Hmm... it seems things are getting tense once more... (yeah, feel free to call me captain obvious ) But being serious here, there is one particular thing which has left me worried ever since the thread before the Q&A thread was opened.
Some people have been developing lately a negative perception of every kind of person who supports NH/SS (by this I mean sarcasm and senseless bashing, which differs from constructive criticism), and they're trying to justify their reasons behind it (they trolled.... their pairing doesn't make sense... most of them bash towards us/our character/our pairing... and so on). To me, that's just no different than what what the bad apples from the other pairing are doing (and keep in mind that I use the term bad apples here because it is thanks to one or two people who support the other pairing that some of the people here have developed this kind of perception for them). Because of this, some people make jokes about the other pairing/fans because "they are jokes".
But one thing to keep in mind is that these kind of jokes may not be too different that racist/sexist jokes: someone will feel bad about it and may retaliate.
So if anything, one should be prudent when posting comments. Yes, you are entitled to your opinion, but you have to keep in mind that your comments might affect the overall reaction of a discussion. The evidence is in the chapter threads: someone posts a wall of text, and you quickly see people supporting it. It can be a good post, or it can be a bad post, and this, in turn, affects the whole discussion. And as far as I've seen, the mods have shown us how to post good comments without resorting to joking or insulting the other fanbases.
Another thing which I have noticed a lot lately is how some members visit other places and then return to bring the negativity they saw in those places. I know that we want to encourage discussion, but it can be frustrating when a thread is going fine, and the suddenly someone return saying that they want to insult other fanbases because of some random comments that one guy made in another site (I get the chills for saying this, but I predict that someone will sooner or later return from another place to say: "Oh look, now the other fandoms are saying that Tsunade will die because of Sakura and chapter 634 proves it" or something like that and then people wil start replying to it).
To make matters worse, the discussion suddenly shifts both in mood and in post quality to reflect this very post, encouraging the bashing of the other fandoms even more.
And finally, and this is my own opinion: I feel like the members here are starting to lose respect for each other. They "challenge" each other's statements, make subtle jokes about judging them and the thing which I find it happening more frequently than ever, is that they jump to conclusions regarding each other's opinions (e.g. A-I don't mind Sakura healing in 634 B-Ah, so you admit that Sakura is useless.). This in turn, creates a negative mood the affects the responses of others and somehow snowballs bit by bit until the mods step up again or, until everything turns into chaos.
So what's the result? What's happening at the moment.
To conclude: To be honest, every time I make posts like these, I feel three things:
1-Fear: Because even though I have an intense desire to help, words on the internet can be taken in any way. "The concerned Heaven and Earth" is evidence of this, where some people took it OK, and where others did not. "What if I only make matters worse?" "What if people bend my words to accuse other members/mods?" I still feel griped about the pressure tricksie had to face and the anger Sakura Blossoms had at that time, and I don't want something like that to happen again.
2-Sorrow: To see how things have been getting better-worse-better-worse... it takes a toll because we want to do something about it. Issues are addressed, things calm down for a while, and then it happens again.
3-Powelessness: This has nothing to do with position, but rather with what can I do to help and if I'm helping at all. To be honest, ever since quite some time ago, I have felt this way. No matter what I try to help, I feel like I'm not doing anything.
But I don't want this to be about how I feel. What I truly want to do is to find a way to address the community and say what I believe needs to be improved without them taking it as an offense or anything. And this is very difficult to do considering that the line between constructive criticism and bashing is very thin and considering that we can't expect our responses to be taken in a positive way (who likes to be told "you might want to correct that"? Most of the time, we take this as scolding and even insulting).
So I ask: what can I do then?
Edited by Shadow Wolf, 12 June 2013 - 05:57 PM.