GearHead_1
Long Time Member
DC lost something today. We lost a member that has been with “The City” for a long time. I’m not going to mention his name. Some are already aware of this and some will pick up on it over the next few days. He decided to step aside, to take a break, to get away. Whether this is for a little while or permanently I don’t know. This person is someone that I value as a friend. We didn’t always agree on subject matter but I valued his opinion. I know that on many occasions he gave me occasion to consider something a little further than I thought I was willing.
I have written to him since he made his departure. I expressed my desire to have him continue to be part of our community. He shared a few thoughts with me that gave me cause to think about a few things. In a nutshell if I were to sum up his thoughts I believe it comes down to an overall lack of consideration. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t asking for anyone to give him respect though I believe he deserved plenty. I think it comes down to the Internet and just how we’ve groomed our communications when interacting with web communities.
The Internet is a great and terrible thing. Great in the sense that we can easily share information with the touch of a keyboard, terrible in the sense that anonymity comes because we are able to hide behind a monitor. No doubt that we say things that we would never express when speaking to someone face to face. I know that I’m certainly guilty of this.
DC is a fairly tight community, for me it seems to be like a complete set of friends away from home. I haven’t met most of the members that I speak with on a day to day basis but I’ve gotten to know them none the less. I share things with DC members the same way I would with friends here at home. I believe that as a community sometimes we are a little too tight when it comes to letting someone in and at other times we allow people to stay that we would definitely never let our children hang around.
It certainly takes all kinds to make an Internet community. Just as in the real world it takes a great deal of work to have a successful community this work is shared by the forum owner, the staff and the members. The thing that is different here when compared to real world interaction is that all too often we don’t work on or watch what we say. We type anything we happen to be thinking as there is little consequence to those keystrokes.
As I thought about this a little more it became increasingly clear to me that first impressions are everything in an Internet community. Bad first impressions are almost impossible to shake. I say this knowing that people come into threads or conversations not knowing everything that is going on with members, their interactions in other threads and within the community. We see only what is directly in front of us and because we can’t hear voice inflections or see facial expressions we have only half the picture. This left me thinking just how important it is that we are careful in what we say and how we treat other members. After all we never know when they became aware of us and what their first impression may be. As a result I think I’ll watch what I say a little more closely in the future.
People leave Internet communities everyday and no one notices. DC is no different but I know that we lost something today; something that added diversity and value to our community. In almost every instance when we lose a member we become a little less than we were in one form or another. I for one will miss this member and hope that he decides to return.
I have written to him since he made his departure. I expressed my desire to have him continue to be part of our community. He shared a few thoughts with me that gave me cause to think about a few things. In a nutshell if I were to sum up his thoughts I believe it comes down to an overall lack of consideration. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t asking for anyone to give him respect though I believe he deserved plenty. I think it comes down to the Internet and just how we’ve groomed our communications when interacting with web communities.
The Internet is a great and terrible thing. Great in the sense that we can easily share information with the touch of a keyboard, terrible in the sense that anonymity comes because we are able to hide behind a monitor. No doubt that we say things that we would never express when speaking to someone face to face. I know that I’m certainly guilty of this.
DC is a fairly tight community, for me it seems to be like a complete set of friends away from home. I haven’t met most of the members that I speak with on a day to day basis but I’ve gotten to know them none the less. I share things with DC members the same way I would with friends here at home. I believe that as a community sometimes we are a little too tight when it comes to letting someone in and at other times we allow people to stay that we would definitely never let our children hang around.
It certainly takes all kinds to make an Internet community. Just as in the real world it takes a great deal of work to have a successful community this work is shared by the forum owner, the staff and the members. The thing that is different here when compared to real world interaction is that all too often we don’t work on or watch what we say. We type anything we happen to be thinking as there is little consequence to those keystrokes.As I thought about this a little more it became increasingly clear to me that first impressions are everything in an Internet community. Bad first impressions are almost impossible to shake. I say this knowing that people come into threads or conversations not knowing everything that is going on with members, their interactions in other threads and within the community. We see only what is directly in front of us and because we can’t hear voice inflections or see facial expressions we have only half the picture. This left me thinking just how important it is that we are careful in what we say and how we treat other members. After all we never know when they became aware of us and what their first impression may be. As a result I think I’ll watch what I say a little more closely in the future.
People leave Internet communities everyday and no one notices. DC is no different but I know that we lost something today; something that added diversity and value to our community. In almost every instance when we lose a member we become a little less than we were in one form or another. I for one will miss this member and hope that he decides to return.
