LJ anti-strike in sim_rants

[pne]

There's an anti-strike over in sim_rants, with the goal to post as much as possible (on any topic, not necessarily Sims-related) from 21 March 00:00 GMT until 23:59 GMT. There are already 120 entries dated 20 March (from those west of GMT for whom the anti-strike started on the afternoon or evening of 20 March).

So if you want to read lots of stuff, or post lots of stuff, on that day, that would be one possible avenue.

Comments

[opal1159.livejournal.com]

Haha! This is ridiculous. Maybe if all the strikers did something more productive with the time they aren't using to write entries/comments, like write a postcard.

[kake]

...writing a postcard is the most productive thing you can think of?

I don't understand this comment.

[opal1159.livejournal.com]

Ah, I meant more productive in regards to getting their voices heard. People were saying to strike to affect the posting statistics and have the numbers get management's attention, I think? Or maybe just the sentiment...anyways, not much of a lasting impression. I'm sure management heard all about the strike plans, but in the end, it's nothing more than a bunch of users not posting for a day and coming back after that (unless people actually start leaving or something).

An alternative would be to send comments to management on a postcard (http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/204794.html). Worst case is they throw them all away, but then again a one day content strike is also very easy to ignore.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

wtf_inc has several thousand already (http://community.livejournal.com/wtf_inc/5482538.html).

It may take a while to load LOL

We own the world!

[pne.livejournal.com]

That's comments on one post -- sim_rants is going for lots of individual entries instead.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Why do people feel so threatened by the strike that they need to effectively lie? It's dishonest.

I have no problem with people who choose not to strike and use LiveJournal the same way they would any other day. But to deliberately post just to insult other people is petty and childish and fundamentally dishonest. One post to say you're not striking if you didn't have anything else to say - sure. But extra posts with no real content, that's juvenile.

[kake]

Thank you; this is very sensible.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I'm confused where lying and dishonesty comes into what they did. I also wonder whether their reaction has anything to do with feeling threatened.

I can see most of your other points, though.

[leora.livejournal.com]

When they post normally, they make the numbers reflect what they look like by that user not striking. When they post extra that they only post because they wanted to undo the strike, they are attempting to cancel out the voices of numerous strikers. They are only posting to mask other people's statements, and I consider that fundamentally dishonest. Just as I would find creating a second journal just to add to the strike count fundamentally dishonest.

[pne.livejournal.com]

That is indeed one interpretation.

The one I had was that they post extra, not specifically to undo the strike and to cancel out the voices of strikers, but because they find the idea of a strike pointless or silly and took the opportunity to have some free-for-all fun.

Which of us, if either, is right, I don't know, and may well vary from poster to poster.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Silly, yes. I see that. But I think it's in extremely poor taste to have your fun in the faces of those who take something seriously in a way that is clearly insulting to them. And this is even more true when those people are your friends.

Hmmm yes, fun is the word. Fun at the expense of others. I think that sticks it back into the immature category. I appreciate the sophisticated fun. People who write up their points of view in entertaining ways, like the LJ timeline. That's a bit of art. This had no art to it, no cleverness. It was an action at the level of an unsupervised school yard. And that disappoints me. It's like trying to have a debate on a topic while a bunch of kids are screaming for attention about nothing at all.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I suppose you are right.

It's not something that's easy for me to accept, so I was reluctant to do so.

It was fun, but as you say, fun at the expense of others.

I've tried to rationalise by thinking about other incidents where people make fun at the expense of others (especially majorities such as Christians), or considering that there will always be offended regardless of what you do, but I don't think that holds much weight.

I was going to say that I was afraid the alternative to was to stop doing anything that might possibly offend anyone anywhere, which seems awfully restrictive, but upon thinking about that I think your point is -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that you were against actions specifically in reaction to someone's opinion, rather than things they would have done anyway and will continue doing even though that offends someone, if it's not done specifically to insult them but more in a refusal to let someone else's values dictact what you do.

In the concrete example: someone posting normally on 21 March, rather than deliberately posting more often; in hypothetical examples: using "he" rather than "He" to refer to Jesus, or not placing "(pbuh)" after references to Mohammed, or talking about women's rights according to one's own conscience rather than another's opinion, and similar.

I think I shall have to think about this some more.

Thank you for bringing it up with me rationally several times, though, in order to help me understand your point of view.

I believe an apology is in order. I'd like to apologise for my part in this; the specific occasion chosen was in poor taste.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about it too. And the core of it for me is the motivation. If you're doing it to express yourself, then I'm okay with it. If you're doing it to ruin someone else's self-expression, not out of any beliefs, but just to destroy what they are doing, then I have a problem with it.

To me, some of the people who were posting specifically to post were saying things like: Take that strikers, I'll post tons.

And it wasn't out of any principles. It was done just to spite others.

Yes, that's the word. Spite.

I don't have a problem really with people who meant no malice, but some people seemed to be malicious, and that I have a problem with. Just as as a child I felt truly angry at the person who knocked over the block tower I made. I worked hard to build the biggest block tower I could, and it wasn't time to clean it up yet. I was enjoying it. He hadn't made his own block tower, which he would have had every right to knock down. But he knocked down mine. Now, as an adult, I can think of other reasons, maybe he enjoyed watching things fall and hearing a loud smash. But at the time, all I got out of it was he was destroying something I built purely for the sake of destruction. Both are wrong, but the latter is worse.

I've done this myself, I suppose. And everyone probably does from time to time, which is why I don't think it's worth trying to really condemn people for it. As I get older, I try to do it less and less. I've had too m uch of this sort of thing backfire. I think it's part of maturity, learning how to be yourself and disagree without trying to spite or harm people just for the sake of it.

It's hard when the people are doing something you truly think is harmful or evil. It's hard for me to keep calm when someone tells me they think it should be illegal for women to have abortions, because I feel that that directly infringes on my and other people's abilities to live a decent life, and I think it'd be massively harmful and dangerous for society in a large number of ways. I have trouble staying civil when people say racist and sexist things. I understand people getting really angry over some of the religious divides, and I get how that is expressed sometimes in cruel humor. We all stoop sometimes. But I think we should try not to. And it took me by surprise, because I didn't see a boycott as an issue where people would feel so hurt as to feel a reason to lash out over it. I understand how some of the boycotters went overboard and did bad things, and I understand the people who lashed out against that, but I didn't know where some of the malice was coming from who seemed to have no provocation other than that other people were upset and boycotting.

By the way, I'm not in any way upset with you about anything. I'm using this, my own journal, and lady_angelina's where this is being discussed as a good way to better understand and talk about my views. I think I overgeneralized a bit at first, because as is usual for me, my understanding was mostly emotional. I felt that some people had done something very wrong. It takes me a while to process the details of why I think that and put it into words others can understand. And, unfortunately, I think some people think I am more upset or upset at more people than I am. Basically, I think people were people, but people were people in a way they should try not to be. Nobody should have been called a scab, and nobody should have been trying to be malicious.

I think if you really viewed it as fun and with no ill intent, that's a different category. There were some posts though where I really sensed malice. And malice whose cause was never explained. People who made a point about doing it to undo the strike. I didn't notice that from you.

[sea-sensu-si.livejournal.com]

thank you Leora.

*small sad smile*

[pne.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting that; that makes it easier for me to understand, too.

I think if you really viewed it as fun and with no ill intent, that's a different category. There were some posts though where I really sensed malice. And malice whose cause was never explained. People who made a point about doing it to undo the strike. I didn't notice that from you.

*nods*

I wasn't trying to undo anyone's lack of posting. And even though I saw a joke about how "we saved LiveJournal; see, it wasn't deleted after the no-posting day" in sim_rants, I don't think that was on people's minds when they did the posting spree, more a childish "whee this is fun" and/or "not posting anything is boring and pointless, let's post lots instead" rather than a malicious "we'll show them strikers" thing.

By the way, I'm not in any way upset with you about anything.

Ah. Thanks for saying, that, too; I was a bit unsure what was up when you posted your comments.

My wife said I was thinking about the entire thing too much. My problem is that I have to think about situations since my bellyfeel of what is and what is not appropriate is not very reliable, so I have to substitute emotionless thinking for emotional bellyfeel knowledge, which means I need to know which criteria to use when judging a situation. So it sent me for a bit of a spin while I tried to figure out how to determine whether I had done something wrong and if so, what, as well as how to learn what to avoid in the future, and I had trouble with that.

Also one reason why my apology ended up being for the timing rather than my actions, since I still didn't feel what I did was wrong. Reading this recent comment, it's probably because I did not do it out of malice and so I had a hard time coming up with a rational explanation of why it was reprehensible.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Indeed, if you meant no harm, then you didn't do anything reprehensible.

There really were some people who did though, who seemed to be doing it spitefully and maliciously. I was trying to be clear about which people I had problems with, which is why I tried to state various exceptions for similar actions that weren't bad, like just posting to inform people you're not striking, which I think can be quite reasonable. I just didn't do enough to separate the two groups.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining, though; I think I now see what you mean.

I didn't previously because I hadn't seen the action in the light you did, so I couldn't follow your train of thought.