I live!
So, I recently went through some drama on some forums of mine. And really, I ended up posting a lot of rather personal shit that I think says a lot about me. Heck, the posts are long enough they may as well have been an LJ post. They're about par for the course for me. So I figured I'd post them here. For my own sense of posterity. And a decent distance away from the people involved.
For those people who weren't involved, and have no idea what the hell these are about (which I suspect is most, if not all of you) basically on the forums I frequent, one of the "admin," Blac, has lately been very aggressive. Lots of name calling and mud slinging, often disguised by not putting the person's name in the post, though it's generally very clear to an observer who they're referring to. It means the person can't really respond to the attack because then "Hey, I didn't say your name, it could have been about anyone." I was trying to ignore these for awhile, but then it happened to me, in a lovely burst of drama. And then it happened to another girl, who happened to be Blac's best friend, and the two are going through a fight. The other girl, Kit/Ishda was also an admin, but she was always an admin, and had been for months. Blac had only recently become one, because we had to move forums and she opted to make them herself before being asked. I hadn't actually realized she considered herself as more than a webmistress. But on track, every time I saw it happen to this to Kit I would speak up that I didn't want to see mud slinging on the forums. I'm still a moderator, and have been for longer than this girl has been admin, and I figured it was time to make that count for something. I tried talking to her privately a few times first though. Specifically when it happened to me. Results clearly weren't happening like that.
Both the public requests to stop mud slinging were quickly deleted, once out of personal spite, and the second after a bit of a row about how I was just ass kissing, and had a holier than thou attitude she was really sick of. At the time, Kit had left the forums already so as to avoid these kinds of fights, so I was really confused how I could ass kiss to someone who wasn't an admin and actually wasn't even there to see it, but whatever. Blac kinda seemed like she took the hint and stopped.
And then I found out about some new information. And well, I'll let the post speak for itself.
Over the past little while, I've been rather adamant about something. I don't want to see people getting attacked on these forums. Particularly when they aren't around or are not willing to fight back. There's been some incidents lately of snide insults that are clearly directed at someone on these forums, that just leave the other person feeling hurt and unwelcomed. And you know, I get that people sometimes are upset at others. But as far as I'm concerned, if you're mad at someone else, 9 times out of 10, the person you should be talking to is that person. Privately. Not dragging your feud out onto these forums and forcing everyone to chose a side, you or them.
Now, I've privately told this to the person I feel is doing this a lot. And I've said this publicly now twice, though it always seems to get deleted. And I've ignored it far too many times. But this has gone too far. Way too far.
Ishda has been banned from these forums. And not just banned. Banned with the snarky comment that clearly we aren't her "real" friends.
Now, some of you might remember that Ishda was planning on leaving. She needs to get her life back in order, she's stressed and she wants to go out and just do more. Live her life more. And quite frankly, I see nothing wrong with this. Often, life gets away on us and we need to take some time to step back and smell the daisies. I know many people on here have left for exactly the same reasons. But we always come back, because we're friends.
Someone here decided to make this a personal problem, and throw out a very personal insult to her for her efforts. And then decided to sign this post for everyone on Vent. Because notice that she used the word "we." It's not that she personally feels Ishda is saying she isn't a real friend. She's saying that I feel that way too. And that you feel that way as well. Every single one of us now feels that by getting her life in order, Ishda is insulting us all and deserves to never talk to us again. Because we are hurt and want her to go away, and never again be able to access these forums or our support.
That comment sure as hell doesn't speak for me. I'm proud that Ishda is out bettering herself. And should she ever need a friend, I want to be right here for her. Because she is my friend. I don't want her to feel that I was insulted by her choices. But someone chose to speak for me, and chose to insult my friend with my name. And this is the 1 in 10 times when I feel this cannot and should not be resolved privately. Because I'm not the only person who should be pissed here. We all should be pissed. Only one person on these forums that I know of has both a problem with Ishda, and the power to ban her. She's also the one who's posted 3 other snide insults directed at her, on these forums, I suppose in an attempt to make us all turn around and bash a girl who wasn't here to fight back. And I think she's just overstepped a line and abused her power.
So Blac, I'm dying to hear you explain this one. Want to explain precisely why you felt that your own personal drama with Kit warranted insulting her on all of our behalf, and abusing your power to perma-ban her from these forums for the heinous crime of wanting to fix her life? While we're at it, let me point out that this is the third insult you've thrown at her while she wasn't able to fight back. You like to talk about how this is high school drama. Let me clarify how this is like High School for you. In high school, when you get into a fight with a friend, what the real bitches do is turn around and poison all your other friends against you when you get in a fight. That way, you might be the only one with a problem with Ishda, but no one else here will talk to her because you forced us all to pick a side. Forced us to your side without even asking. That's low.
I've grown past that stage of my life. I don't like drama. I don't like all this fighting and hostilities. But I also refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch as you attack my friend. This isn't right. This isn't fair. This isn't just. And I'm not so scared to rock the boat that I'm going to let you just get away with this shit. Ishda is not first person you attacked on these forums, just the most recent. Before that it was me. Before that, no less than 4 other people have been attacked on these forums by you. I won't out them, they opted to ignore the insults, but trust me, they were all still hurt. I'm only sorry I needed to be attacked myself before I found the balls to stand up to this shit, and fight for what I believe in.
Grow up, Blac. And take your petty insults somewhere else. I don't know what the hell you're thinking, but insulting people in front of their face to their friends? That's not friendship. That's not how you make people like you. That's called bullying, and it needs to stop.
/End rant
Eyup, that's me throwing out the challenge. Publicly. It got locked and then later deleted, so I do rather want to record it here for that. But so drama ensues. There wasn't too much to tell about it, actually, except that some good stuff happened. Blac finally sat down and listened to why she couldn't just run around insulting people who are on the forums. Even if it was secretly just a "But she hurt me and I need a hug" like she thinks all the insults were. And we sat down as an administrative team and started drafting some nice rules about how you do and do not treat other members of the forums. And everything went all nice and smoothly through me suggesting that anyone who threatens to delete their account gets a warning if they do so consistently, and enough warning would result in a 2 day ban. And that we deal with our drama in private, impersonally, as an admin team. And how being an admin did not mean you didn't need to explain yourself to the mods, or a member, or vice versa. And most importantly, that we all respect every other member of the forums, and no more concealed insults.
And then one girl left, and Blac opted to "fix" this ban on Ishda/Kit because she "threatened to leave" (last week, mind you, these rules were drafted yesterday) and delivered a heft 21 day ban instead of the perma-ban she had. When I started to try to explain why that was completely unacceptable, she hushed that "This is personal, and she hoped I could respect that. And she's leaving before I start anymore drama."
Again, I'm clearly the cause of all drama. But still, I didn't actually say a word about it the next day. Which is why she had to post her "opinion" on the forums, with the disclaimer that we could all either accept it or shut up. Mostly talking about how I wouldn't let things die, and how we weren't letting her deal with personal things impersonally, and how she really didn't like that we suggested she be held accountable for her actions. The latter being something that clearly should have been dealt with the previous night, when we discussed it.
At any rate, there was a bit more of a flare up, which ended with her claiming she was giving the other mod her root admin account, then proceeding to not be able to find the password and ranting about it for awhile before giving up. Luckily, the other mod already had the password and proceeded to lock her out like she was clearly asking for, and we demoted her and got the rules up within the next hour.
Little while later, she comes on to find out what happened, and starts screaming bloody murder over twitter, calling the other girl a whore and attacking both the other admin and the other mod for not demoting me as well, amid the personal attacks and the attacks over typos. I didn't get to see much of this, she'd already blocked me on Twitter. Lucky me. When it was over, she went about blocking just about everyone else who frequented the forums on Twitter, most of whom weren't even online at the time. Meanwhile, the admin and mod were apologizing to the same people for having to do it there.
Once the dust settled, I added a new post to the confessions thread. Which is largely what I actually wanted to post here. I'm too lazy to re-write it for LJ consumption, but this was a rather personal post, and very heartfelt for me. So yeah, I thought I'd post it here. For my own record, and for anyone whom might be curious about my latest personal epiphany and personal musings.
There's a new post about rules here. They'll be added to soon, but for now, I think we're making steps to go about getting stuff done properly.
I was a little worried for a bit there, but I think that last little flare up here was just what we needed to actually start doing things right again.
I confess that I'm feeling much more positive about these forums than I have in a long time. I confess that I think we're finally at a point to start doing things right again. I think we finally have a good handle on this forums thing now.
I also confess that I truly dislike all this drama, even when I'm the one making it happen, like I was yesterday. This isn't an apology. I have no plans on apologizing for my actions from yesterday. It wouldn't be sincere, because I'm not sorry I did it. I don't like that I did it, but life isn't about doing what you like. It's about doing things you don't like to do, because they're necessary. And I feel that it was truly necessary to raise a little hell yesterday.
I confess that lately, I've had a bit of a personal epiphany. It happened a couple months back, when I was absolutely torn up about something completely personal. I was sitting at my computer, staring at the screen, bawling my eyes out and doing it as quietly as possible because I didn't want my boyfriend to notice. And I didn't want anyone on here to notice either. But at the same time, I truly wanted someone to do something nice for me. Just out of the blue, I wanted someone to do something good for me. Just cause we're friends.
I'm not really stupid. I knew it wasn't likely to happen. It hadn't happened up to that point, so the odds of it happening then weren't too likely. Which is where the epiphany came in. If people weren't going to do epically nice things for me, maybe I could do it for them. I mean, it clearly would have made my day so much more special right then, why not make someone else's day special, and feel better like that? Maybe it sounds stupid. I've said before, I'm not good at expressing my emotions. But you know, 9 mil WC later, and I still feel a warm, fuzzy feeling when I think about what I did that day.
That was a couple months ago. But I still keep trying to uphold to that idea. Whenever I think of something I wish someone would do for me, I do it for someone else. Even if it's just as small as wishing I had stickers in my album on Subeta. Maybe it's sounds selfish to you. It sounds a little selfish to me, somedays. Like I'm just a greedy little thing, and use my own greed to further advance my friendships. Or maybe I'm just cynical and can't truly believe in altruism, even when I'm doing it myself. It's not like I expect anything back from it. Just the warm fuzzies, especially when I see someone else talk about how happy it made them. Narcissistic? Maybe. I confess I second guess my own motives a lot. But one way or another, the moral principle is simple. Whenever I thought of something that I wished someone would do for me, I did it for someone else.
Well, a little while ago, someone started mud slinging me on these forums. The who in this story is really not necessary. Odds are, everyone either knows or can guess, but truly, the who is not necessary. I don't hold grudges. Not even over this. But one thing stuck with me. While I was sitting here, upset over what had been said towards me, I really wished someone else had stood up for me. I didn't expect anyone would. I wouldn't expect anyone to stick their neck out for me. But you know the thing about wishes is that they don't have to be always make sense.
So when it came down to watching that mud get flung at someone else... Well, like I said on twitter. Some things are worth fighting for. I've never really been one not step up when I think something is wrong. I've been consistent about it, at least. I stepped up when I thought TJ was wrong. When I thought Gil was wrong. But I never really stepped up for the mud slinging that happened here for awhile. Not until it happened to me, and I had a good taste of it. And now I only wish I'd done so sooner. Not to hurt the mud slinger, but for the sake of the victim. It's hard to separate the two actions, but that's the way the I see it. Like I said, I don't like making trouble. But to do anything else wouldn't be true to being me.
So this is me, not apologizing for my actions. Merely explaining, and hoping that no one hates me for this. I'm not trying to make more drama. If you're thinking that you need to make drama about this, and tell me I'm wrong and why, come talk to me in PM. I'm always up for a good moral debate, even over my own morals. But this is just me, confessing to my deepest secret of the past few months.
The tl-dr version of the story? My life has a theme song right now. "Raise a Little Hell" by Trooper.
/rant
And now I wash my hands of this. Cause that's always been what this LJ was for. For me to rant, rave, carry on about the dramas in my life, and in the end, walk away with a clean slate. In this case, with a pruned branch as well. I think things are looking a little brighter already.
For those people who weren't involved, and have no idea what the hell these are about (which I suspect is most, if not all of you) basically on the forums I frequent, one of the "admin," Blac, has lately been very aggressive. Lots of name calling and mud slinging, often disguised by not putting the person's name in the post, though it's generally very clear to an observer who they're referring to. It means the person can't really respond to the attack because then "Hey, I didn't say your name, it could have been about anyone." I was trying to ignore these for awhile, but then it happened to me, in a lovely burst of drama. And then it happened to another girl, who happened to be Blac's best friend, and the two are going through a fight. The other girl, Kit/Ishda was also an admin, but she was always an admin, and had been for months. Blac had only recently become one, because we had to move forums and she opted to make them herself before being asked. I hadn't actually realized she considered herself as more than a webmistress. But on track, every time I saw it happen to this to Kit I would speak up that I didn't want to see mud slinging on the forums. I'm still a moderator, and have been for longer than this girl has been admin, and I figured it was time to make that count for something. I tried talking to her privately a few times first though. Specifically when it happened to me. Results clearly weren't happening like that.
Both the public requests to stop mud slinging were quickly deleted, once out of personal spite, and the second after a bit of a row about how I was just ass kissing, and had a holier than thou attitude she was really sick of. At the time, Kit had left the forums already so as to avoid these kinds of fights, so I was really confused how I could ass kiss to someone who wasn't an admin and actually wasn't even there to see it, but whatever. Blac kinda seemed like she took the hint and stopped.
And then I found out about some new information. And well, I'll let the post speak for itself.
Over the past little while, I've been rather adamant about something. I don't want to see people getting attacked on these forums. Particularly when they aren't around or are not willing to fight back. There's been some incidents lately of snide insults that are clearly directed at someone on these forums, that just leave the other person feeling hurt and unwelcomed. And you know, I get that people sometimes are upset at others. But as far as I'm concerned, if you're mad at someone else, 9 times out of 10, the person you should be talking to is that person. Privately. Not dragging your feud out onto these forums and forcing everyone to chose a side, you or them.
Now, I've privately told this to the person I feel is doing this a lot. And I've said this publicly now twice, though it always seems to get deleted. And I've ignored it far too many times. But this has gone too far. Way too far.
Ishda has been banned from these forums. And not just banned. Banned with the snarky comment that clearly we aren't her "real" friends.
Now, some of you might remember that Ishda was planning on leaving. She needs to get her life back in order, she's stressed and she wants to go out and just do more. Live her life more. And quite frankly, I see nothing wrong with this. Often, life gets away on us and we need to take some time to step back and smell the daisies. I know many people on here have left for exactly the same reasons. But we always come back, because we're friends.
Someone here decided to make this a personal problem, and throw out a very personal insult to her for her efforts. And then decided to sign this post for everyone on Vent. Because notice that she used the word "we." It's not that she personally feels Ishda is saying she isn't a real friend. She's saying that I feel that way too. And that you feel that way as well. Every single one of us now feels that by getting her life in order, Ishda is insulting us all and deserves to never talk to us again. Because we are hurt and want her to go away, and never again be able to access these forums or our support.
That comment sure as hell doesn't speak for me. I'm proud that Ishda is out bettering herself. And should she ever need a friend, I want to be right here for her. Because she is my friend. I don't want her to feel that I was insulted by her choices. But someone chose to speak for me, and chose to insult my friend with my name. And this is the 1 in 10 times when I feel this cannot and should not be resolved privately. Because I'm not the only person who should be pissed here. We all should be pissed. Only one person on these forums that I know of has both a problem with Ishda, and the power to ban her. She's also the one who's posted 3 other snide insults directed at her, on these forums, I suppose in an attempt to make us all turn around and bash a girl who wasn't here to fight back. And I think she's just overstepped a line and abused her power.
So Blac, I'm dying to hear you explain this one. Want to explain precisely why you felt that your own personal drama with Kit warranted insulting her on all of our behalf, and abusing your power to perma-ban her from these forums for the heinous crime of wanting to fix her life? While we're at it, let me point out that this is the third insult you've thrown at her while she wasn't able to fight back. You like to talk about how this is high school drama. Let me clarify how this is like High School for you. In high school, when you get into a fight with a friend, what the real bitches do is turn around and poison all your other friends against you when you get in a fight. That way, you might be the only one with a problem with Ishda, but no one else here will talk to her because you forced us all to pick a side. Forced us to your side without even asking. That's low.
I've grown past that stage of my life. I don't like drama. I don't like all this fighting and hostilities. But I also refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch as you attack my friend. This isn't right. This isn't fair. This isn't just. And I'm not so scared to rock the boat that I'm going to let you just get away with this shit. Ishda is not first person you attacked on these forums, just the most recent. Before that it was me. Before that, no less than 4 other people have been attacked on these forums by you. I won't out them, they opted to ignore the insults, but trust me, they were all still hurt. I'm only sorry I needed to be attacked myself before I found the balls to stand up to this shit, and fight for what I believe in.
Grow up, Blac. And take your petty insults somewhere else. I don't know what the hell you're thinking, but insulting people in front of their face to their friends? That's not friendship. That's not how you make people like you. That's called bullying, and it needs to stop.
/End rant
Eyup, that's me throwing out the challenge. Publicly. It got locked and then later deleted, so I do rather want to record it here for that. But so drama ensues. There wasn't too much to tell about it, actually, except that some good stuff happened. Blac finally sat down and listened to why she couldn't just run around insulting people who are on the forums. Even if it was secretly just a "But she hurt me and I need a hug" like she thinks all the insults were. And we sat down as an administrative team and started drafting some nice rules about how you do and do not treat other members of the forums. And everything went all nice and smoothly through me suggesting that anyone who threatens to delete their account gets a warning if they do so consistently, and enough warning would result in a 2 day ban. And that we deal with our drama in private, impersonally, as an admin team. And how being an admin did not mean you didn't need to explain yourself to the mods, or a member, or vice versa. And most importantly, that we all respect every other member of the forums, and no more concealed insults.
And then one girl left, and Blac opted to "fix" this ban on Ishda/Kit because she "threatened to leave" (last week, mind you, these rules were drafted yesterday) and delivered a heft 21 day ban instead of the perma-ban she had. When I started to try to explain why that was completely unacceptable, she hushed that "This is personal, and she hoped I could respect that. And she's leaving before I start anymore drama."
Again, I'm clearly the cause of all drama. But still, I didn't actually say a word about it the next day. Which is why she had to post her "opinion" on the forums, with the disclaimer that we could all either accept it or shut up. Mostly talking about how I wouldn't let things die, and how we weren't letting her deal with personal things impersonally, and how she really didn't like that we suggested she be held accountable for her actions. The latter being something that clearly should have been dealt with the previous night, when we discussed it.
At any rate, there was a bit more of a flare up, which ended with her claiming she was giving the other mod her root admin account, then proceeding to not be able to find the password and ranting about it for awhile before giving up. Luckily, the other mod already had the password and proceeded to lock her out like she was clearly asking for, and we demoted her and got the rules up within the next hour.
Little while later, she comes on to find out what happened, and starts screaming bloody murder over twitter, calling the other girl a whore and attacking both the other admin and the other mod for not demoting me as well, amid the personal attacks and the attacks over typos. I didn't get to see much of this, she'd already blocked me on Twitter. Lucky me. When it was over, she went about blocking just about everyone else who frequented the forums on Twitter, most of whom weren't even online at the time. Meanwhile, the admin and mod were apologizing to the same people for having to do it there.
Once the dust settled, I added a new post to the confessions thread. Which is largely what I actually wanted to post here. I'm too lazy to re-write it for LJ consumption, but this was a rather personal post, and very heartfelt for me. So yeah, I thought I'd post it here. For my own record, and for anyone whom might be curious about my latest personal epiphany and personal musings.
There's a new post about rules here. They'll be added to soon, but for now, I think we're making steps to go about getting stuff done properly.
I was a little worried for a bit there, but I think that last little flare up here was just what we needed to actually start doing things right again.
I confess that I'm feeling much more positive about these forums than I have in a long time. I confess that I think we're finally at a point to start doing things right again. I think we finally have a good handle on this forums thing now.
I also confess that I truly dislike all this drama, even when I'm the one making it happen, like I was yesterday. This isn't an apology. I have no plans on apologizing for my actions from yesterday. It wouldn't be sincere, because I'm not sorry I did it. I don't like that I did it, but life isn't about doing what you like. It's about doing things you don't like to do, because they're necessary. And I feel that it was truly necessary to raise a little hell yesterday.
I confess that lately, I've had a bit of a personal epiphany. It happened a couple months back, when I was absolutely torn up about something completely personal. I was sitting at my computer, staring at the screen, bawling my eyes out and doing it as quietly as possible because I didn't want my boyfriend to notice. And I didn't want anyone on here to notice either. But at the same time, I truly wanted someone to do something nice for me. Just out of the blue, I wanted someone to do something good for me. Just cause we're friends.
I'm not really stupid. I knew it wasn't likely to happen. It hadn't happened up to that point, so the odds of it happening then weren't too likely. Which is where the epiphany came in. If people weren't going to do epically nice things for me, maybe I could do it for them. I mean, it clearly would have made my day so much more special right then, why not make someone else's day special, and feel better like that? Maybe it sounds stupid. I've said before, I'm not good at expressing my emotions. But you know, 9 mil WC later, and I still feel a warm, fuzzy feeling when I think about what I did that day.
That was a couple months ago. But I still keep trying to uphold to that idea. Whenever I think of something I wish someone would do for me, I do it for someone else. Even if it's just as small as wishing I had stickers in my album on Subeta. Maybe it's sounds selfish to you. It sounds a little selfish to me, somedays. Like I'm just a greedy little thing, and use my own greed to further advance my friendships. Or maybe I'm just cynical and can't truly believe in altruism, even when I'm doing it myself. It's not like I expect anything back from it. Just the warm fuzzies, especially when I see someone else talk about how happy it made them. Narcissistic? Maybe. I confess I second guess my own motives a lot. But one way or another, the moral principle is simple. Whenever I thought of something that I wished someone would do for me, I did it for someone else.
Well, a little while ago, someone started mud slinging me on these forums. The who in this story is really not necessary. Odds are, everyone either knows or can guess, but truly, the who is not necessary. I don't hold grudges. Not even over this. But one thing stuck with me. While I was sitting here, upset over what had been said towards me, I really wished someone else had stood up for me. I didn't expect anyone would. I wouldn't expect anyone to stick their neck out for me. But you know the thing about wishes is that they don't have to be always make sense.
So when it came down to watching that mud get flung at someone else... Well, like I said on twitter. Some things are worth fighting for. I've never really been one not step up when I think something is wrong. I've been consistent about it, at least. I stepped up when I thought TJ was wrong. When I thought Gil was wrong. But I never really stepped up for the mud slinging that happened here for awhile. Not until it happened to me, and I had a good taste of it. And now I only wish I'd done so sooner. Not to hurt the mud slinger, but for the sake of the victim. It's hard to separate the two actions, but that's the way the I see it. Like I said, I don't like making trouble. But to do anything else wouldn't be true to being me.
So this is me, not apologizing for my actions. Merely explaining, and hoping that no one hates me for this. I'm not trying to make more drama. If you're thinking that you need to make drama about this, and tell me I'm wrong and why, come talk to me in PM. I'm always up for a good moral debate, even over my own morals. But this is just me, confessing to my deepest secret of the past few months.
The tl-dr version of the story? My life has a theme song right now. "Raise a Little Hell" by Trooper.
/rant
And now I wash my hands of this. Cause that's always been what this LJ was for. For me to rant, rave, carry on about the dramas in my life, and in the end, walk away with a clean slate. In this case, with a pruned branch as well. I think things are looking a little brighter already.