Well, it seems that conflict just breeds more conflict sometimes. It's a shame what is happening re: Surf leaving or wanting to leave, and I think it's largely fallout from the major stress of last week on our community.
One thing I have learned here and elsewhere is that the convenience, detachment, and speed of online communication sometimes results in people saying things non-chalantly that end up actually hurting other people's feelings, or causing defenses to go up. On the other hand, those same features can make it easier for people to connect, sometimes deeply, with people whom they would never meet otherwise. So there are pros and cons to it all. I think CT has been great because we've had a lot of the closeness and less of the conflict, whereas the Big Board at Imdb maybe had more conflict and less closeness.
I really hope we as a community can handle people here having strongly held opinions, and I hope we can have public disagreements and arguments--we wouldn't be a very strong community if we couldn't. But if any of us has a problem with anyone here that goes deeper than that or that has built up over time, I'd hope that they would approach that person via PM and speak from his or her best self to that person's best self, with all intentions of goodwill returning. Otherwise, defenses tend to go up, and people retreat to their corners, or else lash out.
In any case, one of the main things Brokeback taught me iss that we all deserve to be respected as human beings, even if we are different. I really hope Surf decides to come back, b/c if we can handle the trolls we oughta be able to handle each other. I love this community and value everyone's contributions. "We gotta stick this out...."
Jenny
