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In lugnet.trains, Paul S. D'Urbano writes:
> In lugnet.trains, Bert Waters writes:
[snip] I have poured more than enough fire into the quality issue....
> This depresses me, too. This was my first LUGNET post and I believed the
> hype that this would be "the friendliest place on the Internet." Does that
> not apply to lugnet.trains?
> Paul
Hi Paul,
I think noone is ignored by the 'old train experts', but the online community
of Lego fans has grown to a size, where we older ones are not too enthusiastic
any longer, if a newbie pops up out of the nowhere and that may apear
like ignorance sometimes.....
I think it is hard for all sides: the newer fans feel ignored, the older ones
loose partly respect against newbies and each other or are just fed up with
all the online stuff. I cannot speak too much for Lugnet (not even for
lugnet.trains) but I have been a nearly first hour member of the 1000steine
board, and we survived similar processes of growth with temporary flame wars
and with subgroup building etc.
Just to share my personnel view about the growth process and its effects:
First every AFOL world-wide has been lonely and may have thought to be the
only adult in the world to play with / collect Lego bricks.
Then suddenly we met some other fans online and we were very enthusiastic
about that fact. You could share experiences, thoughts, pictures of your MOCs
etc. It was easy to feel enthusiastic: you and the few other AFOLs all
suffered under the same loneliness and the lack of interest against our hobby.
And so you accepted ANY new member into the community. You where not
interested, if the other one had 'stinking feet', was painting his bricks, had
high or low building talent or was even beating his wife and children. You did
only care if he was another AFOL next to you.
The community grew and first outlaws appeared: someone ripped off several
members out of the community via eBay. What happened? The community felt even
more welded together.
The community grew and suddenly there were old and new members. There have
been 'old members (maybe just 1 year a part of the community and newer ones,
who felt not really be welcome, although they have been sharing the community
for over 6 months then....). In a result a Who Is Who list was started in the
1000steine community. People learned more about each other and felt again as
one community for a while.
But with further growing the problems get/got worse. Newbies do not dare to
ask questions, halfolds do not dare to answer, because there are these old
experts in the background etc. And the newbies feel ignored since they come to
late to get into the 'inner circle' (there is a long time friendship of the
old first hour members and those will prefer to basically talk with each
other).
At some point even some of the old time members may become outlaws in the
community. Maybe a lack of character has been there for all the time, but in
the launching community nobody cared as written above, but then the
community is in danger to explode....
All these effects are very complicated (dynamics of a group of individuums)
and everything is under permanent change. But the result is for any community
nearly the same: at some time lots of old members are fed up and leave the
group. They may go into a subgroup or they may have all the contact persons to
live without any open community but they are in touch with lots of the old
friends via mail (I am in touch of lots of people that never do any public
posting any longer). That happened partly to the 1000steine community and lots
of the guys that were online in the days of rec.toys.lego.
And for a long time participant of the community like me this is maybe the
most hurting. We lost the cosy feeling we had when the community was young and
very open.
I hope my bad way of English has been clear enough to give you an impression
on my point of view. Do not feel ignored. Try to mix in in any interesting
discussion yourself, try to find people you like and you will soon feel as a
welcome part of the community. And if somebody seems to ignore you, do not
care too much about. Even a completely 'ignored' message here brings a few
hundreds of visitors to any given link you post. So you may get no feedback,
but despite of that your posting get read.
If you have seen 500 Lego engines in your live, it is hard to say some kind
words to a new designed one, that is not too far about the average level, but
still you have a look at it and may enjoy it very much. That may appear as
ignorance, but it is the way it is...
Kind Regards,
Ben
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In lugnet.trains, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> I think noone is ignored by the 'old train experts', but the online community
> of Lego fans has grown to a size, where we older ones are not too enthusiastic
> any longer, if a newbie pops up out of the nowhere and that may apear
> like ignorance sometimes.....
Hi Ben,
Thanks for your insightful response. When I placed my original post I
wondered if anyone would reply at all. I assumed that it would only depend
on the content of my post being something people cared to comment on.
Bert's comment suggested that the experts would deliberately ignore me,
regardless of the content, which was disappointing since the amazing things
that these same experts have achieved with LEGO trains is what inspired me
to try to participate in this community in the first place. From reading
your response I understand now how the complex social dynamics of a group
like this (of humans in general) could give the impression that we're being
ignored when in fact there's nothing deliberate going on. I've never been
involved with an online or fan community to any great extent so I've never
considered how the community evolves in the way you described. It all makes
sense.
Thanks again,
Paul
PS:
> I hope my bad way of English has been clear enough to give you an impression
> on my point of view.
I had no problem with your English but you might want to be careful with the
word "ignorance." It normally doesn't mean "state of being ignored", but
instead means "state of being ignorant," which means having a lack of
knowledge or understanding and sometimes implies "stupidity." I knew from
context what you meant, but a casual reader might think you were insulting
someone.
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In lugnet.trains, Paul S. D'Urbano writes:
> In lugnet.trains, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> > I think noone is ignored by the 'old train experts', but the online community
> > of Lego fans has grown to a size, where we older ones are not too • enthusiastic
> > any longer, if a newbie pops up out of the nowhere and that may apear
> > like ignorance sometimes.....
>
> Hi Ben,
>
> Thanks for your insightful response. When I placed my original post I
> wondered if anyone would reply at all. I assumed that it would only depend
> on the content of my post being something people cared to comment on.
> Bert's comment suggested that the experts would deliberately ignore me,
> regardless of the content, which was disappointing since the amazing things
> that these same experts have achieved with LEGO trains is what inspired me
> to try to participate in this community in the first place. From reading
> your response I understand now how the complex social dynamics of a group
> like this (of humans in general) could give the impression that we're being
> ignored when in fact there's nothing deliberate going on. I've never been
> involved with an online or fan community to any great extent so I've never
> considered how the community evolves in the way you described. It all makes
> sense.
I too learned a lot from a quite eloquent lecture on the dynamics of this
community. I guess I was just hoping that more people would respond to Paul's
post. The questions Paul raised were similar to my own. After reading Ben's
remarks I realized that my response was presumptuous. I also noticed that Paul
had posted only a few hours before I made the comment.
Thanks Ben and I think you had a great first posting Paul!
Bert Waters
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