimes it’s a good one, but normally it’s a bad one as it leads to real indecisiveness.

For now I’ll keep slogging on the way I’m going and see what comes. Maybe one day I’ll know myself well enough to answer my questions and answer them honestly. I hate the thought that maybe I’m making flimsy rationalisations to myself and don’t know it. If I can do such to me, what am I telling other people that I don’t realise I’m telling them? I always try to be totally honest, and I really do hope I’m succeeding.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2004 at 10:16 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.