I want to say something about the forum and how the fun has been zapped out of the place for me slowly over recent years. I am a little annoyed as I write but am aiming to be balanced and calm
For anyone who new-ish, this forum started Nov 2012 and we have pretty much maintained an adult-to-adult environment with minimal fallings out, a culture of not banning people and deliberately not having a list of rules. This comes from my ethos in life where I try very hard to not parent people, treating people like kids and either rescuing or persecuting/attacking people. It works very well in life where I live with the tiniest if any amount of drama. I wanted it to be the same here and it has been mostly other than the odd episode where someone's behaviour felt odd and I on the whole ignored them.
In recent years I noted to people on here I saw a rise in rude requests and little gratitude and was appeased mostly by people assuring me it's a mix of non- english speaking members and a modern culture of things just appearing quickly. I think I have accepted this as the way of the world in some degree. I have always known anything I do is motivated by pleasure (or moving away form something painful; or difficult)- and on here I have mostly recorded vinyl for myself but have certain;y gone out of my way doing it for others and it does take time. It isn;t a download off a site. I clean the records, record them live in analogue time and then edit them. Luckily I mostly enjoy it but not if the record isn;t of interest to me or it has 50+ dshort tracks with multiple composers as the editing takes ages.
It seems like it's become the norm to:
- bluntly ask for something with no politeness (I think I have accepted this is normal now)
- not take the time to say thanks
I have largely accepted this and also have continued over the years to not engage with posts or members who are demanding. If it was someone at work I'd ignore them (unless I was managing them). There is a new knock-on effect and a new culture arising- the culture of complaining and raising moderator alerts. This is a fairly new phenomena and I can't think of many over the years. I don't read half the posts on here so haven't witnessed most of it - perhaps because it's CD/90's stuff people are requesting and I'm not interested in those so much but come on now to regular complaints about members OR posts in threads suggesting Admin should intervene. This is the bit I am more annoyed about and am laying it out here.
I have zero desire to police adults on a forum and I am not playing Dad to adults (and the odd under 18 apparently, these days). I will not respond to these- I am not speaking for the others and haven't raised this with them. If something serious was reported I would but to me these are trivial irritations that could be managed by simply not responding and moving to the next thread. I can't tell you how many times I have said this to people at work but you cannot control what someone does or how they behave and can only control your reaction and response to it.
So I'm quietly ignoring these but am kow daily being asked to step in and I won't so if that means me being an admin won't work I'll be fine with that. It will be more fun being a member and I can have the forum for free like everyone else has all these years and yet still complain about it and how it's outdated, etc Admins have paid for this place for years without any ask of members. So when people complains that annoys me too.
I did intervene initially to a couple- stupidly because that isn't how I live my life but I felt I ought to. It's not like me to fall into peer pressure and i instantly felt annoyed with myself, so I am here trying to be as clear as I can and hopefully not coming across as wanting sympathy or gratitude. I will be very happy if no one responds other than saying you've read it. This isn't a cry for a response or a poor me-- it may come across like that cos I'm annoyed as i type but I hope some see it as a simple and honest response to what i'm seeing. It's worth saying I don't feel 'It's a shame ' or sad about the change as things do change-- we've been going for 13 years now and I still like coming here but less so cos of all of this.
