Well I don’t believe in making only new year resolutions, anyway I believe if I have to wait to make a resolution, it’s going to be too late. Hence, I have a new mid year resolution, and that is not to get involved in any flame wars going on the internet.

Flame wars are really getting insane lately, and if you want to find one, its at you-know-where. In fact, I feel that there are not many mature people around the blogosphere who wants to discuss things in a more mature way, of which I feel we should accord everyone the basic respect. Everyone’s views are not wrong, because they have their reasons for feeling that way. It is up to a good discussion to filter out what is the crux of an issue, tackle it, and solve it. However, I’ve been pretty disappointed because most discussions end up with really childish people.

What’s up with name calling? What’s up with trying to flame and not really doing anything? What’s up with posting “Ex-****sters trying to ruin ****” when the author himself is the one who seems to be racking up the flame war? I had a discussion which ended sour because the other party was too childish to respect opinion. I understood his point and respected his opinion, but he called me names, so that’s it.

My mid year solution is to not participate in flame wars. When things go out of hand from discussion to flame, I will not comment any further. From now on, I will only day “Thank you and have a nice day”, and things will end that way. Any name calling just further demeans the author of that comment, and does not really hurt me in any sense. After all, it makes no sense to argue back and destroy my very own reputation, no matter how little that is, isn’t it? After all, winning a debate is not just having the last word, it’s about having everyone’s else’s recognition of your views as most appropriate.

I don’t believe in name calling and I don’t believe in making derogatory statements like your mom is a blablabla, which happened in one of the comments in my blog. Luckily, its from somebody to another person, and not to me, else I would have probably cursed that guy and hopes that his mouth grow thousands of little ulcers and that he will sleep and have a whole bowl full of salt filled in his mouth and when he is in unbearable agony I will pluck his nails out one by one and then I will blablabla.

So, if you believe in what I believe, repeat after me: “I will not argue with kids”.

In the past few months, I have been reading blogs from Ping.sg, and I am also aware of all the fuss that arose from arguments over how shallow a blog post is, or over DK’s outburst, and even recently, Noctourne’s criticisms. There are a few things we can think about from all these outbursts, and they may be lessons, or they may be not.

The first thing that I thought about was “Can we blog personal stuff at our blogs”? I say, sure, we can blog personal stuff on our blogs, and we can even rant and rave and take little heat from our opinions because it’s all in the name of a rant. Why then, do we have a big hoo haa? My opinion is this: Ping.sg is like a collection of blogs. We know each other through our blogs. I know Kris the blogger from his blog, same goes for DK, Paddy, bla bla bla. I do not know them for who they are, but I know them for their blogs. Their blog has become a personal identity.

Hence, the problem begins because we all know Daphne as the community manager for Ping.sg, and when we read her blog, we read Daphne the community manager’s blog, and we don’t feel that it’s Daphne’s personal blog. It’s like the owner and founder of Ping.sg. If Uzyn blogs about Ping.sg on his personal blog, we read his blog as Uzyn the Founder’s blog, not Uzyn the person. Hence, it is very important to note that in this case, the blog becomes the sole identity of the person, and anything written on the blog must be written in due care.

Of course, I can write nonsensical stuff on my blog, since you’re reading Ignorantsoup’s personal blog and not Ignorantsoup the whoever’s blog. That’s the difference, because I don’t hold any special rank in Ping.sg, and hence when people read my blog, they treat it like a normal blog. That is what I think perhaps went wrong in this case. Perhaps when one holds a certain position, one cannot afford to be indulgent in one’s own thinking, and must think for everyone’s sake. This is especially so in managing a community.

The other thing that I have learnt is that we have to be accountable for our actions, especially so in a community, or even more so in a business entity. For example, in the corporate world, it is always good and polite to inform someone why the company is terminating his/her service. Be it reasons like “always late consistently”, or “not productive and keep taking breaks”. In the end, we have to account to everyone and inform the co-workers why so and so will be terminated. Same goes for a community. So when someone is “fired”, we have to do a few things.

Firstly, inform the person why we are taking this action. This can be in the form of a formal letter, or an email.

We also have to inform the rest of the community or company why it has happened.

But the most important thing is, we must have a structured set of rules and regulations, such that when we dismiss any member of the community or company, the people around must be able to accept the reason wholeheartedly. For example, if we seek to ban someone because he has been putting up racist posts and disturbing members, we have a valid reason because we cannot tolerate race and religious flame wars. That is something we can all accept.

I must say, I’m not out to start a flame war or anything, but these is what I feel that we can improve, learn and reflect upon. If we can learn from past lessons and improve, we can become better. I do hope that the community can mature and grow, instead of sliding backwards. The first thing we probably have to decide is, is the community a monarchy or a democracy.