Community Spirit--veinglory Sometimes community spirit strikes me as being a little like the girl with the curl:

There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

We each have our favorite blogs, forums and lists. There is a natural instinct to rush to the defence of 'one of your own'. But many of us belongs to several (or scores) of these places and end up seeing it from both sides. Major psychosis aside, it take two people not giving the benefit of the doubt to create a real handbags-at-dawn argument.

Some things to keep in mind are:
* If some one does the wrong thing they are more likely to be dumb that malicious. (Myself included).
* Hitting and criticising people doesn't make them any smarter. (And the pleasure you get from it is fleeting).
* Hammering the issue in public doesn't make it any easier for them to realise their mistake. (And is embarrassing if you then realised the mistake was your own).
* If something needs to be said, less in more--in terms of content, emotion and size of audience. Say exactly what needs saying to the people who need to hear it, and never press 'send' whilst angry--just save the draft for tomorrow when the world might look a little different. (Extreme brevity, understatement and surface courtesy is actually more cutting anyway).
* If you want to vent do it with your friends via email. Lists and forums are semi-"public" and many of them appear on search engines (forever).
* Let your friends know if you are just whining (whining, ranting and tantrums are very therapeutic but some people mistake them for a call to arms). If you actually want them to do something let them know what it is (Put down the machete, Bob. I just wanted some advice).

Unless someone disses EREC, of course. Then I expect you to go for them like a pack of ravening were-kittens ;)  ¶ posted at 8:15 PM by Emily Veinglory