And realize how silly your priorities were back when you were a kid? I know I have; back when I first really started browsing the web, the things I saw and the people I met really helped me to break from those foolish ideals. However, I look back on those memories with a smile because if I hadn't known to change, I probably wouldn't be who I am today.

For me it all started with the Nintendo NSider forums, back when Nintendo really had an online community. I was around fourteen at the time. I remember that there was a ranking system, and the elite status of "Sage" was what everyone aspired to, myself included. Everything I did was in hope that the moderators would grant me that status.

What I didn't notice at the time was that my actions, while well-intentioned, were actually detrimental to the community. I ended up causing a lot of annoyances by trying to suck up to the mods, and trying to stick my nose in everyone's business. At times I didn't know how to just stop talking, and for a time quite a few people disliked me. I even started to get trolled, and of course, being that young I didn't quite get it.

The thing is, as the years went by, I started to really pick up on forum etiquette. I learned to sit back and listen, instead of trying to get everyone to hear me. I realized that if I let things run their course, I could start small, with a few close friends, and then start to create a positive reputation that resonated through the community.

So I guess my point is, to all of the older members of this BBS, is that while the younger generation is still new to things, we were at one point just like them. And to the younger netizens on the BBS, I urge you to, before you try to speak out, listen. Take a moment to see what it's all about, try to find a niche and make friends with a few before trying to take over the Dollars (did I just say that out loud? Well there goes my motive).

*Sigh* Well, enough of my rambling. I want to know what some of the elder members of this community think. Do you guys agree with my statements? Do you have similar stories to share? And to the young, is this your first forum/BBS experience? Or have you been a part of others, and how have you changed over time?

Well said OP. "Ne te quaesiveris extra." Do not seek yourself outside yourself. I love hearing people and seeing what everyone else has to say about anything. We all exist together. We should be able to think together as well!

Umm, well I had a similar experience back when I first joined BakaBT's community... I didn't know what I was doing, I was on the forums all the time, plus I didn't know that I should have been seeding all of my downloads OTL.

SO, every time I spoke as if I knew more than someone about the site, technicalities that I overlooked were slapped in my face, hence making me look like a dumbass. I tried and tried and ended up looking hypocritical when I wasn't even contributing to the community I was trying to be a part of.

In any case... I know I used to be 'new' to forums and BBS systems, that's why I tend to be very lenient with new members, when it comes to duplicate threads now... unless its just plain ridiculous. I'd like to note that being lenient and being nice are not necessarily the same thing, nor should it be treated as such. I agree with you on most of your points MKOLLER... I've also noted that you come up with a lot of things worthy of being on main... I'd like to compliment you on that.

Ha, in fact, I am 14 right now, the age you said you were inexperienced at... It's kinda funny to see how maturity has changed over time with ages. Though, a majority of 14 year olds today are quite immature.
Anyways, I was inexperienced at age 9, when I started coming onto forum sites and meeting people online, et cetera. I agree, whenever I was 'trolled' I gave the trolls what they wanted- I yelled at them and screamed and typed in all caps; I looked like a complete moron now that I look back at it.
With just 5 years of experience in the internet world, you can either become extremely immature or mature, you have to choose. You either abuse the freedom aspect or use it for a good cause, that's how I see it.
I'm a newbie here to the Dollars site, in fact, I've only been on for nearly a week. But I have enough experience elsewhere to understand what to do and what not to do on these sites.

This is a really good message to people who are new to the internet world. They'll make mistakes, and there'll be those asses who'll yell at them, but in all reality those asses are the ones that make you learn. You're angry and hurt and typing up a storm of angry words and exclamation points, and once it's all over, you realize your mistake. It's best for the ones with experience to not get evolved and watch as they learn. I'm not saying to be mean on purpose, but if someone is being that way, let it happen, let it slide, and if neither of them learn, then the experienced ones can step in and help. :)

>>4 Maturity isn't what has changed over the years... Whats changed is the age where people are first exposed to the internet.
I didn't have regular internet access until I was around 16 years old, like... 5 years ago. Nowadays, kids are getting fucking laptops when they are 7-9 years old. You're still as mature as the average 14 year old... you're just more 'internet savy' than MKOLLER and I were at your age. That's all I wanted to say... for some reason that really irked me...

No, that's a good point, I agree. How come kids nowadays are getting iPads and such in the 5th grade? It's disappointing, childhood used to be spent outside, playing, but due to technology kids are all trapped indoors, lured in by the internet... It's fine for adults. But for kids?
I wouldn't compare myself to average 14 year olds, I'm not conceited, but the average 14 year old would probably throw a hissy fit at you and cry about what you said. But, then again, you don't know me and I don't know you, so for all you know, I am crying behind the keyboard. *shrug* Who knows. : )

>>6 Oh hell, when I was a kid I was inside playing my gameboy color... fuck yeah pokemon red version.
But yeah you seem a tad more mature than the average 14 year old, after all you certainly didn't react like i expected you to.

In any case, lets allow this thread to get back on topic. Sorry for that unintentional derail.

Pokemon, wohoo! I had hundreds of cards when I was smaller. Good times.
Thank you, that is a huge compliment.

Agreed, no problem at all. What does everyone else think about how you change over experience online? Elders of the site, feel like you want to share? ^^

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I assume that this was code for something... most likely code for an intelligent response to this thread, depicting a heartwarming story of his first time...on BBS.

At least that's what it better be, or ID:RRgKrHz2 is getting his ass banned.

>>2 Love the quote. Mind if I drag it to the quotes thread? (It's on the literature board) Or you can do it yourself if you want.

I am new to the forum experience, but I was on chats a few years back. I was not very well liked in the beginning. It turns out, that most chats are ruled by trolls. Either way, finding my niche here has helped me a lot. I simply look for threads with my common interests and if they don't exist I put it up. Seeing all the people with the same interests as me makes me want to keep coming back here. I spend so much time typing responses in the threads I agree with that I barely have time to eat. I know that's a BAD thing, but it makes me happy that so many people agree and are willing to help me out.

Well said. I'm still pretty new here, and this is my second forum experience. While I'm a quick learner when it comes to the do's and don'ts on BBS (and forums in general), it's still reassuring to read a thread like this and know there are those with more experience who are willing to take a minute and understand. I speak for myself, but I'm sure others agree with me. Overall, great post. Thanks!

>>16 haveing a retard moment

>>1 I guess I'll start with the 'newer members' since I haven't been around long enough to qualify as an 'elder member' here on the BBS.

-This is not my first forum experience. This is my first experience on a forum dedicated mostly to conversation-type threads, but still. I've been a member on a roleplay forum for quite some time now, and it's still among my most frequented forums.

-When I first started up out there, I lurked a bit. I've never been the type of person to jump in head first. Rather, I read through the rules of a community, and abide by those religiously until I've been around long enough to form my own reputation. On one site, I've developed a nice reputation amongst the mods and a good chunk of other posters like myself. On another, I'm very new, and trying to learn some of the new lingo and forum rules. Here, I've been around long enough to have made several cool friends, and nobody has lashed out at me yet :P

Can't say I've changed much, though. My aspirations on a forum are pretty low, so I don't really irritate enough people to require a change in my attitude. As far as anybody lets on, anyhow :P

Even though it's not in the context I usually hear it, the term "elder members" still irritates me. We are Moon Warriors now.

Anyway... My earliest internet experience was playing Pool online. I met some cool people, but it wasn't that important. The first influential online experience was Runescape.

Met some friends, met some enemies, got butthurt over being PKed, got vengeance over being PKed, got sucked up into game-drama, ate an industrial sized tub of cheesepuffs, threw up powdered cheese, had a long debate with myself as to whether I'd ever eat cheesepuffs again, decided "fuck you, I like my cheesepuffs" and continued eating them to this day.

That's how I slowly learned MMO etiquette and got my first taste of the whole online aspect of society.

Much later, I stumbled into a forum. Found people I liked, found people I hated, found people that I loved hating and they were my person to hate and god help you if you hated on my person. Found more social drama than I had ever thought existed in one place, etc.

My internet experiences were never gradual. It was always "hey want to be thrust into an environment you know jackshit about? OKAY!" And there I went, head first. Sink or swim mentality, and all.

I'd say the end result attests that I swam more than I sunk. Even when I failed, I took the opportunity to look at what I did which caused me to fail, or caused the reaction it did, and then learned from it for later.

There are no regrets, though. I can't honestly look back and say I find anything I did particularly silly or unneeded.

Not so much because I had a perfectly adjusted maturation period, but because at the time of doing it - I was very much convinced that my actions were justified and important. It was the best choice I made with my current understanding and experience, and whether it could be considered "silly" now or not is demeaning to who I was then.

All of my choices have been the best ones I knew how to make, and if they were wrong or inefficient in retrospect - There's nothing I can do about it now, and there was no way to know about it then. They shaped me into who I am today, and so I say there are no regrets in the past.

And if I had to find a common trend of change through the years, I'd say it was that I gradually cared less and less about the people around me. Each stage of change I went through maturation wise, both online and offline, I found myself becoming more detached from the opinions of others, and myself.

Not the stereotypical "I'm lonely" or "no one understands me" emotional spiel. I mean that I learned to let go of my own personal opinions and view things more objectively. To understand "this is the way this person feels, because he holds these values" and that even if my own values and feelings didn't correspond - He wasn't wrong, we just disagreed.

And the more I applied this mentality, the more I learned about the people around me - Online and offline. But all of it started online, where freedom and anonymity led me to realize that the face and voice of a person meant nothing to the opinions they hold. Individuality.

And it led me to respect individuality, even if I did not agree.

And that respect, in turn, led to a various number of other things not important to this thread.

In conclusion, I rarely look back. I am who I am today because of the choices I made, and if I wanted to change; It would be a choice I made today - Not in the past.

Those are my experiences. The things I've gained and learned online.

I find it's impossible to look back on one's past without thinking you were a silly person, and that now your ideals are better formed than they used to be. I mean, this is for obvious reasons - one learns and grows based on past experiences and mistakes. It would be silly if one actually got worse after acknowledging this.

But I can't say I'm really all that familiar with online communities, like you guys are. At most, I joined a few when I was 10 years old, but never really committed or contributed. I was always too afraid to say anything, for fear it may be badly received - a problem I've had for a long time that still persists in a diluted form today. The closest I got was joining a forum that my friend ran, and even then, it was only maybe a couple dozen of us, and it didn't really last.

I played MMO's and learned that some people are jackasses online very quickly. At first it was baffling - someone acting deliberately mean and illogical? What the fuck. Similar to Navi, this was in fact on Runescape, and it was when someone scammed me into being PK'd, or if someone decided to become a dedicated spammer towards me.

I spent more of my early time on the internet observing, and compiling the different types of people: their actions, reactions, and mindsets. I gained a thorough understanding of the "person behind the screen" and it effectively helped me quickly get over the troll-feeding stage of internet infancy.

MKOLLER does have a point. Not everyone jumps in and learns everything immediately, and it may take years for one to figure out what is and isn't acceptable, even if it literally parallels a real-life situation. A mistake people make is differentiating between online and personal interaction, and assuming that what you say through text counts for less than what you say through voice. I've adopted a philosophy not to act any different online than I do in person, or in any other situation for that matter.

That said, yes, I would really question someone's intelligence if they manage to ignore and avoid clear signs like board names, because it amounts to walking into a room with a big sign on the door, and then obnoxiously talking about something unrelated.
I would really get upset with someone when they're being an obvious weeaboo or fanboy/girl, because that's not something I tolerate in "real life" either. Granted, I may be more verbose online about my rebuttals, but in general they get the same treatment.


tl;dr - I do see where MKOLLER is coming from, and it's true: the internet and its communities is not necessarily common knowledge or easy to adapt to. However, I do believe that how you carry yourself in an online community equates to how one carries themselves in a normal community. The online/offline aspect makes little difference to me. The key difference, and problem, is that online communities are more readily available than an offline one; this makes people think it's okay to lower standards.

Responses, in reverse order:

>>23 Regarding your knowledge of how people act online, are you still reluctant to interact with those types of people like when you were young? I mean, a lot of people are courteous on the BBS but flamewars do occasionally erupt. Would you say that you sometimes silence yourself? Or do you speak your mind without concern for your opponent? Just curious. I can say that for me, I tend not to back down if called out, and will fight to the end until either I'm right or evidence is revealed that shows I was erroneous in my way of thinking.

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>>22 Moon Warriors; I'll try to remember that. Also, I believe that online pool was how my own mother entered the internet world (and eventually she branched out, even getting as far as being moderator for several MSN chats before giving it up entirely).

Your experiences remind me of my brother, to tell the truth. He was really into DeviantArt's chatrooms as well as IMVU. Met a lot of people, and trucks full of drama. However, I'm not sure he fully grew out of the drama, but it's had some positive effects for him in the real world, as it has for you. And as far as I can tell, he's happy how things have turned out for him that stemmed from his online experiences (including meeting people who would later go on to save his life, literally).

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>>21 I'd say you're really cool and have a badass offline experience that we all can look up to. So...yeah.

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>>18 I wouldn't say that all chats are full of trolls. From what I can tell, many chats consist of a tight knit community with a pecking order. You first have to be accepted by one of the members. Then they will vouch for you, and other members will start to accept you. Finally, you'll start to be treated with more respect as you prove yourself a competent and intuitive individual. That's just my take on it; could be wrong.

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>>5 I kinda want to disagree. Yes, people are getting online while they're still in gradeschool, but etiquette is supposed to be universal. Then again, parents are not being parents anymore, so who's to say? ... Oh Goddammit.

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>>4 It's interesting that you bring up the choice argument. It's a lot like driving a car. It doesn't take long to learn the ropes but we so easily neglect the rules when we finally consider ourselves "experienced."

For instance, when driving a car, people speed and make boulevard stops and do other reckless things, all the while thinking "This is OK, it's not like I'm hurting anything." Then a cop tells you to stop and you think, "But I'm not hurting anything!" Finally, you end up crashing due to ignorance and something does end up getting damaged.

Internet foruming/chatting is the same way. You think you're experienced and then you start to act like a complete tosser, neglecting the rules and order of the forum (in this case the BBS) until a senior member or moderator calls you out. You argue and keep doing it until finally, everyone gets pissed off and a flamewar erupts.

I hope that analogy made sense.

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>>3 Thank you for the compliment, and I sympathize with your experiences having also gone through them.

>Senior member

Moon warrior.

>>25 What-Ever!

Well hello there. While trying to find some old threads to bring back on top, I found this, and saw I never posted on it.

Well, time for a little embarrassing insert story time.

This is like my second memorable forum I've ever been in. You'd think, what with my hardassery and such I've been to many forums. Nah. The first forum I was ever in was this MMO forum, it was called ASDA Story.

Oh younger me playing MMO's and such... I wasn't really an active person in the forum, in terms of posting. I was a shy lad back in that day. Just watching and seeing people make other people mad and butt hurt. And then, I used my friend's account, who by the way never even used it, he just made it, and just made this one dude butt hurt before I left. What a badass. Made him rage hard.

Then I just went around MMO's and their forums, but I never really liked their forums after ASDA, so I stopped going to their forums altogether, and just played the MMO.

Then, I just wandered the internet, going on Youtube, and random blog sites that I would never go back to again. But then, I found one such blog site, that would eventually lead me here, randomc.net. Etc etc, they blogged Durarara, etc etc, became a hardcore fan, etc etc, went onto chats and was an Izayafag for a couple of days, etc etc, went onto various Durarara sites for whatever reason, and now I'm here. Herp derp.

Bump (:

Definitely gonna leave something here in the future

bump

Bump