The netpaper about Elftowners, by Elftowners, for Elftowners.
Hi!!!11!1!
written by [shotokan_gal]
Hi!!!11!1!
I'd like to start with a little social experiment. It's a hypothetical day in Elftown, and for the sake of argument, we'll say the hypothetical you, browsing around on your merry way, is a user who isn’t a great fan of the 'hi' message. In fact, you positively detest them and have a whole section of your house devoted to explaining this fact to your visitors. A few clicks, some wikis and forums, and look at this - Wheee! A new message!. "Woot", you may or may not exclaim, and hasten to your mailbox to read it. And it’s then that your spirits sink. It’s the dreaded one-worder: "Hi", "Hey", " 'sup" , "whazzup", "lol" ... something like that, whichever one you like. However I suggest you pick the one most likely to boil the hypothetical blood, so to speak, for the purposes of the next step.
So here's our situation, someone
dared to send you such a message, and you’re poised and ready to react. Do you:
a) Send a reply stating what an idiot the person is for sending you such a message (I mean, can't they read?!?), throw several insults in there for good measure, and block the individual adding them to your personal wiki hate-list so all know to avoid them in future.
b) Carefully compose an essay explaining why you don’t like one-word messages, the many reasons why this individual shouldn't have sent them to you, concluding with a threat to report them to the guards should they do it again. This should take up at least 10 minutes of your time. This option may also include adding them to your wiki 'dungeon'.
c) Ignore the message, and get on with your life.
I haven't included a 'reply with "hi" also' option, because we're assuming you’re the type who doesn’t like, and hence won't reply to, such messages. If you are, then feel free to imagine a bit!
So, which one of the above options is the simplest and least time consuming? I think, regardless of opinion on the hi-message, most would agree that option c takes the least amount of time and / or stress. But somehow I don’t think that's necessarily the option that a reader of this might follow. Even if you don’t fit into one of the (purposely) over-reactiona
ry above situations, are you still one who resolutely ignores every such message you get?
Take wikis (aka dungeons, idiot lists, should-never-breathe-in-your-direction-agan-if-they-want-to-keep-their-vital-organs lists) of offenders for example. Many Elftowners have them, and why not? Somewhere to vent your frustrations, make an embarrassment out of those foolish enough to violate your rules / terms of service / guidelines / death threats. And then you and your friends put each other’s lists on watch so when you receive a hi-message you can copy and paste it into your wiki and have a good old laugh about it with them. Just as when they receive the same, all their friends are instantly informed about it in wiki-changes, and hasten over to add their opinion to the growing list of doomed / cursed / damned (oh thesaurus how I love thee)...
Now is it just me, or does this all seem a tad counterproductive? Perhaps people sometimes lose sight of why they dislike such messages so much somewhere along the line. Surely the fundamental reasoning behind it is that a conversation that starts like that will often not go very far and descend into one-word messages back and forth until one side finally gives up, and so be classed a waste of precious time. If the time of the individual really was so precious, surely they wouldn’t give the message a second thought? Perhaps take the time to click the block button on the sender, to avoid wasting time with any further forthcoming hi-messages from said individual. But certainly not all the fuss and bother of cutting and pasting, writing long replies, rewriting your 'rules' to make them sound even more sinister (the "no one will dare message me now!" mentality). Who exactly are we kidding here?
Now before being labelled a serious hypocrite, I'll point out that I think having a (short!) set of message guidelines (or whatever, though Follow these or die in large h1 letters probably isn't the best start to such a paragraph) is actually an okay idea. Hint: shorter ones are more likely to be read through, as opposed to ones which consist of the entire description and then some. I've had them myself, and probably still will. For those that do read them before messaging, they might know you’re not interested in cybering, hi-messages, text-speak, etc. Saving them the time and you the grief. If you include things you would like to be messaged about, then they might even find they share a common interest with you and would love to talk it over.
We should though, give those who send hi-mail a break sometimes too. Many Elftowners who've been here a while know the difference between Elftown and an instant messaging service like Msn or Yahoo. But not everyone might, particularly those new. Messaging is, after all, one of the easiest features to get to grips with when you first join, and seems the easiest way to get in touch with others and potentially be friendly. It is unlikely that you’re being sent a 'hey' purely out of malice to piss you off because they know you hate it so. Come now, surely they’d be a bit more imaginative than that?
Of course there are assholes, who will send insults for no other reason but that they can. Feel free to report them to the guards, and they'll probably swiftly learn they're not welcome here. But if you get a message that happens to annoy you but doesn’t really, lets be honest, break any Elftown rules (as opposed to house rules), how about just ignore it and move on? After all, there's so many better things to do, particularly in a town as diverse and complex as ours!
-[shotokan_gal]
Aside: This article is not meant as an attack on any individuals, wikis or otherwise. It's just the thoughts and opinions of [shotokan_gal] written, scribbled out, re-written, spell-checked... (etc) and put into vaguely coherent form. Any similarities to particular individuals and / or wiki names are purely coincidental and all that.
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