The Awkward Silence

apaul

12:27 AM

@Ash Nice to know I'm not talking to myself, but doesn't really address the concern.

user15026

I'm not entirely sure what your concern is, to be truly honest

apaul

That the community is slowly dissolving as more and more people are becoming fed up.

user15026

12:43 AM

Sometimes that happens - it's easy to be excited when sites start, but some of them lose steam when they fail for whatever reason to get that critical mass of people so that it's not the same like tiny handful of humans doing all the work.

user15026

Although, I will caution against assuming the chat community comprises the entirety of a site's community.

apaul

Of course... the standard SE lines...

user15026

Sometimes, they're standard because we've seen this happen over and over

user15026

What do you want to hear, here?

user15026

Chat doesn't and won't ever show you every facet of a community because some people never ever hit chat.

user15026

12:48 AM

And sometimes, people do burn out because sites fail to thrive.

user15026

Not every site will be a magic success out of the gate. Some take a while to find their legs.

user15026

This is a soft squishy site in terms of topic. It's going to take more work and more dedication to keep on a constrained and workable path, because it's very open ended.

user15026

Other sites don't have that issue, because their topic has more defined edges.

apaul

I'm aware of all that. This isn't my first time... Just voicing my frustration.

user15026

Alright, but I'm allowed to reply, as well.

user15026

12:49 AM

You asked "what happened to the community".

user15026

So since you phrased it as a question...I was answering said question.

apaul

"The community" as in the group of folks who used to be hella dedicated, that seem to be dropping like flies and being replaced by people who are flatly clueless, or people who don't really seem to give much of a shit.

user15026

They're likely burning out, because they've taken on all this work and it's hard if you don't ever get the help you need from new blood. No man is an island and all that stuff.

user15026

Like especially here I think it's harder because like...so many people want IPS advice, because we're all a bunch of terrified little meat sacks who just want to be happy and have things go well

Catija

@apaul Dude... it's Sunday. Chill.

user15026

12:55 AM

But being able to give that sort of advice in a way that's clearly and constructively helpful is a whole different set of skills.

user15026

ANd helping people refine their IPS stuff to actually not just be a panicked flail of "someone is upset and it is all broken" is another set of skills.

apaul

@Catija You know as well as I do that this has been going on for a good while.

user15026

Also, it's the weekend. A lot of sites get hella weekend quiet.

user15026

Like I keep telling people here - you gotta find a way to build a community that eventually draws people in. And sometimes, that means taking the people who "don't give a shit" in the way you want them to give shits and teaching them what giving a shit here looks like.

2

apaul

How's that been working out so far?

user15026

12:59 AM

You can't just declare people lost causes out of the gate just because they don't care about this immediately with whatever you define as the right amount of caring in the right ways.

Catija

Hey, apaul... Let me put some words up for you:

> Stupid people with their stupid answers. Can't you figure out that this is unnecessary and rude or do you need someone to show you?

user15026

@apaul If you just wanna fight with me, that's cool.

user15026

We can do that.

user15026

If you'd like to have constructive discussion, we can do that too.

user15026

If you're convinced this site is hopeless....it's going to fail.

user15026

1:02 AM

If you can't be the one to fight the good fight anymore, and you gotta lay that sword down because you're out of HP? FIne.

user15026

That's okay.

apaul

I guess I'm losing hope. And ya, I've been losing patience too.

user15026

Either the site finds people to take up the sword, or it doesn't, or maybe it figures out a different way to go that isn't what you thought but works well enough for it to do what it needs to for the people who are still here.

user15026

If you find yourself constantly upset and frustrated and out of patience, then maybe you gotta go "okay, I gotta step back and not touch this" because otherwise you risk chasing away people that could be shaped into good community contributors because you don't give them a chance

user15026

And that's hard.

user15026

1:04 AM

I remember when Pokemon Go came out and we were getting piles and piles and piles of these godawful questions because people found us and were just bombarding us with shit about every tiny thing that went wrong.

user15026

It got to the point where we literally had Meta debates about declaring the whole thing off topic because people were tired.

apaul

Seems like most of our resources are being poured into "educating" users who are just hear to screw around. We've certainly identified a few, but ya, we'll do that instead of anything remotely productive.

user15026

But some people persevered, and we duped a lot of crap, and eventually we could mostly tell who was here that would honestly want to do the thing, and who was just here because it was a text box that they could put letters into.

user15026

@apaul It's a hard line, especially with IPS.

user15026

You're going to get the trolls because lolz people are funny and have problems lolz let's mock them and waste time

user15026

1:07 AM

but also, you run a risk of people not knowing how to say what's really going on (the whole friend of my friend sort of thing) so they don't exactly tell the right truth out loud for fear of being identified or ridiculed or what have you.

user15026

And people are not always going to agree what that looks like.

user15026

(I know you're annoyed with the turtle thing.)

apaul

The turtle thing was minor at best.

user15026

It was just the most recent one I could think of (my memory is kinda wonky so specific things don't stick always so well)

user15026

Like there's a lot of things I'd theoretically ask here that would make good questions but I don't, because enough people know me that it would make things less comfortable for me than I'd like.

apaul

1:11 AM

More talking about a lot of our top users disappearing or falling silent while we hand hold known trolls...

user15026

Ah. I don't think that's as much of a problem as a few people seem to think

user15026

I also think people conflate "trolls" with "people who have no IPS skills"

user15026

Or who are just honestly misguided and kinda lost and kinda flailing about because no one has ever challenged their worldviews before.

user15026

I think also you're sticking two problems together that are separate things.

user15026

Basically, we have a burnout problem because we aren't getting in the new people to support and help the old guard.

apaul

1:19 AM

Nah... There's at least one... Tends to play clueless awfully well, but they're definitely known and they seem to deliberately derail things on the regular.

user15026

And there's also the potential problem of people misguidedly trying to create community by rewarding the wrong sorts of behaviour in an attempt to get and keep whoever's closest

user15026

(Also, one person alone does not a large scale problem make)

apaul

It does when it's allowed to fester.

user15026

Then people have to be clearer about shutting it down.

user15026

Like collectively.

user15026

1:20 AM

And it can't just be a moderator thing, either.

apaul

Yes people are getting burnt out, but there are underlying reasons for that. When we hand hold users that we know are screwing with us, we allow them to stick around and accrue enough rep to "contribute to moderation" which compounds the problems.

user15026

All I can say is then stop holding their hand.

user15026

If this is an ongoing problem with more than one user, perhaps a case can be made that rep thresholds are currently too low, who knows.

user15026

(but if you're going to ask for a change for core functioning, you're going to need a lot more than "I don't like that this one person gets to have things", obviously)

user15026

Stop responding to the person, stop feeding their posts (downvote floods, comments, responses, whatever), lay clear boundaries. Don't give them the attention.

user15026

1:28 AM

And negative attention still counts. Constantly alluding them like this still also counts - whoever it is will read this and they're going to realize they're pushing your buttons.

user15026

Basically, stop giving them the buttons.

apaul

Cause booting them obviously isn't an option...

I'll remove the buttons.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

NVZ

2:15 AM

Interesting discussion

Jesse Barnett

4:03 AM

I would say IPS older/more experienced members are burning out for a slightly different reason, I don't think the questions are exactly getting worse and worse. It is more that they are staying the same. IPS compared to the rest of SE is one of the subjects that you can

- can't just research, you improve through experience. And as older members get more experienced, new people join and ask the same base IPS questions that have always been getting asked.

and naturally it would get tiring. Since it is much harder to determine the 'facts', or successes and failures, it also makes our collective knowledge on the subject a bit slower to grow than other subjects

i think...

Extroverted Main Man

4:29 AM

0

Q: How to convince a family member to stop victimizing themselves?

Situation: My grandmother moved away from the bulk of our family almost two (2) years ago now. As the flights are expensive, she only tends to visit a few times a year. However, every time she visits it causes conflict in our family. This is due to her making herself out as the "victim" in any s...

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