Chopping off their own feet....
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@Minion-Queen said:
I really dislike the secret groups and am happy to see some of that not be here on ML.
They became parasitic.
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Something that people miss, because it is less around cultural problems, is that it moves the traffic from being public to being private. So any questions discussed there are not available to the world. Knowledge is lost. Google can't find it.
Neither the community nor the individuals nor the world benefit from the network effect. It really crippled the site. And considering what a huge percentage of the traffic it became that is really significant.
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well, i was never cool enough for those groups.
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Given that the value of a community is... Community, private groups rapidly undermine that in many ways.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Given that the value of a community is... Community, private groups rapidly undermine that in many ways.
I still respect the hidden rant ability, but the culture in certain groups have become negative. Some people became overly aggressive in some regards, some became annoyed, and like the administration and moderation group, there is a power struggle. Long timers say we do it one way, new people say we do it another. The secrecy became a parasite.
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@RAM. said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Given that the value of a community is... Community, private groups rapidly undermine that in many ways.
I still respect the hidden rant ability, but the culture in certain groups have become negative. Some people became overly aggressive in some regards, some became annoyed, and like the administration and moderation group, there is a power struggle. Long timers say we do it one way, new people say we do it another. The secrecy became a parasite.
It's a tough balance - people do need to blow off steam if they are acting in a moderator/poweruser capacity, but it can get out of hand. I tried to keep things balanced but it can quickly go south.
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@Nic said:
@RAM. said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Given that the value of a community is... Community, private groups rapidly undermine that in many ways.
I still respect the hidden rant ability, but the culture in certain groups have become negative. Some people became overly aggressive in some regards, some became annoyed, and like the administration and moderation group, there is a power struggle. Long timers say we do it one way, new people say we do it another. The secrecy became a parasite.
It's a tough balance - people do need to blow off steam if they are acting in a moderator/poweruser capacity, but it can get out of hand. I tried to keep things balanced but it can quickly go south.
Oh absolutely, the fact they are hidden from the world means their tongues are untied, they will be as harsh and cruel as they want. Your actions in these groups aren't going to be seen my potential employers. I liked blowing off steam, that was pretty much it, but people would start joining and going "look at this ass" and post a link to a newbie asking about proper hard drive required for his server. The fact is arrogance blossomed at some point in time, and the wild fire couldn't be extinguished fast enough.
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I think it is an extension of having community mods. While handy that carries a lot if risks too.
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By community mods I mean community participants that act as mods. Not separate mods.
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@scottalanmiller said:
By community mods I mean community participants that act as mods. Not separate mods.
that in itself became a thankless job, volunteering to help for free to maintain a product that we loved became a struggle of who was right and who was wrong. Hire a new CM, the new CM was more powerful and had more say than the mods and admins, that person could override everyone. EVEN IF that CM was in the wrong, didn't know what they were talking about, or out of context removed a post based on ignorance; they still overrode the free mods. And that in itself caused so many problems its mind numbing.
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Yes. Although lack of CM management was a separate issue. That itself wasn't a result if the mixed mods. Although the "hired guns" feel that came about wasn't good. Newbies with no view of the community as a continuum didn't do it any favors. People with almost a decade of participation given no more clout that bot accounts.
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@RAM. Thanks for the mentioning me, buddy.
I post on that other website less for a few reasons:
Quality over Quantity. The people over here are top problem solvers for the other website.
The other site is now run by vendors. Every thing they do is sponsored by a vendor. To me that means that there is an obvious motive for every event. No vendor is going to pay for sponsoring an event and receive nothing in return.
The power struggle a few months ago showed that money was the number one concern of the other website now. You can see they are just hiring like crazy. You cant hire the best people anymore when you are constantly hiring. From my understanding, Everyone that was employed with them in the past was highly technical. If you have observed some of the new employees, you will know that is no longer the case. They are just like the sales people that haunt us on a daily basis.
Loss of vision and backbone. They definitely lost their original vision. They are no longer good guys that sell ads just to pay for development of their helpdesk software. There is money being passed around like crazy. When you have so much money from different places coming in, you dont want to offend anyone. That is why you are starting to see less and less heated discussions.
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There are a few Spicy Peppers that avoid me now because of my participation on here. Anyone else on Mangolassi experience this?
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I am getting less chatty PM's these days....
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@IRJ said:
There are a few Spicy Peppers that avoid me now because of my participation on here. Anyone else on Mangolassi experience this?
Yes. Some less. Some much less. Some more. It's clear that many people treat it like a cult and you must drink the Koolaid or else. They forget or don't understand that it is the support forum for a specific vendor and not something magical. The community reactions to a lot if things are very weird. Very fanboy over there.
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The fanboy mentality is going strong for many. But eventually I am sure people will wise up and get smart
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Although since I left the secret society, people avoided me anyway. I'm only there to help IT pros, not to be a part of that mess if drama. So people were already upset with me.
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@Minion-Queen said:
The fanboy mentality is going strong for many. But eventually I am sure people will wise up and get smart
I dont think so. The fanboy mentality is kind of built in to the whole geek culture.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
There are a few Spicy Peppers that avoid me now because of my participation on here. Anyone else on Mangolassi experience this?
Yes. Some less. Some much less. Some more. It's clear that many people treat it like a cult and you must drink the Koolaid or else. They forget or don't understand that it is the support forum for a specific vendor and not something magical. The community reactions to a lot if things are very weird. Very fanboy over there.
There are some that are very cult-like and I think we know who those people are.
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@IRJ said:
@Minion-Queen said:
The fanboy mentality is going strong for many. But eventually I am sure people will wise up and get smart
I dont think so. The fanboy mentality is kind of built in to the whole geek culture.
Consumer geek tech yes, I don't see it at all in serious IT.
