You can't have a pecking order if people don't get pecked.

While I sympathize, Aud, I have seen zero and fodder and a number of other people be on the receiving end of mocking, baiting, and name-calling. I haven't been able to entirely avoid it myself.

But like with every other damn thing, you are left with a choice for yourself -- either ignore the dumb sonsabitches and forge ahead regardless, doing your thing, or retreat into a shell. While I am not judging either choice, I am clear* in that it is a CHOICE. There is nothing inevitable or inescapable about it.

*I don't mean "clear" in the Scientology sense (shudder)

Hey Audrey, this reminds me of this chat room my friend from High School started a few years ago to keep in touch with everyone from our graduating class. There was this one guy on there that managed to drive everyone out, he was posing as other students and stuff and posting dumb nude photos and telling everyone to f*ck off; the last I heard of him is that he's unemployed, his wife left him and he's into heavy drug use. Just a good example of what kind of a person is behind the bullying and head games that can go on in chat rooms.
A few of us started another chat room where members only could view the threads and to join you had to sign a form which was sent to your home address; it sounds crazy but it worked and filtered out the idiot. :rolleyes:

Good idea! :D

No. There's more to it than that.

well, explain!

"this whole phenomenon of "shouting" is a common thing we see in group survival actually. to keep your place in a group you must either stand out, or go with the most popular opinion. it's natural group behavior as well as a survival strategy. it's instinct.

anyway, whatever happened to the boards that were inspired by this one? those had a smaller population, right? did the same things occur?"

Frieda - That last paragraph is your question, right? First let me say this - what does acting like a flipping idiot, and ignoring, insulting, making a joke of, or invalidating anyone's feelings have anything at all to do with "survival strategy?" As far as I know, none of us here are in Jr. High anymore, right? Your statement that some people are going along with others in order to survive, by acting like idiots doesn't fly in my opinion. That behavior is, overall, nothing more than immaturity (temporary or otherwise) and a lack of consideration for others' feelings. And even if there was some truth and reality to that statement (which there is, unfortunately), does that make it acceptable?

I'm gonna pm you.

from your post i understand that i might have not been clear in my own reaction to dinz' post. so let me clarify:

i haven't given my opinion anywhere yet, i just stated facts. i haven't said a word about this phenomenon being acceptable yes or no, just that it is a very common thing in behavioral psychology and that it comes up in nearly every group such as sports teams, workplaces, school classrooms and, in this case, internet message boards.

dinz stated that these problems are caused because this board has too many members, i'm questioning that and i'd like to know how these things go in smaller communities where people know each other, because i have no experience with smaller communities.

i'm trying to rule out whether it's the personalities or the amount of people that's causing trouble, with the "other" messageboards as testcase!

No, I asked if it was because of the large numbers.

I think that with any small number of say, your friends, there are maybe 20 or so you see regularly, and only one or two will piss you off occaisionally.
Now, take a workplace with about 100 or 200 people, there are dicks, and some you have to work directly with or even for. That's a dynamic because of size, and the forced interaction with people you dont necessarily like or would have anything to do with.
So in effect, the number of members here has, I think, changed from a bunch of friends to a large group, some of which are the office dicks.
That you would still drink and go party with "some" work colleagues doesnt mean you enjoy your normal work day. And that could be becuase of the forced interaction with people you dont get along with.

Perhaps.

good thread dinz
:)

i'm just trying to be positive and have a good time.
i've learned you just have to ignore the negative stuff.

:) ^ ^ what he said.

It is a good thread. :)

This last little upheaval made me think again about how people who treat others badly often habitually never take responsibility for their actions... they always blame it on the person or group they're bullying and/or abusing: "Well, you shouldn't have pushed me" and "There's no other way to get it across to you" and "When you act like that, it makes me hit you/yell at you/treat you badly" etc. Sometimes it's even more passive than that. It's a little frightening how good they are at rationalizing their actions.

For some reason (probably growing up in a dysfunctional family :rolleyes: ), I end up feeling like it's my responsibility to try to educate people like that... try to appeal their conscience or sense of fairness... I need to stop doing that. It's a waste of time. I think the only way they're going to learn is by losing all their friends (and sometimes that's not enough because then they rationalize that their friends are somehow at fault) or by having someone kick their teeth in (or some other reaction by the recipent of poor treatment rebelling against it ) and I can't do either of those things for them. Especially not the teeth-kicking part.

A message board is a great place for people like this, because they can behave as badly as they like, and there's no recourse but to let them do their thing, or ban them, and since Ze has very little criteria for bannage, they get to just blithely poke holes in others' fun or make fun of others' pain at their whim. It's an ugly thing, shameful, but I guess that's the cost of freedom.

Rule of 150
 

So I'm reading The Tipping Point right now. for those who don't know, the basic premise of the book is to examine how individual actions can become movements throughout a population.

one of the many ideas in this book is "The Rule of 150"- psychologists have figured out what the optimal number of people is in a given group to keep together the level of cohesion in an informal, yet highly-effective manner (this means a more organic, self-regulating group rather than a more formal hierarchy) And you guessed it- the optimal number is about 150 individuals.

why is this? well, there's an idea that we all have a very specific level of channel capacity- meaning we can only fit so much diverse raw information into different channels in our brain before everything goes ooky. The number of channels is about seven (the book proposes this is why telephone numbers are seven digits. look up psychologist george miller and "the magical number seven" for more on this.)

The book extrapolates this theory from raw information channel capacity to social channel capacity- we can only keep up on so many social relationships. For instance in a group of five people, you have to know about ten separate relationships: you with the four others and six two-way relationships between others- understanding what the dynamics are, individual personalities, needs, wants, your own time and attention, etc.

Beyond a group of 150 individuals, our brains go all ooky. Imagine that.

Bill Gross, a Hutterite leader in Washington State is quoted in the book; "Keeping things under a 150 just seems to be the best and most efficient way to manage a group of people. When things get larger than that, people become strangers to one another. In smaller groups people are a lot closer. They're knit together, which is very important if you want to be effective and successful at community life. If you get too large, you don't have enough work in common , and then you start to become strangers and that close-knit fellowship starts to get lost. What happens when you get that big is that the group starts, just on its own, to form a clan. You get two or three big groups within the larger group. That is something you really try to prevent, and when it happens, it is a good time to branch out."

do unto others...

with my conservative views (morally and politically) i am a minority on the board and yet you can still see me lurking around. my opinions and thoughts are not the norm for this place...and yet i feel like i can post them...hey if someone doesnt like it...thats ok. its the same as the real world...sometimes we are a bit too sensitive about things. i know i can be that way. but you know...everyone doesnt have to agree with me---and im ok with that.

im not tryin to be a love hippie--im just saying...remember we all are entitled to our own opinions and even if you dont agree you can be civil and nice :)

i hope i have lived up to my own high standards :)

*cartwheels and sunshine*
Clytie