But I post it anyways, because of a greater fear: SYM might perish.
Death is usually not the best discussion-subject in a party. It "kills" the mood, to keep using analogies. Yet, I feel someone has to bring it up. I will try to keep my speech as structural as possible to explore the problem and different solutionscenarios.
As I said, I fear SYM might perish somewhere in the future, and I'm not talking about in 10 years.
This is because I've heard quite a few people complain about SYM's current state and because I see many members mysteriously disappearing, either completely or mostly, which in fact is often the same.
These two could be connected. Many well-known members leave and the rest complains because they miss those characters.
So, should we perhaps forbid leaving? No, ofcourse not, where did you get that silly idea?!
Sometimes, once every so many months and around halloween, some members return to the meadow, utter a few hello's and then they're off again.
But is it realistic to expect those missing personalities to either permanently return or be replaced by a comparable personality? The answer must be no. Most of the 'splitters' have a good reason (lack of time, work, study, watering the plants, lack of devotion
) to leave and the probability or even possibility of a left well-known and respected member's personality to be compensated by another member is somewhere near zero.This brings us to the new members who fail to compensate the loss of the respected members. They litter SYM with unadapted puppytalk and uneducated nonsense. Ah, yes, who doesn't like to bash the newbie?
But is it realistic to blame the decline of SYM on the newbies? That's certainly a difficult question. It is so tempting to say they've done it and yet, it isn't true. That would be blaming the water for the flood. I'm amazed by my own analogy. Much like the water that damages your furniture and drowns your cow, the newer members litter SYM with unadapted puppytalk. But the flood isn't caused by them. They're more like the result; the water, as I see it. The conditions were already present when they decided to join on SYM. The dam was already busted, you could say. People don't come and post in a forum that's not right for them, just like water stays behind the dam when the dam's too strong.
Before I continue, I want to say that I don't intend to insult or rant on the the newer members, even though it really looks a lot like it. I certainly don't want any newbie to leave over the slight irritation of more experienced members. It is your complete right to be here with us and our honour. You did not cause the irritation.
We take everyone seriously here, no matter what your join date or postcount says.
On to searching the cause. I think we've excluded the leavers and the joiners as they are incontrolable factors. We can't and shouldn't force the leavers to stay, or those who want to join, to stay away.
Apparently, the cause of the complaints must be sought in the current occupation of SYM.
SYM is shaped by people and by standards.
Are the people creating negative conditions for SYM? I don't think so. Even though the people should in theory create the standards, I don't think there's people to be blamed... Yet.
That's why I said SYM is shaped by people and standards. The expectations and rituals and everything that seemed to form the foundation of the old SYM are either rotting or evolving, whichever has your fancy.
I think that about concludes what I think is causing the decrease of quality of SYM at the moment.
"We must learn to live with the evolution of SYM as a natural occurence over time and we can't expect SYM to always be the same BLABLABLA" I can't live with that and I want SYM to return to glory.
Wait. Did I just say that SYM was once glorious and is now a senile slave of nothing? Well, not quite. It's not that bad. But what if it soon is...
Is it realistic to want it to return to former glory? Definitely not. That would require the leavers to return to educate the joiners and that's not going to happen and would be unnatural too.
How about forming an etiquette to raise the standard? That would be an artificial attempt to return to the standards of the SYM as we have it in our minds. I think it's too unnatural to be realistic. It also raises a lot more questions like: who's going to enforce the etiquette; who's going to MAKE the etiquette; is it going to have the desired effect. Artificial and unnatural are the key words. And I don't think that's going to work. Also, the forum will be almost entirely unapproachable by new people. But maybe that's okay?
What about ignoring those who are irritated? Not giving a damn about those oldies who wish their SYM stayed unspammed and educated and much the same. That would give way to an entirely new SYM. Force the establishment out. Oh, anarchists are so damn attractive. But no. SYM has certain ingredients that I think should be maintained.
Okay, okay, so you're saying it's impossible to go back and yet you want SYM to stay the same?!
Erm. I guess. ?
So what's the point in making a thread that has no clear conclusion?
Eh, to start a discussion.
But this discussion is way too hard and there'll never be a satisfying conclusion!
That's true. All I can do is request people to post their views and be honest about their views and not feel insulted by others.
