Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2020 16:55:54 -0400
From: Christopher Havel
Subject: A Simple Request
I’ll be the first to point out that I’m no more or less perfect than anyone else, so it’s not my place to do that… but it seems to me that there’s some content on here that’s perhaps not befitting the proper dignity of the Chatlist.
I come here for practical information and to know the goings-on around me, for the most part. Posts from Dr Dykers about the health of the community, remarks from others about things they no longer want that I might be able to use, or people needing help or advice where I might be able to offer it – and, of course, occasionally the opposite — times when I have things to give away or sell, or times when I’d like a little assistance with something… and of course, N.A. Booko’s wonderfully entertaining posts absolutely always make me smile.
I don’t know what other readers may or may not be looking for (I can and do, as always, speak only for myself!), but lately there’s been an outbreak of rather vicious-sounding drama on here that — quite honestly — plays out like a poorly written soap opera. More importantly, perhaps, it seems to me that the people who are posting such content are saying much more about themselves, as such, than the people they are talking to and about, and not in a manner that’s to their benefit (or, for that matter, anyone else’s).
Sure, I scroll past it (and I’d like to think a lot of others do, too), but when there’s this much of it, screening things out like that actually takes enough effort to make me debate whether I should even bother with the Chatlist in the first place. So, forgive me for saying, but — especially given that these are unusually stressful times to begin with — perhaps we can focus primarily on the practical things and the nice things and the everyday goings-on about town, like we did for the most part before…?
After all, if we feel the need to gossip about others and their lives and what we think they may or may not deserve based on our own outside observations, without any care whatsoever to the fact that we almost certainly don’t have the full story, and their situations may in fact be quite reasonable and just more complicated than we realize — let alone the additional fact that, regardless of what we used to tell the playground bully in elementary school, words matter, and they can indeed hurt in some pretty significant and long-lasting ways — or spread rumors about things that sound scary but may or may not actually be scary or even exist — it seems to me that there’s a website that’s perfectly tailored towards such content… it’s called Facebook.
I should probably note that I don’t have an account there…
2020-04-20