I am new to this forum, but have already read through thousands of posts. It is amazing how easily lots of people seem to get personal with each other for the smallest things. Self-control and respect for others and not to say for themselves are virtues totally forgotten. It is like the louder you can scream, the better. Just consider it for a second or two, please.
The reason I'm posting on this is because I had a very unique experience happen online. In 2000 to 2001 Yahoo! opened a message board type setting called "Yahoo Experts." It was a message board on steroids - being multi-dimensional and interactive between members (Experts) and visitors - those who inquired regarding an array of topics from cooking, to dog care, to religion to financies. There were many topics wherein members could register to become Experts. I became an expert where wrote and answered over 3000 questions for around 17 months daily, and had pretty intense interactions with people from all over the globe who had questions about the particular topic I chose. What happened, the unique experience, is this: After over a year Yahoo decided that Yahoo Experts wasn't bringing in enough money. They slowly reassigned their techs who ran the forums. Power of Yahoo moderators to control and moderate greatly diminished. However, there was a group of key individuals (Experts) who were still part of the remaining functionality of the program. I was one of them. The very last 2 months most the functions had stopped since the Yahoo techs had all but abandoned the site - we had a global forum structure with no moderators - anyone could say and post ANYTHING they wanted. There were about 20 to 30 of us who continued posting and answering questions but mainly using what was left of original dynamics of Yahoo Experts to... communicate... with each other - debate and sound each other out on issues that quickly reached into the center of existence. We had some of the brightest minds on earth there - to free post for over 2 months. What happened was... the best I can sum it up... we... shifted into some kind of primordial state - we went back it seems - way back deep within our mental and emotional recesses of our civilility or our humanity as we understood it and ourselves. It was an extremely rare instance and moment in time - to have people at their most basic - being able to say and post ANYTHING. Never have I encountered the likes of such an event prior or after that time. The members and those who came to the site to inquire of us ranged from Ph.Ds to completely uneducated people, religious zealots to the most base kind of humans; rich people and extremely poor people. All meeting on truly equal terms. It was as if we were all thrown back into time to cave dwellers (if there were such a thing) yet we had our computers and keyboards to communicate with each other most directly. I became friends with several of the members and regular visitors and even had live verbal interaction with them. Remember, though, we were a group from all over the globe. It truly was a global/primal situation with each thought, concern and cause being represented with no limits or constrictions being imposed on us. Well, I'll never forget what we reverted back to for those two months - it was astonishing, our leaving all the neccesity of humanity - just getting down to the origin of our existence. There was no more need to be nice, you could just say what you REALLY thought X 30 people plus visitors. You would have had to be there to understand what people are really made of, when there is no requirement for expression of thought to be made within legal bounds or moral obligations. We became some kind of... primative tribe... each of us representing our own interests. There were raw human emotions, stripped down mental processes for each to see others in an environment that was set back 1000s of years - even to the beginning of time - to survive or die with no more than each of our own wits and understanding of life itself. Anyway, I always had hoped there would be a place such as that on the net in which to function within. ET is not that place because there are moderators here. Baron and rest of the guys seem to be pretty cool and tolerant, but try to imagine a setting with deeper dimensions than just this message board has (there was a rating system for each post and many other such features) that was literally a free for all - then you might get a picture of what a place would be like that truly was without "respect" as well as without many other things. Personally I think it is essential and critical for at least some of those factors to be present in a communication setting in order to have truly open communications and freedom of thought and expression. to
I think you are touching base with something really interesting. I was using the Internet from the very beginning and I have also experienced true communication in its pure sense, but I think the bullshit many times seems to come in between that true communication here on ET if you see what I mean.
Or maybe you are too civilized then....being a foreigner.....for the cowboy mentality of many Americans.
Fair enough, but something in between maybe....to get the balance right... Sofistication/civilization mixed with guts and will to excel maybe. How about that?
I get no respect. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest. -Rodney Dangerfield