People Need to Learn to Just Chill

[kriadydragon]

Sometimes I really wonder about people. I came across a venting post the other day, and the issue the author was venting about totally steamed my blood. The author of the post was kind enough to allow me to put up a link that I might get other people's take on the situation.

This way, to the rudeness!

What do you all think? Personally, I saw absolutely no reason for that kind of treatment, especially toward a person who was new to LJ. I remember what it was like when I first established a journal on LJ. Being non-net savy, it took me a while to get the hang of all the features and understand what most of the rules were talking about. During that time - being the self-conscious person that I am - I was quite nervous every time I posted or replied, wondering if I may have broken a rule or violated some law of netiquette.

Had I been treated that discourteously, I would have left LJ, plain and simple. I don't handle confrontation well and am the kind of person that will walk away rather than put up with the grief. Seeing it happen to others, especially new-comers, really, really irritates the crap out of me. Whether in the right or in the wrong, there is no reason to be so dang blasted rude like that.

Comments

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

Wow that was indeed rude....however if no one speaks up about the mod's behavior on the com, she's going to think it was perfectly vaild on her part, even though she stepped over the line.

sighs, thinks about saying something on the orginal post and wonders if it'll be worth it. But what's the saying? All talk but not action?

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I thought about saying something, and I might. I tend to suck at confrontations as I'll mentally freeze up - which is why I always sucked at sticking up for myself as a kid.

Still, it irked me pretty bad.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

I know, since I feel anything I said no matter how well put will be viewed as me trying to flame her. But she was so rude and thats not the type of behavior one should show....it reeks of a foul temper and superiority complex.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, which is, sadly, why I hesitate. If I do say something, I'll have to choose my words carefully - which I suck at just as bad *sulks*.

[karri-kln1671.livejournal.com]

Those are the sorts of people who scared me away from participating in established fandom groups...the reason I make my own comms at the drop of a hat, instead of joining the ones already out there. :/

And I have to say, I've been an LJer for 6-7 years now and had no clue that changing the font color meant anything other than that the person liked a different font color. :/

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

(Huh, my quote button is gone. Why!)

"And I have to say, I've been an LJer for 6-7 years now and had no clue that changing the font color meant anything other than that the person liked a different font color. :/"

Neither did I. And I've seen other posts on other communities where the font has been enlarged and the person who wrote the entry hadn't been chewed out for it. I can understand how giant, colorful fonts can be annoying to the eye (I have very sensitive eyes myself), but asking someone politely to change it and telling them just as politely why they need to change it is way less of a hassle than chewing them a new one. Common courtesy goes both ways, consarnit!

[sholio]

Well ... I must admit that I've been a mod on a fairly high-traffic fan board (well, it used to be really high traffic; it's pretty much died away to almost nothing lately) at Sequential Tart since 2002, and when I use my moderator voice and ask someone to edit their post, the only acceptable response as far as I'm concerned is "I'm sorry, I'm changing it right now!" The first time, you're really polite, but after you've gone through the same runaround fifty times with people trying to argue their case and complain that they weren't doing anything wrong and not editing their post, you get pretty testy. Now, I try to be polite about it anyway, and I think this mod is being a little bit rude, but when I'm on somebody else's message board and I'm told I've done wrong, my default response is "Sorry! Fixing!" not "I didn't do anything wrong and you're being mean to me!"

I tend to see a lot of entitlement among people on LJ, as opposed to the message board days where you knew that if you were impolite or broke the community's rules the mods would call you on it. I mean, yes, I *do* understand that newbies are going to step out of line without meaning to do anything wrong, but coming out of a message board background, I understand that when I post in a community or at someone else's LJ, it's like I've been invited into their living room and I make sure to wipe my feet and be on my best behavior, you know? As a random example, I do swear in my own journal, but I really try not to do it in yours because I know you don't like that. And if you told me not to, I wouldn't say "But I do it all the time at home, and I didn't know I wasn't supposed to!" -- I'd just say, "Sorry, I didn't know," and try to be more polite in the future.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

You make a good point. So from your past experience, you think no bounds were broken? I completely understand where you're coming from. I re-read the mod's response and it came of pretty harsh, to the point I thought of leaving because I'm not sure I wanted to be part of a com where the person who runs it acted like that.

If you think its par for the course, I might re-examine things since I've never modded anything before and don't want to jump the gun. I just would feel odd, since it wasn't my LJ to begin with you know.

[sholio]

Well ... to me, it looks like part of this discussion is missing. This is obviously not the whole discussion because the first part is a response to something we can't see, and from the mod's post, it looks like she's already asked the original poster to edit her comment once. To me, this mod post appears to be the second warning, not the first, and yes, by that point, I think I'd be getting kind of testy, too. Without seeing the rest of it, there is no way to know what the mod originally said, but if her first post was a polite "please edit your comment" and the response was what we see here, then I can certainly understand her frustration on the second go-around.

The thing is, when you mod, you get the same runaround over and over and over again. And, as much as you try to stay even-tempered, sometimes you lose sight of the fact that the person who is giving you what looks to you like backtalk is actually on their first spin on a merry-go-round that you've gone around on more times than you can count. It's kind of like how, on the genficathon, the first time I got a file with the coding all screwed up, I just sighed and fixed it. After getting 20 or so of these, I've gotten to the point where I'm emailing people back and saying, "Hey, this is screwed up, fix it" (I just did it to Melissa tonight, in fact), and even though I *know* that the person on the other end doesn't know, I still get kind of snappy because I've sent off the exact same email over and over. I suspect it's much the same thing here. Of course, I don't know the background, so I don't know if my reading of the situation is accurate -- obviously it's heavily influenced by my own experiences.

[kristen999.livejournal.com]

I went to the the tread and thought I saw the whole conversation. In the end, I've decided not to get involved in an issue between two people I don't know or was involved in. I can be quick to respond to things I find rude or mean. I might say something if I ever seen it repeated I suppose.

Thanks for telling me your experiences in similar situations though I still think you would have handled yourself more professionally.

In the mean time I have to deal with a sick cat. Oh pleas,e please kitty don't have what I think you do. Mama can not afford a vet bill. sigh

[sholio]

Sick cat, nooo! I hope he/she is okay.

It's definitely true that I haven't seen the whole discussion and shouldn't be making judgments based on that.

And I do try to be even-handed and fair as a mod (including as the mod of my own journal). On the other hand, I feel for other mods because, as a mod, you really do have to put up with all kinds of crap, and you can bet the one day you're having a bad day and get snappy, fifty people will pile on you. Been there, done that. *g*

I would say that if it manifests as a *pattern* of the mods, or this particular mod, snapping at people for doing innocuous things, then it would definitely be time to say something and I might consider avoiding the community myself. But having seen only one instance of it, and one where I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have handled myself much better and I suspect that the complaining individual is being a little deceptive in how she's presenting the situation, my sympathies are mostly with the mod team. Once again, I *do* think of posting in other people's journals and communities as something vaguely akin to being invited over to a party they're hosting. Ordinary manners dictates that when you're called on doing something wrong in someone else's house, even if they're a little rude about it, you apologize and swear not to do it in the future.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I see where you're coming from and it makes total sense. Politness can only go so far, then it's time to get heavy-handed. And the wording of one of the ventee's responses did make me cringe. So I do understand where the mod was coming from.

However, I still feel that the mod had given in too easily to impatience. The person had said that they hadn't read the previous comments until after the "less than friendly" comment was made, as well as said that they didn't know that posts could be fixed - which meant the mod hadn't really given them a chance to fix it. And the post did eventually get fixed.

So, really, I understand where both sides are coming from. However, having been a newbie with little internet experience, I know that it sometimes takes time to figure everything out, and that the FAQs aren't always helpful (it took me forever to figure out how to put things under the cut, even with the help of the directions.) And that when nervous and uncertain about something, yeah, you tend to either get really timid or really defensive.

All in all, though, what it comes down to is that it's one of those things that could have been handled better.

[sarievenea.livejournal.com]

I totally posted. THAT PISSED ME OFF. (Can I make my fonts red, or will you freak out at me?) Unfortunately, the comments are screened b/c I don't belong to the comm and it most certainly will be disallowed. But hey. I tried. Poor child. We should invite her to the...rejects of the SGA world comm...

:)

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

*snickers*

I do get the mod's frustration, but also understand the frustration and uncertainties that come with being new to something, which was why it upset me so much.

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

Something like that happened to me as well, but not to that extent. I agree with Kriadydragon. I would have left too. I'm kinda persona non grata at that journal...

Some mods just love to shove their weight around.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

It's rare for me to get into anything controversial unless there's something about the controversy that really, really and I do mean "really" gets to me - whether good or bad. Other than that, I try to stay neutral as there are so many sides to an issue and it's hard to see them all.

[alipeeps.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I agree that the mod's tone was definitely rather harsh and that you can't magically expect someone new to LJ to know how everything works. However... the OP did't do herself many favours by admittedly not reading properly everything the mod posted (e.g. the request to edit her post) and by lashing out in return with a rambling, poorly spelt and worded strop.

The mod's attitude definitely was not great - attacking people who are new to LJ for not knowing LJ's "unwritten rules" is quite frankly ridiculous. LJ is not particularly user-friendly when you first join up (I won't tell you how long it took me to be able to do an LJ cut without having to refer to the step by step dummies guide someone kindly sent me!) and it takes a while to get the hang not only of the various functions but of the generally accepted practices. I think people who have been a member of a group or community for a long time can forget that and can develop a bit of a "clique" mentality, where they have no patience for those who don't know what they know and think that, because they find it easy and consider it a basic concept, others should too. They've forgotten that they were once new to this too.

However, like you said about being a little nervous about posting etc until you got the hang of things, when you're new to something it's a good idea to be a little cautious and think about what you're doing. I can agree with some of the mod's points (though not the way in which they were made) about e.g. making your post big and red when no other post on the comm looks like that - playing wildly with the functions when you're not experienced in the etiquette etc is kind of asking for trouble.

I'd guess the mod thought they were helping, at least at first, but sadly their attitude was a) too confrontational and b) they were too impatient. When the changes weren't made quickly enough, they got even snappier. It can be frustrating dealing with people who you feel aren't willing to listen to what you feel is important advice (and, as a personal opinion, the OPs style of writing does her no favours - I can't help being something of a grammar/spelling nazi and reading such poorly spelt and ungrammatical posts does tend to influence my impression of the writer.. and not positively :/) - e.g. a few times now in comms or on my flist folks who are new to LJ have posted large posts (fics and the like) without using a cut. And I've responded not only with a polite request to use a cut but also with an explanation of exactly how to do so. And on occasion, people have ignored the request or just said, "I don't know how to do a cut" (ingoring my explanation). I've even gone so far with one newbie to offer to correspond by email to help explain functions such as cuts etc to her - and been ignored. So I can understand the frustration. But obviously tone is key here - and I've always offered such advice politely, even if it has been annoying when the advice is ingored and the huge post stays stretching my flist page.

I guess in summary I'm saying the mod should absolutely not have been so rude and confrontational... but that I can kind of understand why the OPs behaviour etc wound them up a little. Not that that's an excuse. :/

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

*Nods* Yeah, after reading the post a few more times, I did see where the mod was coming from and why they were so frustrated. And one of the replies by the poster did make me cringe due to her word choice (although, I'm wondering if in her frustration she wrote the post without thinking. I know that when I'm upset, I can't think worth squat, and anything I say or write is completely incoherent). However, I still felt the mod's reaction rather knee-jerk - almost as though they were looking for a fight, though I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. Like I said, when frustrated, it's hard to think rationally sometimes.

I'm of the firm belief that it's better to stay as professional and polite for as long as you can when dealing with a frustrating situation. That way, when push starts coming to shove (the person is acting all defensive despite how polite and reasonable you have been) you will be the one with the most support. That way, when actions have to be taken - such as deleting the post or, maybe, finally breaking down and getting angry, outside observers will be more inclined to side with you.

"e.g. a few times now in comms or on my flist folks who are new to LJ have posted large posts (fics and the like) without using a cut. And I've responded not only with a polite request to use a cut but also with an explanation of exactly how to do so. And on occasion, people have ignored the request or just said, "I don't know how to do a cut" (ingoring my explanation)."

I think by then reacting in frustration is totally understanable. There does come a point when the mod or whoever needs to get heavy handed, but before that time they need to give the poster time to correct their mistakes, especially if the poster is someone new.

[sandpiper764.livejournal.com]

This is actually a great post, because I am new to LJ myself (only joined last December). I actually haven't been adventurous enough to start posting in communities much, if at all. I tend to observe for quite a while before jumping in to participate, until I get the feel of how things 'work' here on LJ. Maybe I'm too careful, but I am mindful that I don't know the ropes here. Yet.

Even in friending people, I have tried to stick with folks that have been friendly and have positive journals. I don't do drama-filled environments well, either in real life or here on LJ.

That said, I think that some valid points have been made here - consideration that someone is a newbie, but also that being a mod could be a pretty trying experience, especially with folks who have a sense of entitlement. I don't have the full story and am thankfully not even involved. So I'm not taking sides :) Just thought I would throw in a newbie's two cents.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

"I actually haven't been adventurous enough to start posting in communities much, if at all. I tend to observe for quite a while before jumping in to participate, until I get the feel of how things 'work' here on LJ."

*Nods* I thought of that myself - that the poster should have been more aware of how the posts were being handled on that community. although, on the other hand, in that particular community I've seen the posts vary quite a bit. Still... *shrugs*

It's rare for me to get into any kind of controversy, but this one kind of hit close to home for me. I'm a very sensitive person and tend to be a bit of a people pleaser... when I'm being social, that is, which is rare. I can't handle negativety well, and whenever I'm been made to feel unwelcome - whether politely or not-so-politely (usually the latter) it crushes me, especially when there was no reason for me to be treated like that (I once had a friend shun me just because a friend of hers didn't like me, I have no idea why.)

So, long story short, I bristle up quite badly when someone is rude to someone who is new and doesn't know their way around.

[shortnudel.livejournal.com]

Dear God, I´m into livejournal for almost two years now. But so far I didn´t have the time to realy get into all those nice little things you can do with it.
I´m German so half the time afraid of offending people by misspeling something. Now I have to wory about coulors, too?
I´d probably crawled under the nearest rock, had anyone "vented" at me like that.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

I´d probably crawled under the nearest rock, had anyone "vented" at me like that.

I would have just quit Livejouranl and gone elsewhere... or start fresh under a new pen name.

The best way to avoid hostility, especially in communities, is see how other people format their posts and go with that - in other words, do what everyone else does. That's how I've avoided controversy thus far.

[ranlynn.livejournal.com]

Oh Ack!! Some folks equate what is 'customary' with what are 'official rules. They also seem to forget that LJ is an *International* community & that english may not be the poster's 'first' language. Or that just being able to 'speak' another language doesn't necessarily mean that person gets the little subtle quirks of that language.

If a community 'owner' or 'moderater' has a particular format they want posters to use than that information needs to be shown during the sign-up process. They can't come in after the fact & tell folks "you can't do that".