summary of negativity in my recent AARs

[Buster's Uncle]

Y'all don't got to think about the big picture and the future of AC2, and all that stuff, if you don't see your self-interest in having enough cool people here making comments and conversation, though you maybe should; being in charge, it ain't optional for ME.

-Always juggling a lot of eggs, if I'm doing anything at all, and building the place is one of them, and if I didn't know what I was doing, we wouldn't be here at all.  I gotta worry about bait, and lurkers, and newbs, and all that's on top of being the janitor and the architect, alike, and keeping the peace in an inherently low-social-skills (not excepting myself; I have to work very hard at it) demographic.

[bvanevery]

Heh, I have declined to write "the public monetized ballad of a homeless guy living out of his car with his dog", obvious though that may have been to do.  I doubt there can be any serious money in it, and it would be a lot of work for a pittance.  There's also the problem of being inauthentic: any kind of success, ends the reason to write!  Unless one lies.  All I've actually cared to write, are treatises on "how to do this same as me", for those motivated enough to figure such things out.  I went to Reddit's forums on this sort of thing recently, and dumped the contents of my brain for awhile.  It's all there in the archives now.  So if someone has the minimum discipline of searching archives, instead of asking the same old questions every day, they can get the answers.

The community itself proved to have no other value to me.  For one thing, I came to realize that the overall environment of Reddit towards women is toxic and I'll never get a date from those van/car dweller forums.  Women lurk and flee as a matter of survival.  For another thing, those places are overrun by rich people who do expensive builds.  Glory hounds on YouTube, typically.  They don't live like I do, they aren't practical with "any vehicle you have, any life skill you already have, any money you don't have".  Finally, even with people who are living like I do, I'd just get in fights wtih them about stupid things.  Differences of personality, some jerk who's handling his self-image problems by declaring everyone on food stamps to be the scum of the earth, people with obsessive fears about the image of homelessness... low consciousness stuff.  Should I be shocked?  No, I shouldn't be, but there wasn't a sense of shared value there, so I moved on.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's three of you, you know, with at least extensive background in 'non-traditional living modes'; you two and E_T.  Plenty enough to start a thread in Rec Commons and shoot the breeze or whatever. Uno knows a little something, too, though he's not volunteered much, to date...

[bvanevery]

if you don't see your self-interest in having enough cool people here making comments and conversation,

A lurker who never talks and just absorbs free content forever, isn't making comments and conversation.  The design problem is "what transitions this person to being a speaking participant?"  Writing a bevy of narrative heavy AARs so they can continue to feed themselves in quiet isolation, ain't the way.  Tons of work for me, they don't provide anything to anyone else in return.

Users of Open Source software programs at least report bugs.  Some do, at any rate.

There's also the implicit "gift culture" that although you may not give anything back to me, you may be working on some other project where you're giving to something else.  So the entireity of Open Source culture rises.  That doesn't help a specific site though, like say about SMAC.  Such a site has local problems it needs to solve to stay alive.  It can't afford to have every concern be about altruistic global Open Source problems.  Similarly, the internet is littered with the bones of thousands of dead Open Source projects.  Can't keep developers and maintainers, then the project folds.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's a numbers game, sir; a fraction lurks twice, a fraction of that browses frequently in the long-run, a fraction of that signs up, and a fraction of that turns into regulars.  It's a big pie to slice fine, and a proven working model, and I cherish all my friends here.

[bvanevery]

I still don't think we're debating the conceptual model of the first time lurker.

I will have to find out more about Dwarf Fortress permalurkers.

[Green1]

Heh, I have declined to write "the public monetized ballad of a homeless guy living out of his car with his dog", obvious though that may have been to do.  I doubt there can be any serious money in it, and it would be a lot of work for a pittance.  There's also the problem of being inauthentic: any kind of success, ends the reason to write!  Unless one lies.  All I've actually cared to write, are treatises on "how to do this same as me", for those motivated enough to figure such things out.  I went to Reddit's forums on this sort of thing recently, and dumped the contents of my brain for awhile.  It's all there in the archives now.  So if someone has the minimum discipline of searching archives, instead of asking the same old questions every day, they can get the answers.

The community itself proved to have no other value to me.  For one thing, I came to realize that the overall environment of Reddit towards women is toxic and I'll never get a date from those van/car dweller forums.  Women lurk and flee as a matter of survival.  For another thing, those places are overrun by rich people who do expensive builds.  Glory hounds on YouTube, typically.  They don't live like I do, they aren't practical with "any vehicle you have, any life skill you already have, any money you don't have".  Finally, even with people who are living like I do, I'd just get in fights wtih them about stupid things.  Differences of personality, some jerk who's handling his self-image problems by declaring everyone on food stamps to be the scum of the earth, people with obsessive fears about the image of homelessness... low consciousness stuff.  Should I be shocked?  No, I shouldn't be, but there wasn't a sense of shared value there, so I moved on.

Monetized stories about homeless dude in a car with dog is e-begging and bites you in the ass eventually. Most care more about the darn dog and the moment you aren't a poor, unfortunate thing to gawk at or feel superior to, the trivial amount of money dries up. Nor or they your friend. Sympathy always sucked. You are right for not falling into that. There is a possibility of non-profit, but everyone in their brother wants an "advocacy" lay out desk job that is incredibly easy. They only want cetain people for that, and those people never quit. Now, what those guys really want is someone to fund raise cold calling arse wipes reminding them to give so everyone gets paid and maybe 10 percent go to someone who meets certain very narrow requirements. Not that there is anything wrong with that if it gets you in air conditioning and not cramped in a car and you can save up.

[bvanevery]

Frankly I have computer programming skills and much better ways to [prostitute] myself if were really to choose to do it.

Maybe we should shift some of this to the Rec Commons rather than using this thread as a catch-all, if there's even anything left to say on the subject.  We're pretty much on the same page about homeless stuff.

[Buster's Uncle]

Please.

And every lurker has a first lurk, so maybe we need to define terms of something...

[bvanevery]

I created a DF topic in "Other Games".  It is intended to cover the topic of lurkers who read DF stories but don't play the game, although it could develop a life of its own.