What you should know, Johan Osterman, is that the hilarious meme that follows shift6 is that he's the kind of guy who likes to stagger into a thread past its sell-by date and just lay down his pearls of wisdom without reading it or knowing anything about what he's talking about. No, good old folksy chatter and an "in my opinion" and suddenly you have a radical new front in the discussion that no one in a million years could have offered, and certainly not just upthread and discussed at length. Who gives a shit? You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Gus' comparison was a specific one, and it was accurate for the purposes of his point. How about you take your presumed seniority and your chickenshit "just asking questions" approach to indicting the conduct of others defensively and stick it all the way in your ass? No more halfsies. The only thing you've earned as a result of your time in service is a reservoir of scorn, which means you're actually operating at a deficit relative to newer posters. Fuck you. If you don't have to preemptively take into account the Guslife when you critique his choices simply because he leaves when something's over the line to him, then no one has to factor your shit either. If you can't handle it and the best you can do to deflect it is being passive-aggressive, don't fucking post. Fuck you. I think that would be the wrong reaction, although I can understand the impulse. One lesson of the tapirgate is just how problematic it can be to enforce norms whose value the community does not find persuasive. In that case, of course, the problem was mainly with the who and the how and the why than the language per se, which is largely indefensible outside of comedy and small groups where intent is relatively clear. But I digress . Gus left because of his own decisions in responding to others in his own way as much as those of others in response. They aren't equal and opposite but the back and forth was real. I wasn't defending him per se upthread, just as I didn't become involved in the discussion back when it was happening and was simply a matter of offense/defense; the fact is it's tricky to re-shape community expectations around an outlier situation because you can't tell if it's the tip of the iceberg or just an individual situation, and it's also hard sometimes to sift out the ethical dimensions of things that arise from pretty minor clashes and simply build up over time. My point at the start of the thread was that right or wrong, it might be worth being clear on why this happened and considering it on a realistic scale of how people want to be treated vs exclusively within the sphere of the somewhat mixed precedents of our community. I think in general if someone walks away from this a little less prone to haze in that manner, or at least unlikely to do so without at least some sense of consequences, then over the long run it becomes less common or at least something reserved for excessively toxic personalities. Basically, it's long past where we all understand that couching something in "with all due respect" or "I like so and so" does not remove the substance of the post, so pleading ignorance is not an excuse past that initial point.
Your post is, as usual, extraordinarily well composed but nevertheless broadly missing the point. Snoochie booches. eta: forgot to mention yesterday, "Reservoir of Scorn" would be a great album name.
That was my initial reaction to this thread when it was first posted as I hadn't noticed any particular flare ups vis-a-vis Gus and the rest of the forum in the particular sub sphere of threads I was regularly browsing. It was the most stealthy forum exit of a long term personality I've experienced. I guess my extended takeaway from that, is that Broken Forum is a big tent, full of a whole range of wildly differing clashing personalities and sub-communities. There are hundreds of posters to remember and 'memes' that you can completely miss by not visiting a few threads or skimming a few posts. Which I suppose leads to the one point I slightly take issue take with in Gus' beyond the grave post. The seeming implication that the board at large should perhaps be ashamed that we didn't stop the harassment sooner. By the time the fact that it was an issue had been brought to my attention via this thread (and I suspect this might be true for a lot of people) the entire situation was over. Obviously there is no obligation on a person who feels harassed, but I would encourage someone who did feel that way to try and bring it to wider notice in what ever way they felt comfortable with. There is at least some precedent for the community here improving itself via dialogue. I generally agree with the thread running through what Lizard King (and others) have been saying - that the community as a whole, particularly the Qt3 hangover division, could stand to be more 'aware' of each other when posting. I think it is still that male-centric context, that comes partly from evolving in the primordial soup of the internet, where arguments can seem more like mating rituals or dominance displays rather than genuine debates over substance. There can seem to be an underlying invisible high score table in some threads where faux-points are awarded, not just for wit and wisdom but for the most bloodthirsty and eviscerating display. And there is still that tendency, when the forum bile is up to leap, both barrels blazing, onto a bystander's half-formed thoughts and use them as target practice - as if there was a need to keep the swords sharp just in case some more genuine villain should appear. Another example, I associate with that same male-oriented context, is the common posting style, of which I'm sure I'm plenty guilty of myself, where one strives for sentences full of belligerent certainty - as if any thought expressed without the utmost force of will is a sign of doubt-addled weakness. Several otherwise normal threads have ended up derailed by diving down that posturing rabbit hole when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, and others still have seen more cautious posters bludgeoned into silence whether the bludgeoners arguments had merit or not. Anyway, I wish Gus well in his future travels and hope that his departure can serve as the right kind of teachable moment for someone.
Yes, the only good time to say you're sorry to see someone go is after they're dead. Until then, maintaining a stoic, manly silence is best.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
I apologize for what I wrote the other day. That I wrote it has been eating at me since. I was pretty upset to read about what happened after I left - I didn't like reading how Jerri had written a widely-applauded post slamming me, and that my name had become a verb. I haven't read either that post or the later posts, and I don't plan to. Just knowing they exist is bad enough. What I said about being here being a highly unpleasant memory remains true. I didn't want to rebuff the people who reached out to me - I just don't want any more messages urging me to return here. Any other subject is fine, just don't ask me to re-experience that.
I'd suggest that Lizard King write a compendium of the 'hilarious memes' that follow every poster on BF, except I'm not sure how many of us are ready to look into the eyes of that unforgiving penance stare just yet.
I'll miss Gus, but I have to agree with Bill (well, I guess I don't have to...); we should just leave the guy alone.
HE HATH FALLEN IN WITH SIR THOMAS OF CHICKLEDERRY FEN? The blackguard, the scoundrel! I have the vapours, the vapours I say!
Well, then. That wasn't intended in the spirit in which it was taken. Duly chastened I shall repair to a dark grotto and meditate on my sins.
