Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Freeman
Online disagreement or arguement...yes, a team being "black-listed" temporarily...maybe, fearing phyisical confrontation from another mentor...that seems pretty out there.
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It's interesting that some people are being called "FIRST Royalty" as something that is condesending, like they annointed themselves this title. I think I know some of them personally, and if anything they have been raised to these "cult" level statuses not by themselves but by all the people in the FIRST community that they have helped.
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Adam, I think the FIRST Royalty is meant to acknowledge the role that some high profile mentors hold in our community. When someone wants to do a motor calc, and they use JVN's calculator as a starting point. Ether tends to have detailed answers to almost everything. Some users (yourself included) have a rep as people who you just know after being on this forum and in FIRST for long enough (I think of strategy genius when I think of you btw). As you said, they are raised to this status by the people they help. Its a good thing, just sometimes an intimidating thing at the same time. Imagine trying to hold your own in a debate against one of these great mentors. It could get scary, especially if they started using charged language directed towards you personally. The point is that sometimes, reputation is conflated with what people are actually saying. I don't really care how nice a guy someone is if online their posts are threatening. Royalty status does not excuse you from this.
Fear of confrontation in a physical manner is not what I am afraid of, and others can chime in about what they're afraid of, but I don't think physical repercussions are it. I am afraid of being mocked on Facebook, twitter, CD etc. and am afraid that this might cause others to take issue with me or my team at competitions. This can be as simple as not coming to our pit and learning from/teaching me/my team, or can be as complex as not cooperating/blacklisting me/my team.
The original post was referring to online confrontation, repercussions, bullying and other "intimidation tactics being employed to quash any dissenting opinions" Many people made implicit threats to both scaredsilly and MrJohnston. I was intimidated and i wasn't even part of the discussion until I joined to express my disapproval of these scare tactics. What would i even think if someone said they would end me online....
Adam, that you mention that a temporary blacklist is even a possibility is something that warranted the creation of this thread anonymously.
*I would reference posts to support my point, however, I have realized that by linking these posts, I am causing problems for the people who wrote them. This isn't about individuals, this is about feeling safe to say what you want online. Our discussion should hopefully move beyond the topics over the last few days, and into a discussion about why people feel scared to post their opinions, and how we can help solve that.