Great stuff. Glad to have you aboard and posting. You sound like the kind of interested, contributing person we need many more of in Kaomaris, Blinky. Welcome.
Then one or two (in fact, just two) slap you down. Hey, other guys, consider what it must feel like for Blinky, to have discovered this community he likes the vibes of, to join in and go for a bit of banter, and to get stomped on, told implicitly to mind your manners as a newbie and defer to your elders. B...sh.t.
Blinky has seen ribbing each other on other threads, likes that stuff, and does some, in the implicit hope of a community that enjoys such banter and will take it in the spirit intended.
As an 18-year-old or so, he can't necessarily be expected to know in advance that some areas of joking (eg virility or gayness) are still taboo in some cultures and the source of vehement offence-taking among some individuals....
The choice then becomes whether he is encouraged (who decides whether these taboos are taboo in Kaomaris?), or whether he is slapped down as a newbie not knowing decorum on the boards, or GENTLY ADMONISHED that there are ares to beware of cross-culturally and personally.......?
IMHO, Blinky was slightly wrong, unknowingly, to choose a subject that riles some cultures and some individuals, who will not take it as a joke if it's in that area. I'd be OK with it myself, but could see it might touch a nerve with some....
But the bigger crime was on the part of Dameon and AF for taking offence and slapping him down. That is FAR WORSE for Kaomaris than Blinky's slight transgression. You acted to put a newbie in his place, and make him feel bad, all out of proportion. I'm sure Blinky will be less enthused about Kaomaris after your interventions. You should have a mindset of encouraging newbies, not putting them in their place. Dameon, if he weren't so self-centred, could have done different posts, encouraging Blinky's enthusiasm and banter, just asking him to be sensitive on some issues he might not regard as issues, and asking him to stay as enthusiastic but tone it down a tad.....Instead, Dameon chose the slapdown, with lots of words that summed to the elders knowing the boundaries and the newbies not knowing them.....B'sh.t You get far more acrimonious posts between elders ("oafies"?) than from newbies, eg Dameon calling Al illiterate.
And then we get typical Dameon false-logic.
Dameon is wrong that we don't see comments that are potentially insulting between posters who don't really know each other....witness Dameon v.Al, Dameon v. Thin King, Dameon v.Ben/Low Ebb/X-wing, Dameon v. Korexus, Dameon v. Donut, Dameon v. me......there's a lot of it about! Not to mention Dameon posting "...considering XWing and LM are pretty much incompetents..", with no sense of fun or irony (Clan Stuff....Square of 144 is here....24 Feb 2004).Dameon wrote:I don't think we see comments that are that potentially insulting between two posters who don't really know each other at all. Sure, Ben might snipe at me, for instance, but I've known him for over two years and I know that he's harmless. If some newbie came onto the boards and says the same sort of thing it's totally different. I don't think Blinky meant any harm, but he was still out of line. If you think I am wrong, Duke, TK, please feel free to show me an example on the boards where that happened.
Even Dameon recognised that Ben v. Dameon didn't fit at all Dameon's argument of friendly banter between long-playing members, as opposed to a raw newbie causing offence, hence his mention of Ben "sniping at me" (as a very, very mild way of sidelining the inconvenient fact that Ben called Dameon Arse-bandit, Geeky git, Outrageous liar, and 100% knob-jockey [Thread: Clan stuff; Square of 144; 17 April 2004]). Dameon dismissing it as "I know that he's harmless" implies friendly banter, when it's very far from that!!
In fact, has anybody twigged Dameon's frequent false-logic? In this case, as elsewhere, he does the well-known rhetorical trick of posing a premise as a given, viz. "If some newbie came onto the boards and says the same sort of thing it's totally different.", and then leaving the ground for reply as only within that premise, viz. "If you think I am wrong, Duke, TK, please feel free to show me an example on the boards where that happened.", ie he tricks the reader into looking for other examples of newbies taking liberties, if he is to be refuted, not questioning his basic premise that it is OK among oafies, but rare/ unacceptable from newbies!!
I disagree with his premise that it is somehow more acceptable among elders/oafies than among new players/newbies. In fact I take the diametrically opposite view (surprised?). We ought to allow much more latitude with new members than with longer-standing ones; because the newbies are feeling their way, the oafies should know better, and we need to be welcoming, forgiving and encouraging to new members if we want Kaomaris to thrive.
So, net, net:
1) Blinky did almost nothing wrong, certainly not deliberately unpleasant.
2) His enthusiasm should be encourage not dampened
3) Dameon and AF did the community a greater disservice by stomping unnecessarily on a newbie, when either he was innocent, or else gentle guidance would have been better than stomping.
Han