I think of the Org or any place where people with a common interest gather... as a ecosystem. This analogy is useful bcuz...

1. To a certain extent, it is a place that is supposed to work on its own. You know a set of phenomenons will occur naturally and that they are related and part of a system, no matter how loose.
2. This system is a complex and sensitive place that can be disrupted by the overall conditions, which include everything from the behavior of its occupants to the interventions of the ecosystem managers.

There is no argument that this system needs to be managed, but you also have to be mindful of what is just a natural occurence that is BUILT IN, and what isn't. If you start overfighting what naturally occurs, such as heated disagreements and friendly topics that have nothing to do with Prince and everything to do with being part of a community, you end up with something even more dysfunctional and unsatisfying.

Case in point, the surge of silly Prince topics. Is it any wonder? With no GD, people rake their brains for Prince topics and come up with stuff that just screams for parody. Then the real parody starts.

If people didn't have to rake their brains to find some crusty piece of Prince topic, maybe they'd take a OT break and have a better chance of saying something interesting next time. You can't expect a place where people feel forced to stick to one topic to be all that interesting.

I think the same goes for the different types of posters we have. We need a lot of diversity, from the very serious to downright silly... Everything has a function, no matter how mundane. The people who manage this place should limit their interventions to what is a clear abuse of the environment... not fight what you have every reason to expect from the interactions of such a diverse group of people.

And what is a "clear abuse"? Unfortunately, that is a very subjective matter, and we can only hope that the people who make the decisions have the scope to gauge all of this.Matt is getting a lot of flack, but he is working with a closed GD. It's not an enviable position.

If and when the GD reopens, it will be interesting to see what we have learned from this particular chapter.
[This message was edited Wed Jul 17 16:45:50 PDT 2002 by Aerogram]

Maybe cause I'm relativly new, but isn't this taking a fan website a bit too seriously?

MeshOfFlesh said:

Even if the basis for this site is trivial in the grand scheme of things, the fact that real people interact in a fairly diverse way makes it a worthy topic IMO.

Plus I can't help it if my major was communications. Nothing is too trivial for me in that respect.

Great post, Aero...

CalhounSq said:

Thanks, but it's sinking.. I don't know what to do to bring it up. Do you have an idea?