I am not a charity case

I was late to the internet. In it's first few years I didn't own a computer, or a TV, or a phone... or a BED! I slept on the floor with an old air mattress and ate artisan bakery bread I stole(?) from a dumpster. I read Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan a lot and was not interested in the digital revolution, in fact I was sure it made people dumber, less social and probably helped them feed their own neuroses and/or fetishes. For me the medium was the message. I only used the net to download chord charts and that was it. Otherwise I'd read and practice.

Sometime around 2006 I started visiting BGG... reading forums and buying more boardgames than I did before. I always played and collected, but the net (through a harmless search on some new Risk variants) amped that up. I then became a member on BGG and started posting in 2008. Since then I've engaged in a few internet conversations... here, BGG, FB, youtube, various news sites. But I never really believed in friends being real through the net... not really. Sure I feel close-ish to some people here and there but it's so far removed from what I feel for the people I know and hang with that I can't, in good conscience, call the internet acquaintances I have anything other that internet acquaintances. I kind of need to drink with a dude or at least hang out in person first. After a few times hanging out, seeing how they react off the cuff, I start to warm up.

Now I haven't totally abandoned my idealistic youthful self and I still am very critical/suspicious of internet relationships. My wife says I should stop all posting on the net and focus on more important things... she's not wrong.

When I first got to BGG I posted nothing, literally nothing at all, but received a PM anyway (I didn't know what a PM was back then) from some guy who was pissed at me for rating Tide of Iron higher than Combat Commander. Fuck you buddy, I don't even know you and I didn't know (at the time) that my personal ratings and comments were accessible to everyone... so I was understandably shocked. I mean this guy got personal. I tried to forget about it but you never really forget your first troll experience. I moved on and posted eventually and some guy ragged me out for misspelling a word. It was a common typo, the whole loose/lose thing, and he just grilled me me on it. I said something in return, half jokingly and called it a day.

The net, in my opinion, was not that nice a place if even a family friendly site like this had such dick heads on it.

Years pass and I become more net savvy, I'm still not convinced that people I meet on here are real friends until they become real to me. So I met some, Anthony, Mike, Matt, and a couple of others not from this site. All good people. None of this changes how I feel about those I don't know yet, but still, I'm opening up a bit. I just know now that I need to take long breaks periodically to focus on art or I start to feel like I'm just wasting my life away.

Ok, background check done, here's the point.

A few months ago there was a thread on BGG about how awesome the community was/is. I posted in there a little story about how I was treated when I first got there. It was negative, of course, I was arguing that the community was no better than mandolincafe or banjohangout or any other niche web site where people are generally cordial to one another. It wasn't what the thread was about, I know, but I had seen the opposite thread done before and when someone posted a positive story they got thumbs and agreements. People saying "see... it's not so bad." But mine was met with nothing but hostility. I let it slide after a few responses to some people in there and then left. Clearly I wasn't wanted and I saw no reason to belabor the point.

Today I go to BGG for... well to be honest no real reason at all, and there are six messages in my in box. Someone had seen my posts in this old thread and decided to change my mind. I got six well wishers, one of them even offering to give me a signed promo card for Nightfall (which I will not accept) another giving me thirty geek gold that I have no idea what to do with (send it back?) and the rest just saying nice things to me. Inviting me to play games with them if I'm ever in town, complimenting my band or my playing on the mandolin. One of them telling me to check out Chris Thile (every mandolin player knows him, he's an incredible virtuoso).

It was weird and I'm still weird-ed out by it. I suppose I have to write back to everyone telling them how grateful I am, and should be I suppose. I get that they are proud of their community and want it to be seen a particular way but this is weird to me. I revisited the thread that clearly inspired this and I was right. It was all started by this one poster who is currently popular on there and they had read my post (that's clear in the thread) and then encouraged a bunch of people to do this thing (that's a guess on my part but a very accurate one I'm sure).

That's awfully sweet of them, but also un-necessary in my mind. I still post there on occasion after all, I can't be entirely against the site. I was just arguing that it was like every place on the net that specializes in something. Mostly nice people with a few jerks just like the rest of society.

Funny thing is I had just seen some stupid amateur doc made for the net where a group or researchers were claiming that gratitude makes you happier than anything... including money and boardgames if you can believe that. They make people write letters to someone that has inspired them and then get them to call the person up and read them the letter and apparently the happy cortex (for all the neurologists in the house) in our brain goes up by as much as nineteen percent! WOW, a whole 19 percent! I should be chomping at the bit to write my gratitude letters, and yet I'm not. What a grumpy old fuck I must be. In fact I don't feel gracious really so much as guilty for entering that thread in the first place. A part of me just wants to delete everything in that thread and all the PM's and try to forget about it, but I think those people deserve a response for what they believe is a good deed.

What does the net do to our brain, is time spent on here defensible (outside of arguments like Matt Loters ever so endearing masturbation and literature are equal stance)? Is there something we can get out of it? Do you believe in digital communities being as powerful and real as the communities you actually spend time with in person?

I'm still that anti-internet kid I was I just accept that I like to do things that aren't good for me sometimes. I just accept that it's fun to write about things like mandolins and games, talking to strangers has it's charms, I learn things from other people on here... I've made up a number of excuses that I sort of believe. I still think I could use the time better but the same can be said for a lot of things I do. I've been wanting to write on here for some time now about the notion of internet communities and have decided to just write a thread rather than the amateur thesis blog I was going to write. So I'm not laying all my cards on the table, I'm just telling the story and seeing if anyone else has anything to say about it.

I should practice trying to say all this shit in a single sentence like a real poster would.

Sharing knowledge and experience with others is the only thing that really counts in this world. If you can find people that can teach you things, or that you can teach things to, you're doing life right.

So, the internet is great to allow the free sharing of ideas. The bad part is that there's no filter, and anonymity allows people to be utter cunts with no repercussions. YMMV.

If you're a mandolin player you likely realize that the Internet provides one valuable service -- the ability to reach out to people in a small community. A neighbor has a kid with an exceptionally rare belly disease that has a chat group -- 35 people worldwide. It's an invaluable tool for her.

But, short of that kind of thing it's at best a nice addition to an otherwise well rounded social life. You need real-life interaction.

And you need to unplug. You need to spend an hour now and again disconnected from the rest of the world in order to turn your thoughts inward and care to your own self. My $9 phone makes sure that happens during my commute time each way.

S.

The ONLY site I go to is this one. I don't go on BGG at all. Not interested in logging gameplays or rating games. If I want to know about a game I'll ask here. If I want to buy a game I'll go here and not BGG.

The only reason I go here is I met Matt, Shellie, Al and a bunch of other people at WBC in 2010 and they said I might like this forum. I didn't really know what a forum was at that time.

So I got here the reverse way round from many others. I made friends in real life and then went here. Since then, I've met plenty of other people both digitally and in real life but all of them have connections to here.

With the minor exception of known trolls, I've found everyone here to be pretty good fun. I think it's fun that I live in an entirely different environment, both physically and socially, from nearly everyone who frequents this site.

I, for one, do not consider it a waste of my time. It has enhanced my life and not dumbed it down. This is why my most essential trip of the year is to WBC to hook up with the same people and renew real friendships.

I don't give a shit about charity or being seen as a charity case. It isn't about me being too proud to accept help. If I need help, you guys can be sure as shit that I'll ask for it. On the other side of the coin, if my friends need help I will try to help them provided they aren't hung up about accepting help. None of this makes me a 'good' person it's just the way I am.

This place, in particular, is very good for me but, as usual, YMMV.

tscook wrote:

It wouldn't have mattered anyway.

ThirstyMan wrote: I, for one, do not consider it a waste of my time. It has enhanced my life and not dumbed it down.

I think at this point I'm likely the one who's actually hung out with the most regulars here, I'm mostly just missing some Euros, a handful of dudes in weird places, and Jeb. And I love you dudes. This site has been a HUGE positive force in my life. I met one of my best friends, have local friends all over the world I've gotten to visit, and had some awesome times just hanging out.

PS: If you ever get the chance, go hang with JJ! We all already know Andy is a force of nature.

I filtered everything from the internet heavily. Most of the time, what happens on the net, stays on the net. I seem to remember a character in the Lost World novel (Crichton one) said "90% of the things people say to you are wrong". I found her to be more or less correct.

That said, I've known a few people in real life from the net. Not much, may be just a handful, but I still keep in touch until now. Kind of remarkable, since I'm not the kind of guy who's good at keeping in touch. These are the guys that I don't communicate for weeks, months, even years, and then we meet and we don't feel estranged at all. These are the guys/gals that demands *nothing* but friendship.

About doing good things, I've reached conclusion that people do good things for themselves. Because it empowers them, make them feels good. And if it helps me (and them too), why not?

The internet is neither bad or good JJ. It's just another tool, albeit a powerful one. It helps connect people across continents and was instrumental in the Arab spring and the overthrow of dictators. It also disseminates pornography and hate.

It's no better or worse than the people that use it. I'm not comfortable with the lack of privacy but there are ways to mitigate that too. Some days I just want to unplug from everything and live somewhere remote with books, games, my wife and a telescope for looking at the stars. My son's actually done that living in a Village of 800 people (Silverton, B.C. in the Rockies) working remote in IT and spending his summers renting log cabins and kayaking on Kootenay Lake.

We used to get all our information top down. The media, corporations tried to control how we looked at things and what we thought about them. They still do, but we now have through the Internet a way of fighting back. It's a democratizing tool in a world where big money in politics has virtually killed our voice. It's probably still the best way we have right now of fighting back....although Occupy Wall Street turned out to be a poor example.

I can see why those guys made you uncomfortable though because all that geek gold and all those well wishes weren't really about you. They're just making themselves feel good and using you to support BGG. It's condescending as hell and that's probably what you're feeling.

That said, I met you and Anthony through the Internet. How bad can it be?

mikecl wrote: I can see why those guys made you uncomfortable though because all that geek gold and all those well wishes weren't really about you. They're just making themselves feel good and using you to support BGG. It's condescending as hell and that's probably what you're feeling.

I think you're exactly right about this. To me it felt like some kind of passive aggressive defence against my original point. It was intended to help them to make them feel better about the community because if they do this they cancel out the bad and actually show what good community means. Maybe if they did it in the thread instead or acknowledged what I'd said I would have been able to see their point. But a PM is too weird, and six of them... just seemed like overkill.

To be honest, and this is me probably being too critical/going overboard, it had a cult like feel to it.

Sevej wrote: I filtered everything from the internet heavily. Most of the time, what happens on the net, stays on the net. I seem to remember a character in the Lost World novel (Crichton one) said "90% of the things people say to you are wrong". I found her to be more or less correct.t?

About 90% correct?

Space Ghost wrote:

Sevej wrote: I filtered everything from the internet heavily. Most of the time, what happens on the net, stays on the net. I seem to remember a character in the Lost World novel (Crichton one) said "90% of the things people say to you are wrong". I found her to be more or less correct.t?

About 90% correct?

Lies, damn lies, and statistics. (Twain (probably))

Also an apt description of what you typically encounter not just on the internet, but on TV and in popular culture. Best thing you can do is adjust your filter.

I really enjoyed reading your post and I'm glad you took the time to write it. That's not said to make you feel welcome and warm and fuzzy inside. Rather, it resonates with much of my own thinking about web communities, my experiences on BGG, and my luddist propensities. As you can see by my post count, I'm more of a lurker than a poster, but I check and read these forums often.

For me BGG is more of an encyclopedia than a community. It's great for looking up photos of components, finding rules errata, etc., but as you say the "community" there is hit or miss. Anytime someone on BGG says anything potentially informative I have to go and look at how they've rated a bunch of games to calibrate for their perspective. The site is just so big that it's impossible to keep track of which users like which sorts of games. F:AT, on the other hand, is small enough that these forums are more like ongoing conversations and over time you get a sense for the personalities and interests of the people behind the posts, even if you never meet them in "real life." Of course the other major difference between BGG and this site is that people here have a sense of humor. I don't really feel like I'm part of the BGG or F:AT communities, but I think it's enough to enjoy reading what other people have to say about something of mutual interest, and the tone of this site suits me much better than BGG.

OK, back to my lurking ways.

Hey man -

I think I feel some of the core of what you're getting at recently as my wife and I recently have embarked on a more conscious effort to unplug and enjoy ourselves in the moment.

To that end, my wife removed the facebook app from her phone since she found that she would reflexively check it when she had a spare (literally) 5 seconds. To what end? She also found this article ( www.waitbutwhy.com/2013/07/7-ways-to-be-...ble-on-facebook.html ) really eye opening in terms of the quality of what's out there.

She challenged me to do the same and I don't miss it. Granted, I can and do check Facebook at work, but I no longer feel compelled to do so and it's a great feeling echoing what others are saying that "the internet is but a tool in a well rounded social existence." Feels better to take charge and not fall into what became for me truly mindless consumption of other people's needs.

So, rock on, JJ. It's a helluva ride.