response 42 of 155:

Feb 12 14:24 UTC 2004

Yup.  Resp:36 is pretty revealing of the M-Net attitude.  "They're just
pseudos, not real people.  They don't have feelings."

response 44 of 155:

Feb 12 14:47 UTC 2004

That's pretty much how I feel, too.  You don't have to be emotionally
disturbed to feel stress when someone yells at you, or at someone in the
same room with you.  That's what it has felt like for me over the past
month.

response 46 of 155:

Feb 12 15:08 UTC 2004

Yeah, like the m-netters arew 'immune' to feelings.  Right.

response 48 of 155:

Feb 12 15:14 UTC 2004

so gull again throws out the mysterious "m-net" like it is supposed to 
be an insult.  Yet he is unable to provide names or reasons as to
who this "insult" encompasses.
He hasn't even bothered to define what a grexer is, other than he identifies
himself as one.  Gull, what makes a grexer?
I've been on grex since it first opened to the public in ..what year
was that.. 1991?  I've been here just as long as many of you.

response 50 of 155:

Feb 12 15:48 UTC 2004

Personally, I find it hard to understand how a person can make 
something like a bbs so important to themselves that when things like 
this happen, it makes them actually physically ill. And I say this as 
someone for whom online conferencing is very important. Sure there are 
people on Mnet and Grex who can upset me that much but they are all 
people I have real life relationships with. 

I worry about some of the people who are getting very upset about all 
of this. I wish there was something I could do to make everyone happy. 
You know, some kind of win-win solution. I *really* wish jep and 
valerie would have considered having the items restored with all of 
their posts removed as well as all the posts of people who would 
obviously have been very willing to give their permission. 

I think it is fair to acknowledge that some people are upset because 
their words have been deleted without their permission. It is fair to 
acknowledge that the sore loser game playing behavior of some of those 
people is upsetting other folks around here. 

But maybe the first thing we can do is stop all these "mnetters" 
and "grexers" remarks. It seems like when someone calls someone on Grex 
an "mnetter" it is meant as some kind of insult but also meant to 
illustrate that those people are outsiders and not very welcome here. 
Ditto for when people on Mnet start using "grexers" a lot. 

response 52 of 155:

Feb 12 17:54 UTC 2004

Re 50:  Lynne, it's not the bbs.  Repeat:  It's NOT the bbs.  It's the other
people on the bbs that get some folks worked up and even ill.  Imagine that
about half the people you talked to on the phone were that rude.  Would you
just say "oh, it's just the phone, it's not reality"?  How about face-to-face?

What seems to be the big difference is that some of us view online
communication to be just as real as the telephone, which is just as real as
face-to-face.  That you don't see it as real, to me, indicates that you are
the one with some social shortcomings.

response 54 of 155:

Feb 12 18:37 UTC 2004

I think slynne is missing the fact that to some people here, there are
real friends of theirs that are involved, maybe even people they see in
person on a regular basis.  Not everyone here thinks of other BBS'ers as
just text on the screen with no real person behind it.  Saying "it's
just a BBS, it shouldn't be that important to them" shortchanges the
real friendships and real people that are involved.

I really do think that this is a cultural difference between Grex and
M-Net, and what we're seeing now may be a wrenching change where Grex's
culture is going to be forced to become more impersonal, like M-Net's.

response 60 of 155:

Feb 12 20:10 UTC 2004

Lynne, when you get rude tech support calls are you allowed to be as rude in
return?

response 62 of 155:

Feb 12 20:39 UTC 2004

resp:60 - nope. And as it turns out, since they dont bother me, I find 
it very easy to be pleasant. I am also very very good at directing 
conversations in the way I want them to go. In my case at work, I can 
have people laughing by the end of the call. 

But, I have to admit that the main reason I am not rude back to those 
people is because my employer wouldnt like it and my employer *pays* 
me. 

resp:61 - I have to disagree. While I dont know who is leaving, I'll 
bet it is some of our more interesting people. 

Just so you all know, I dont think there is anything wrong with wanting 
an online community filled mostly with people who kind of know you and 
who are willing to be there to support you. I also understand that 
people want an open community where folks can wander in and be made to 
feel welcome. The problem though, is that if you have an open system, 
folks you might not want to feel welcome will come in too. 

If that part of it really bothers people, they very well may want to 
leave. I like the open system feel of this place, personally. I also 
like the sense of community. In fact, it means so much to me that I am 
not willing to leave here right now because doing so would just harm 
the community. 

I hope that anyone else who values that sense of community tries to 
stick it out with me. Ignore the folks who bother you. Use a twit 
filter if you must. But please please keep contributing here because 
*being here* is more important than even sending in money. (although 
naturally, I hope people will continue to be willing to do that too) 

response 64 of 155:

Feb 12 20:50 UTC 2004

I dont know. I would kind of like people to learn how to 
ignore "trouble makers". I would like people to realize that *they* are 
valuable to grex. Not because of any potential money they might send it 
either. Because each person here contributes something to someone. I 
would like to convince people to ignore the people whom they dont think 
contribute and focus on everyone else. I admit too that this is all a 
totally selfish desire of mine. I want people to stay because it makes 
my grex experience better.