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as usual, other people got there first and said it better
...which will in no way prevent me from saying it again. GO GO GADGET TALKING BOX.
Here's the thing: Bandflesh is, and always has been, a lot of different things. It's news-sharing and fact-checking and begging people to rip and upload stuff that can only be viewed in certain regions. It's squee and tinhatting and "wouldn't it be neat if somebody wrote a story about X?", and it's also "OH MY GOD IF I READ ONE MORE STORY WHERE [THING] I WILL TEAR MY HAIR OUT, WTAF." It's the victories and frustrations of day-to-day life: comfort food and cooking disasters; a fight with your boss/mom/boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend; solutions for dry skin. It's pictures of your hair and your cat and your new cute shoes. It's embarrassing sex stories and serious questions, sometimes at once.
It's a place I go to talk about stuff that is either too big or too small for my flist, stuff that I want to have evaluated on its own merits, one way or another.
And sometimes it is a really angry, mean, vicious place.
Sometimes, that involves flocked information. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it involves stuff that used to be public and is now flocked, sometimes it involves impolite speculation, sometimes (I'm sure) it involves just plain making shit up. For a while, back in the day (lol oldbie), we weren't as clear on what the Terms of Service were, what we were and weren't allowed to repost; as that's been cleared up, I think people have gotten more careful about not posting stuff that could get the community in trouble.
And that, I guess, is the problem: whether or not we delete the flocked stuff, bandflesh has an overall attitude that honors the letter of the law, not the spirit. If we delete flocked content, the general feeling is that it's not because somebody posted it and was Bad And Wrong, but because it could get us into trouble.
But the thing is, really, who among us hasn't shared some information that we shouldn't have? deliberately or accidentally, big things or small, maliciously or just in the spirit of explaining what the fuck is going on...that's how people work. Your mileage may vary, of course, but in my experience, people gossip, people stir shit, people wank. People, on occasion, just plain like to yell.It's all a question of degree and venue: how much we say and where we say it.
And bandflesh started out a lot smaller than it is now. We used to be somewhere you wouldn't wind up unless somebody thought you would enjoy it, and now that's...not the case. And as we grew, it got harder to distinguish between "between friends" and "in public", and people started to get an understanding of bandflesh as a place—a public place—where people were mean on the internet. That's not what it started out as, but for better or worse, it's been perceived as that. It's even been used that way, sometimes (although it's my experience that it gets smacked down or at least NAH'd pretty thoroughly, especially of late).
The new mod policies get rid of the flocked stuff that gets posted, but they can't really do anything about the underlying attitudes of the community. That's going to take time to change. We're not our own little clubhouse anymore, but in a lot of ways we still think of ourselves that way. Sometimes, in the process of calibrating that, we screw up. Sometimes, when we screw up, people get hurt.
For what it's worth, I'm sorry for the people who've been hurt. Please believe me when I say that bandflesh wasn't intended to be a hate meme. I don't think that's what we want to be now, either, but it's definitely true that we've acted like that in the past, and, hey: I'm sorry for that. I've never leaked flocked info to BF, but I've read it, and I've mocked it, and I'm not real proud of that.
Yeah, idk. Basically what I want to say is FUCKING N00BS AND TOURISTS, LURK MOAR AND SUCK LESS. >:(
Here's the thing: Bandflesh is, and always has been, a lot of different things. It's news-sharing and fact-checking and begging people to rip and upload stuff that can only be viewed in certain regions. It's squee and tinhatting and "wouldn't it be neat if somebody wrote a story about X?", and it's also "OH MY GOD IF I READ ONE MORE STORY WHERE [THING] I WILL TEAR MY HAIR OUT, WTAF." It's the victories and frustrations of day-to-day life: comfort food and cooking disasters; a fight with your boss/mom/boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend; solutions for dry skin. It's pictures of your hair and your cat and your new cute shoes. It's embarrassing sex stories and serious questions, sometimes at once.
It's a place I go to talk about stuff that is either too big or too small for my flist, stuff that I want to have evaluated on its own merits, one way or another.
And sometimes it is a really angry, mean, vicious place.
Sometimes, that involves flocked information. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it involves stuff that used to be public and is now flocked, sometimes it involves impolite speculation, sometimes (I'm sure) it involves just plain making shit up. For a while, back in the day (lol oldbie), we weren't as clear on what the Terms of Service were, what we were and weren't allowed to repost; as that's been cleared up, I think people have gotten more careful about not posting stuff that could get the community in trouble.
And that, I guess, is the problem: whether or not we delete the flocked stuff, bandflesh has an overall attitude that honors the letter of the law, not the spirit. If we delete flocked content, the general feeling is that it's not because somebody posted it and was Bad And Wrong, but because it could get us into trouble.
But the thing is, really, who among us hasn't shared some information that we shouldn't have? deliberately or accidentally, big things or small, maliciously or just in the spirit of explaining what the fuck is going on...that's how people work. Your mileage may vary, of course, but in my experience, people gossip, people stir shit, people wank. People, on occasion, just plain like to yell.It's all a question of degree and venue: how much we say and where we say it.
And bandflesh started out a lot smaller than it is now. We used to be somewhere you wouldn't wind up unless somebody thought you would enjoy it, and now that's...not the case. And as we grew, it got harder to distinguish between "between friends" and "in public", and people started to get an understanding of bandflesh as a place—a public place—where people were mean on the internet. That's not what it started out as, but for better or worse, it's been perceived as that. It's even been used that way, sometimes (although it's my experience that it gets smacked down or at least NAH'd pretty thoroughly, especially of late).
The new mod policies get rid of the flocked stuff that gets posted, but they can't really do anything about the underlying attitudes of the community. That's going to take time to change. We're not our own little clubhouse anymore, but in a lot of ways we still think of ourselves that way. Sometimes, in the process of calibrating that, we screw up. Sometimes, when we screw up, people get hurt.
For what it's worth, I'm sorry for the people who've been hurt. Please believe me when I say that bandflesh wasn't intended to be a hate meme. I don't think that's what we want to be now, either, but it's definitely true that we've acted like that in the past, and, hey: I'm sorry for that. I've never leaked flocked info to BF, but I've read it, and I've mocked it, and I'm not real proud of that.
Yeah, idk. Basically what I want to say is FUCKING N00BS AND TOURISTS, LURK MOAR AND SUCK LESS. >:(