Questioning Motivations

I had an interesting talk with The Socialist last night, to do with the forum he administers. First, a brief history:

There once was a message board run by a quirky little charlatan dedicated to Star Wars. It turned into an active board, visited by a nice international cross-section of Star Wars fans eagerly anticipating the release of Episode I. The guy who administered it claimed close ties to George Lucas and posted all kinds of “insider knowledge”. Most of us took him with a grain of salt, since we were more interested in talking among ourselves about the movie than we were reading the administrators fiction-diguised-as-fact articles. We became a closely knit community, and when word came down that the Administrator was shutting down his board (probably due to on-line attacks he was being subjected to by more bona fide Star Wars insiders), The Socialist decided to open his own board for us to meet on. A small but solid core of us jumped ship to this new board shortly before the Star Wars board was shot down in flames.

Since then we have lost many of our originals, and gained many new people through various sources. I made many good friends over the years on this board – a lady cop in San Diego, an intelligent, well-read Tolkien expert in New Zealand, a woman studying the physics of sound in Scandanavia, a certain Dutch Scotsman who alternates between delighting me and infuriating me, an unlikely Hobbit who changes his user name more often than the average two-month old needs a diaper change. I’ve even made a few close “life friends” – MWUFFLTHB and the Texan Elf. And, of course, it’s how I met the Socialist.

Since September 11th 2001 the board has begun to languish though. Conversations often turned to politics, and posts were frequently inflamatory. We lost many of the “regulars” to other, satellite boards. I myself ceased to post regularly, for a variety of reasons. So much for the history of our little group – onto the problem. The Socialist bemoans the board’s moribund state, and is looking for a way to revitalize it.

He has, on several occasions, observed that much of the board’s activity died off when I stopped posting regularly. I cannot deny this, although my presence was more that of “chatty hostess” than as a serious contributor to any of the weightier threads.

When I listed my reasons for no longer posting to his forum regularly, The Socialist observed that I appeared to be “making up excuses” rather than actually telling him the reason. I’m not sure how true that statement is. I do know that I’m no longer particularly comfortable posting on his board.

The bottom line is that I’m now trying to analyze my motives for bailing out on The Socialist’s board. Am I simply making excuses? If so, what’s my main reason? I do know that the political threads make me uncomfortable. I know I have taken an intense dislike to one of the oldest “regulars”. I know that I have lost patience with another “regular” who began to regularly attempt to goad me into religious debates. I know I was no longer deriving much pleasure from posting to the board.

The Socialist observed that many of the regulars had abandoned his forum for what he described as “backwater boards”. I run one such board myself for MWUFFLTHB, the Texan Elf and myself to talk on. Other regulars created boards for themselves as well, and these boards do take away from the quantity of posts to The Socialist’s board.

The Socialist stressed that if you didn’t like a post, you didn’t have to open it. I refrained from observing that you had to open it and read it to determine if you liked it or not, because I know what he meant. There’s no law that says you have to participate in a thread you don’t like. Still, there’s a part of me that feels like I’m tacitly agreeing with something if I disagree with it and fail to respond to it. Of course, that’s the kind of thinking that drags one into a flame war.

After discussing this for an hour or so last night, the Socialist seemed to soften a bit, and talked instead about ways to attract more politically oriented people to his board. I think I’m forgiven for having bailed. But I’m left pondering what my real motivations are. I thought I knew. Now I’m just confused.