Ok, I'm a newb here, and to make it worse, I'm a guy. I enjoy going to SCs. I don't make it an every day or even every week event, but I probably make it twice a month. I'm much more into online communities geared towards a particular area.
I'm a member of two other online communities that are near and dear to my heart, much more so than SCs and dancers (say it aint so :'( ). They have gone through the same problem that I see SW going through right now. I view Will's I'm gone thread as just really the tip of the iceberg. The biggest problem is that you can not get multiple people from various areas and backgrounds to agree on all things. Each has a different viewpoint. Each has a different background. They may agree on the subject at hand, however, once you get outside that subject, they will have vastly different ideas on how to solve a particular problem.
In one online community, it was highly technical group. Myself and a few others would get highly worked up over politics and would play each political stereotype off of each other. The emails with screaming and yelling were rampant. The solution was for those of us that were vehemently oppossed to each other to agree to disagree and to shut the heck up. It worked, and peace has pretty much reigned in that community ever since.
In the other community, it was slightly less technical but more clicky (is that a word). In it, it basically devolved into a pro-US vs. anti-US on every stance. The name calling became regular. The moderators finally had had enough of the constant whining and shut down the areas that were causing problems. The solution created short term whining, but eliminated the problem.
I learned a few lessons from this:
That's Mr. Uncool to You
- Emails and posts don't change other people's minds. Personal experience is what people decide based on. So, don't get upset over what others say. Their views are just as valid as yours.
- You typically don't change people's minds, so don't get upset.
- If you don't keep your own act clean, the moderators can and do step in and their ain't jack you can do about it, so don't whine, just deal with it and move on.

