Jun 5, 2024 22:31:17 GMT cila said:

we rehash the 'are cliques bad' argument every other month and nothing comes out of it except telling ppl to do better. reach out, plot more, etc. but maybe we should all do some self reflection and consider whether we're embodying the change we want to be, or just waiting for other people to do so.

Yeah for sure. Like I said, it’s a collective responsibility for all involved, admins and members, to improve. I think, by deflecting so much onto admins, it ironically takes away from self-reflection, no? Even very good admins of carefully curated sites can be taken advantage of and ultimately ruined by groups of entitled, self-serving members. And if they operate as an exclusive pack, then that’s a clique. Converse situation certainly also happens as well, though certainly not any more or less. In some cases, it is the admins’ fault, but for any community—roleplay, online, even IRL—it’s not fair to say that the admins or organizers alone are always at fault. People can be unpredictable, deceitful, and ultimately very cruel.

I mean, it also makes sense why people would bring this kind of topic up repeatedly. It happens everywhere! Members start wondering if they’re one of the “bad guys” (or insist they’re the good ones), while others were hurt by exclusive behaviors and have strong opinions on what they wish could be different. The best we can do is admit that, as part of an online community, all of us are capable of making a toxic environment (as described by capsella in an earlier post), so we should check ourselves and our behaviors, and own up to our shortcomings, so that we can improve. That’s not something only admins are responsible for.

If it’s a conversation that, at minimum, has to happen over and over for anything to change, then it’s a good way to remind us to do self-reflection, regardless of who we are, and I think there’s nothing harmful about it.

Jun 6, 2024 4:35:19 GMT cila said:

and lastly, i do agree with you to some degree that members share some responsibility in creating a good community. i'm not arguing against that. i'm only saying that if the environment becomes toxic, than it's up to the admins to fix the community and not to lash out and antagonize their members

"Some degree" is where I completely disagree.

No: admins should not lash out and antagonize their members. But how do admins fix a community if members don't also reciprocate their efforts? And how can we promote self-reflection, but only inasmuch as we can ultimately blame a toxic or otherwise unsuccessful site onto admins?

Perhaps this is a reason why this conversation comes back so often-online communities are more interested in blaming others before we reflect our own behaviors, and this cycle is again perpetuated. I once more cite capsella's earlier post, indicating how easy it is to form a toxic clique from just a friend group, but also how easy it is to avoid such an outcome.

I didn't think that collective responsibility--exercised by admins unto members, as well as members towards one another and admins by extension--came with exceptions and ultimatums. I had a friend describe to me that staffing work is ultimately thankless. With that in mind, how can we look at one another's vast experiences with toxic, exclusive, and emotionally taxing communities by the RPC and otherwise, and say--"Well if the admins were simply better at their job (the one that they aren't being paid for), then none of this would have happened"?

That kind of conclusion closes off so many possibilities for self-reflection, self-improvement, and community-wide change.

Like...there are, at time of writing, over 100 pages in the staffing confessions thread. Zero's post in particular cites how difficult it is to balance administration demands and member expectations with enjoying the world they even created: pixel-perfect.boards.net/post/87715/thread.

But slowly, over time, you find that instead of role-playing, you’ve become a 24/7 help desk, putting on a customer service face, trying to settle disputes and questions, dealing with assholes who don’t care about your well-being or boundaries, who get mad at you if you’re not progressing the site plot like you’re being paid to handhold their experience, and it’s like ‘fuck, why am I even running this world when I don’t get to write in it?’

This post, as well as the existence of such a long-running thread only goes to show that curating and fixing a community while maintaining individual boundaries is difficult. We can agree that a number of situations in this thread would be improved if only we worked, as a community, to improve ourselves. This is beyond opening plots and letting people join in. It's observing the things that go unsaid--the example I had earlier of everyone welcoming a member in gen chat and ultimately turning against her by gossiping and making fun of her behind closed doors--and bringing them to light.

I can't help but feel that we are doing our fellow community members a disservice when we say that a community's health depends ultimately on site creators and not equally on our own efforts to foster healthy relationships and environments with each other. Particularly when it comes to monitoring our own behaviors and making sure we are promoting an inclusive community.