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In lugnet.admin.general, Joakim Olsson writes:
> *Well, maybe I do not have the knowledge to speak/write in the language oher
> than my own, but hey, I'm here to learn*
>
> Todd!
> I think that the service you provide us/me is more than I/we could ever have
> been asking for. I think that the service you provide us/me is more than
> I/we could ever have been asking for. It is great and highly valuable.
> However:
> I think I know your personal thoughts of the"Matthew issue" , but:
> What is your professional opinion as an Administrator(and owner) of the
> LUGNET community, without personal thoughts?
My professional opinion is I'm concerned that the arguments of the past 36
hours have been more about Matthew and his continued presence or non-presence
and less about the underlying issues he was trying to raise. Perhaps the
collective mind of the community feels those issues are unimportant, or
perhaps tensions are still too high to warrant that level of discussion, or
perhaps Matthew's concerns simply failed to resonate because of his highly
unconventional approach, in which case there's little hope of them ever being
discussed until someone rearticulates the concerns in a more conventional
manner. As to the issue of posting privileges, Matthew is clearly a LEGO
fan capable of building and sharing models that others enjoy. He's not a
m*ndroid, though his approach is the closest to that we've yet seen. I am
concerned that if his posting privileges are reinstated across-the-board even
with some sort of zero-tolerance rule for misbehavior (whatever that might
mean) some may try to egg him on and some have indicated that they may leave
if he stays. I hold little hope that any sort of general consensus can be
reached unless Matthew is able to voluntarily come up with some kind of
proposal which others would be willing to accept. My sense is also that most
people haven't heard the type of apology or the level of contrition or an
admission of wrongdoing from Matthew that they would need to hear before they
could even consider sitting still with Matthew's continued presence.
I have a question for Scott Arthur: In your mind, has Matthew had ample
opportunity to defend his position and, if so, how well as he defended it?
> Is it a "real" community or your personal home?
I'm not sure I fully grok the question, but I suppose I like to think of
myself as curator of LUGNET and, occasionally, uncle to the community. I
think LUGNET no more a personal home than RTL was. An analogy might be
someone in the neighborhood with a really big sandbox in their backyard
and people from all over came over whenever they wanted and played in it
a lot and built really neat things in it and have fun conversations in it.
There would have to be some minimal set of rules to keep things civil but
you'd want it to feel comfortable and everyone to be welcome as long as
they didn't throw sand in other peoples eyes or kick over their castles.
--Todd
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Joakim Olsson writes:
> > *Well, maybe I do not have the knowledge to speak/write in the language oher
> > than my own, but hey, I'm here to learn*
> >
> > Todd!
> > I think that the service you provide us/me is more than I/we could ever have
> > been asking for. I think that the service you provide us/me is more than
> > I/we could ever have been asking for. It is great and highly valuable.
> > However:
> > I think I know your personal thoughts of the"Matthew issue" , but:
> > What is your professional opinion as an Administrator(and owner) of the
> > LUGNET community, without personal thoughts?
>
> My professional opinion is I'm concerned that the arguments of the past 36
> hours have been more about Matthew and his continued presence or non-presence
> and less about the underlying issues he was trying to raise. Perhaps the
> collective mind of the community feels those issues are unimportant, or
> perhaps tensions are still too high to warrant that level of discussion, or
> perhaps Matthew's concerns simply failed to resonate because of his highly
> unconventional approach, in which case there's little hope of them ever being
> discussed until someone rearticulates the concerns in a more conventional
> manner.
I let this one sit for a while, maybe should let it sit even longer. I think
we do need to separate the issue of what to do about MM (which seems to be
coming to a consensus, more or less) from the larger issue of whether Lugnet
is exclusionary in a bad way. Mind you, I want it to be exclusionary of those
who are not willing to conform to behavioural (not opinion, not enjoyment of
the hobby, but behavioural) norms (while on LUGNET, what they do elsewhere may
reflect on their reputation for friendliness and trustworthyness but should
have no bearing whatever on whether they are in conformance with the ToS, per
se) and I would be disappointed if it were to waver from that. The ToS are
there for a reason and I want them enforced.
I am not up to restating the exclusionary problem succinctly right now, but I
would suggest that anyone who wants to take a shot at it might want to peruse
the thread in off-topic.debate that *was* trying to address this issue without
focusing specifically on MM. Some points raised there might be worth trying to
restate.
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=6651
I think we do have a small problem in this area but it's not a *large*
problem. At least not yet it isn't. But we know that we've lost some long time
community members (and yes, Paul B, I take your point that you're not a member
of a community just because you share characteristics, you're a member because
you want to be, and further the AFOL community isn't one community, it's
many... but putting that aside...) from Lugnet. That's more measurable than
the people who lurked a bit and decided not to join because they didn't like
what they saw. We have a lot less ways of measuring that, but surely it may
potentially be a worse problem in the long run if it is a large effect.
Like I said in the other thread, elitism, and the notion that some people's
words ought to carry more weight in the contexts where they are known to be
experts, are, IMHO, good things. As long as the elitism, and the
acknowledgement of who to listen to, is meritocracy based and not clique
based, that is.
A question, though, and I am not a social scientist and thus am out of my
depth... Is a certain amount of this sort of sense (that not everyone joins
immediately and stays forever) actually normal and healthy group dynamics?
Does LUGNET as a whole tend to overanalyse itself?
Is THAT question itself symptomatic of overanalysis? :-)
I dunno. To a certain extent, as fascinated as I am about communities, I just
want to build, and talk about what I built and TLC and stuff. Blue train doors
available in bulk. Whodathunkit?
++Lar
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
<snip>
> My professional opinion is I'm concerned that the arguments of the past 36
> hours have been more about Matthew and his continued presence or non-presence
> and less about the underlying issues he was trying to raise.
<snip>
Todd,
I don't have a heck of a lot of time but in general I will say this as to
Matthew's concerns.
1. As far as TLC's fair play rules I could care less and I personally would
rather follow them when they do seem to be unnecessary than to be a rebel about
it. I think the disclamers are needed for sites like LUGNET, Brickshelf, and
the LTC's and LUG's. For personal sites I think it is a bit silly to have to
have a disclaimer but I am not going to blow up about it.
2. James Jessiman. Well Matthew overstepped his bounds here for sure but I
can see in a more simplistic sense where he is comming from. In one sense it
seems that the whole CAD community should owe everything to James and that
ultimately all credit should go back to James. That isn't fair to the rest of
the CAD community. I think it is fine to have a small memorial for him
somewhere but I don't think it is necessary to mention him so much. He created
a great program but that program is outdated. His part authoring is a greater
thing but without the work of everyone in the CAD community keeping it going
where would it be? I think James was great but I also don't need to be
reminded of it on a regular basis.
3. I guess this is best described as Eliteism. I think there is a fair
amount of Eliteism here but I also don't think that is a bad thing in general.
There is only one case of Eliteism that bothered me and that is not related to
LUGNET other than people posting about it. I don't really want to get into a
discussion about it publicly so I won't say what it is/was. I do think that
with LUGNET however people are sometimes discouraged from their personal
projects if something similar exists allready and that is unfortunate. As far
as Matthew wanting to do something like Brickshelf with current sets that is
just asking for trouble although I think people here are mistaken when they say
that it could be the end of Brickshelf if he does it. Kevin is doing things
right and to the rules laid out by TLC so I can't see them killing Brickshelf
just because someone else didn't follow the rules.
4. Glue and Painting. I don't see where Matthew is comming from here. I
think he is being silly. I have seen plenty of people paint and glue LEGO and
I don't see big uproars about it.
5. I also don't know what he is talking about in terms of MOC's. I think he
is being silly here too.
Now from my other posts you can probably tell where I stand in terms of
Matthew's posting privilages. The only thing I will add here is that if people
are threatining to leave LUGNET if you don't ban Matthew I find that sad and
irresponsible on their parts. It puts an unfair additional weight on your
shoulders. I will not leave one way or another and personally I think if
people want to try and force your hand then you/we probably don't need them
anyway. You do what you feel is right. In this case this should be your
decision and LUGNET should not be turned into a democracy for this case.
If Matthew violated the TOS then ban him. If the main concern is what he has
on his site I hope he isn't banned until he violates the TOS. Given that it
seems he privately threatened you however that probably gives you the right to
TOS him. Don't get me wrong I don't think I like Matthew I just don't like the
reasoning I am seeing for banning him.
Eric Kingsley
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In lugnet.admin.general, Eric Kingsley writes:
> [...] Don't get me wrong I don't think I like Matthew I just don't like the
> reasoning I am seeing for banning him.
Can you be more specific?
--Todd
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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
<snip>
>
> Like I said in the other thread, elitism, and the notion that some people's
> words ought to carry more weight in the contexts where they are known to be
> experts, are, IMHO, good things. As long as the elitism, and the
> acknowledgement of who to listen to, is meritocracy based and not clique
> based, that is.
>
> A question, though, and I am not a social scientist and thus am out of my
> depth... Is a certain amount of this sort of sense (that not everyone joins
> immediately and stays forever) actually normal and healthy group dynamics?
>
> Does LUGNET as a whole tend to overanalyse itself?
>
> Is THAT question itself symptomatic of overanalysis? :-)
>
> I dunno. To a certain extent, as fascinated as I am about communities, I just
> want to build, and talk about what I built and TLC and stuff. Blue train doors
> available in bulk. Whodathunkit?
>
> ++Lar
I'm not a social scientist, too, but I say yes to the first question.
Maybe I take the word elitist as different one, but I can see that we
are at similar points on the subject. I already throw some words on it
(1) but in brief, I believe leadership and popularity of some people
above the others is a natural and healthy thing for any given community,
provided that the leadership and popularity is given naturally.
Selçuk
(1) http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=6658
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Eric Kingsley writes:
> > [...] Don't get me wrong I don't think I like Matthew I just don't like the
> > reasoning I am seeing for banning him.
>
> Can you be more specific?
Well I don't know how specific you want but without nameing names I will try.
I also assume you want specifics as to what I don't like about the reasoning
for banning Matthew not reasoning for not liking Matthew.
It is my feeling that there are more than a few people that would have Matthew
banned primarily for the content on his site. That in my oppinion is just
wrong. I would even go as far as saying that it shouldn't even come into
consideration in terms of banning him. I don't want to have to think that I
have to think twice about what I put on the internet because it might get me
tossed here or anywhere else for that matter.
The fact is there is a lot of objectional matterial on the net and Matthew
doesn't even come close to any of the stuff on the net that really bothers me.
Sure its about the most objectional LEGO site I have seen but not reason enough
to ban him.
In terms of what he started here with his posting, to me that was a first time
mistake and it is possible he just got caught up in the heat of the "Flame War"
that ensued with some of his other statements. I think in cases before people
have been given second chances and I see nothing wrong with that. Just lay out
the ground rules and if he screws up again then ban him. One precedent I can
think of is the Jonathan Wilson problem. Jonathan was given a second chance
and I think he has become an upstanding member of "the community".
Now many consider his apologys hollow, and they may be, but until he is given a
second chance how do we know for sure?
In my mind the one outstanding factor here is the threat he made to you. That
very well may be reason enough to ban him but that is your decision.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that I hope it is his actions on LUGNET
that are considered and not the content of his site. There should also be no
conditions made that require him to change the content of his site. He has
been put on trial here and personally I think that is a bit unfair because we
are not an impartial jury. I think the decision is totally up to you, Todd,
and if people want to threaten you with actions based on your decision I
personally find that just as objectionable as much of what Matthew said and we
don't need them.
It's fine for you to self title LUGNET "The fiendliest place on the internet"
but that does not immunize us from these situations. You should deal with them
as they occur but I don't think "The Community" should be made jury for those
decisions because that could make for an even worse situation in my mind.
Eric Kingsley
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