A Difference of Opinion
My brother in law invited me to accompany him to the local brewery last night. Every so often they open their doors to “club members” (there is a yearly cost in return for discounts)the club members can bring friends with them, and you get to drink the various beers they make for free. You might think this would cause mayhem, but given that most people have work the next day, and it always takes place mid-week, everybody seems to behave themselves.
We wrapped up warm against winter evening, and chatted about life, the universe, and everything while walking the mile or so to the brewery. Once there we met up with two of my co-workers, and went for a wander aroundbeer in handto see who we might also know.
A few minutes later a guy walked up and introduced himself, and I smiled.“I'm afraid I'm at an advantageI know who you arebut you don't know who I am”.
I went on to describe that while I was a member of the Facebook group he had created for children at the local senior school, I never post anything to it, like anything within it, or get involved at all. This was news to him, and obviously a little puzzling.
The confusion grew as I explained that actually, the further I could keep Facebook at arms length, the betterparticularly any of the groupsand before I needed to explain any further, he pretty much gave me all of my reasons.
We began talking about managingcommunities on the internet (at this point he had no idea what I do for a living, or what I have been involved within the past). I think it all kicked off when I made an off-hand commentthat of course, nobody should be in charge of an online communitythat the members of the community should have the appropriate tools to manage it themselves. This was greeted with a fair amount of incredulity.“Well I don't agree with that at all. There always needs to be somebody in charge, and I don't mind saying that I have considerable skills and experience in managing groups of people”.(at this point I started grinning, and thinking “hang on a moment, when did this all become about you?”)“At the end of the day it's MY group, it's MY rules, and I will do with it as I see fit.“Okaaayyy. At this point I knew to keep my mouth firmly shut and just let him keep digging. I've seen this before of coursemany, many years ago. I once ran a website with thousands of users, and saw some of the most unbelievable behaviour imaginable. From social climbing, to arse licking, to trolling, and everything in-between. I was “sysadmin”essentially “root” in terms of the system”God” in laymans language.
Here's the thing about having Godly powers thoughyounever,never tell anybody you have them, younever threaten to use them, and younever advertise your supposed superiority over anybodybecause it just makes you look like a colossal idiot.