A Rather Shotgun Approach to Group Life (Copy)

This text was published by Steven X. in 2016. The author himself deleted it but it remains as   pertinent as ever:

"I've been following a number of conversation threads on this Group for less than ten days, after a hiatus of more than a year. It is interesting to me (since "coincidences" can't exist in my world!) that one of the first threads I saw was Angela's veiled plea for a change of the paradigm by which the Group currently operates, noting the low percentage of participation in one of the larger group populations on Couchsurfing. She was promptly upbraided by some for raising an issue that several others in the group have said they believe is central to the future viability of the Group.

So, rather than just browsing threads for which the title interested me, I took a rather shotgun-type approach and opened threads quite at random. I was looking for the tone of the conversation, rather than any interesting content. I was perplexed, at first, at the frequency of contributions, often several among the most recent twenty, from the same contributors, thread after thread. The content of these 'contributions' often had little or nothing to do with the subject introduced at the start of the thread and often focused entirely on attacking another member of the Group. I studied further.

Before long I had come across posts from a handful of Group members that, best I could tell, contributed  nothing to the general interest of the conversation thread at all. Mostly, these individuals were arguing, even to the point of name calling, among themselves, even across threads. At times their vitriol splashed out onto clueless 'newbies' (I would guess!) and 'lurkers' or other infrequents, or contributors that had something meaningful to say. Wow - what a discouraging situation.

So, I started taking names. These problem children's  behavior has long since crossed the line that separates the conversations of decent members of this potentially very valuable Group, and off into some sub-class of denizens that has tried to destroy the huge communication value of the internet since before its inception, through their continued use of abusive language, repeated attacks on certain other individuals or a group of individuals, or just running their mouth so that their 'brilliance' and 'wit' can be shared far and wide. There is nothing new here, just the same of 'flame wars' from the 'alt'-groups of 35 years ago. This behavior is no more pleasant now that it has ever been. One would hope it would just cease, or could be mitigated by resistance from the general population, those that the misfits seem so intent on harassing.

These folks will most certainly attack me and this communication thread as soon as it is published on the Couchsurfing site. I won't feel the slightest bit offended or perturbed, because I won't be back to read the drivel they post. I am hoping, however, that this thread can serve a sort of honey-pot to attract all said misfit conversations, and that their authors will be so consumed with attacking each other, with whom they are already well acquainted, apparently, that their absence will not even be recognized in the remaining, useful, productive, happy, energetic, enthusiastic threads on this Group.
 Numerous others have gotten involved in the 'flame wars' from the periphery from time to time, often with the valiant, but ultimately fruitless, effort of controlling the fire or extinguishing it. Perhaps they have validated the rage by their presence, who knows.

As just an observant, until now silent, newcomer, I have a phrase of advice - "Ignore Them." If any of the folks on this list try to hijack a thread, just ignore them, let the thread die at that point (or become another honey-pot for the recalcitrants, and resume the essence of the thread elsewhere.

I mean no ill to anyone in this Group - period - ever. I have never met any of you (that I know of) and even find some comments from the worst offenders, entertaining or of redeeming value. Lucy's post a few days ago ("Silent readers - a poll :-)"), was timely, I believe. This Group is really missing a huge opportunity to be a great resource to the Couchsurfing community at large. There are many great minds here, tons of great experience that could be shared and applied to the issues facing all Couchsurfing host and surfers, especially those of us over 50, but the best this Group can produce is being smothered, nearly extinguished by the divisive, counterproductive and often purely self-serving, abuse from a few. That's a sad situation.

As an aside, I have observed another prevalent behavior in this Group. It happens far more frequently here than in other Groups on Couchsurfing that I follow. That is, not fully reading, and certainly not responding to, either the original poster's point or question, or the general intent of the thread, before posting a response. Conversation threads often wander far from the original premise, leaving nothing to satisfy the original poster's question, posit or proposition. Sometimes, the entire thread ends up revolving around a single word in the title that is functionally irrelevant to the poster's opening thoughts. We're pretty bright folks, here, I believe. I certainly get that impression from reading the contributions, but too many of us are very sloppy in our communications practices. Can you help fix that?

Thank you for your patience. I now cease and desist!"

Political Correctness and Women's Rights in Pakistan

Lately I read the following message in a forum and was surprised by the lack of reactions of the female/feminist members :

 "In Islam, women are advised to maintain modesty when out of home, i.e care to cover the Tempting / Eye catching parts of the body. It makes no difference if their heart is clean or full of maggots. It is for their own safety. 

On the other hand, men are also advised to control their gaze. If they don't, then their gaze can take them to sinful thought and so on. 
I heard our Imam saying to men, the first involuntary glimpse of a woman is a blessing, the second, third...........upto a continuous gaze invites Satan."

Our generation is the generation of the liberation from the religious shackles in general and especially for women including in the most educated classes like in Pakistan. But below a varnish of enlightenment these lines reveal that people one considers of the most educated Pakistani bourgeoisie remains unfortunately tied to a  fundamentalist aspect of Islam. 

Difficult to imagine all the indignant and angry reactions would a Westerner write this... Almost worse is the passivity of girls whose life was most likely dedicated to women's rights. One of their fights was to prevent women from being treated like jealous objects by their omnipotent husbands like in this case. Sympathy for a man bringing  "Oriental insight" to a virtual community does not mean closing eyes. The danger of political correctness is flagrant. In the name of respects for other cultures people end up accepting everything; from early age marriage, from confined wives and now prisoners of a religious yoke strictly watched out by husbands.

The same political correctness cannot demand "cultural differences" to be respected if the forget, contradict and deny our basic values. In the Satan's case and the "respecting cultures" principle our basic values of freedom and emancipation of women from men are being blatantly disregarded. To remain silent in such a case because of friendship is betraying one's former ideals and demonstrating the hypocrisy of political correctness. On the other hand questioning such an anomaly is impossible and can be dangerous. Lack of interest if not cowardness are the issues.

A mirror which is so right...

A fun cartoon:

In so many forums mediocre comments can ruin an interesting thread. Huge amounts of topics reduces to almost nothing their interest since they aim at attracting a maximum of lazy thinking members and causes convulsive posting. Chain-posting has as a cost: quantity and quality do no fit together.

A Very Costly Suspension

Last January for a holiday in NYC I sent without success about twenty hosting requests previously edited by a veteran member. I was asking also some  cultural and touristic information and also to be able to meet some local members for a chat and a drink. But sadly I was blocked by several members leading to a suspensión and preventing me from sending more requests and looking for informations  )
  
Cheap hotels or students centers hardly exist at least not in  Manhattan so I was left with one of the cheapest Airbnb room in town : a minucle place, no window, shared bathroom (but well...) There was also a small microwave oven but while on vacation I did not feel like warming up supermarket food to live on. So more pleasant to eat out most of the time.
Due to the suspension I had no time to get in touch with hosts even for some hanging around like some discovery walks attend some musical. Altogether the material expenses came out pretty costly not to speak of the absences  of meetings with NYC hosts or surfers.

Still  at the last minute I was invited by a Brooklyn host who saw a public request I posted in December and offered me to stay five days. Since I was offline and could not contact this host a friend put us in touch directly (by email).

It would take  a lot of active denial not to accept the idea that blockings and subsequent suspensions are definitely the opposite of the Couchsurfing spirit, something should be done to stop those problematic actions.
  

  

Sexism, ageism, and every other "ism.

Lewis Parson:

 (...) "I do know there is egregious "Ageism" on CS. When I was in my 30's and 40's I travelled (yes, with SERVAS) all over the world. However, I wanted to go to an event recently, about 65 miles from me. The traffic is quite severe, requiring a R/T of about 4-hours. So I sent out about 40 Requests. I got zero positive responses! And also the reverse: I accepted several travelers but, at the last minute, they got "better" offers and didn't even bother to cancel with me. They just didn't show up. Oh well! - Indeed, young pretty things can live and travel on CS easily and freely. In that respect, that is NOT the CS credo of equality, unity and peace, etc. etc. Rather there is distinct sexism, ageism, and every other "ism." Okay, my single experience is not scientific - but I'd bet on the test results and I'm not a gambler. :-) -- Peace to all."

Nothing to add...(An Alice amazing message!)

(In some ways this is my answer to an aggressive comment about my frequent use of the words intellectual and petit-bourgeois. 

I thought using the three messages below  would be a perfect answer)

 "No one is just like anyone else. Not better or worse. They are someone else entirely. And if two people agree, it’s based on a misunderstanding.” (J-P Sartre)

Alice:

Thanks Juan for starting this thread. The pervasive perception of only one "political correctness of certain posters" is indeed one of the stimuli to my posting - but it hasn’t done a thing except heighten animosity - your quote and Vladimir's style has been far more effective. it was most strange to me to encounter this narrow-mindedness in this group, since CS is supposed to celebrate the diversity of people and their thinking - however most people here seem to mouth an embrace of diversity while having very narrow ideas of acceptable (political/philosophical) thinking, and even wanting to impose it on others, with a "means justifies the ends" attitude! So perhaps I am narrow - I like the ideal of democracy - even if it may never be achieved, and I like the idea of each person having individual responsibility - even if I know that we live as social beings and we cannot be completely self-made or independent as we cannot live without the help (and hindrance) of others - however that may be organized.

Charles:

Alice: you wrote, "however most people here seem to mouth an embrace of diversity while having very narrow ideas of acceptable (political/philosophical) thinking, and even wanting to impose it on others, with a "means justifies the ends" attitude!"

I would be comfortable with this statement if you had used the word 'some' instead of 'most'.

"We are diverse in our opinions as well as our colours, backgrounds, languages, cultures etc."

Alice:

MY PERCEPTION IS THAT OF "MOST" AND IT FORMED BY THE # OF POSTS MADE BY ACTIVE MEMBERS - YOU ARE CORRECT I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT THE 10000 MEMBERS WHO DO NOT POST AN OPINION. YOU PERCEPTION MAY BE DIFFERENT - INDEED, IT IS THROUGH DIVERSITY OF PERCEPTIONS, CONCLUSIONS, OPINIONS AND THOUGHT PROCESSES THAT WE HAVE DIVERSITY AT ALL! IF WE WERE JUST PARROTS, ALL STUDENTS WOULD BE GRADED A+!

 Thanks Alice and Charles for these messages. They could be the gospel of all forums: freedom of speech and tolerance to all opinions. They reflect perfectly what I think. Normally one should be free to express oneself, express divergent opinions, maybe shocking ones for some stuck up people, To be non-PC in a a petit-bourgeois molded world should not be a problem but in the contrary seen as a source of ´positive and fruitful enrichment. Unfortunately this is not the case here where some prudish petit-bourgeois conformist mold is ruling. If we do not respect it either we are assaulted, boycotted and even blocked causing us a problematic suspension, a not insignificant consequence.

Alice, you summed it all with your last sentence: "If we were just parrots, all students would be graded A+!"

"No one is just like anyone else...." + "We are not parrots!"

"No one is just like anyone else. Not better or worse. They are someone else entirely. And if two people agree, it’s based on a misunderstanding.” (J-P Sartre) 
 

S.:

Thanks Juan for starting this thread. The pervasive perception of only one "political correctness of certain posters" is indeed one of the stimuli to my posting - but it hasnt done a thing except heighten animosity - your quote and G.'s style has been far more effective. it was most strange to me to encounter this narrowmindedness in this group, since CS is supposed to celebrate the diversity of people and their thinking - however most people here seem to mouth an embrace of diversity while having very narrow ideas of acceptable (political/philosophical) thinking, and even wanting to impose it on others, with a "means justifies the ends" attitude! So perhaps I am narrow - I like the ideal of democracy - even if it may never be achieved, and I like the idea of each person having individual responsibility - even if I know that we live as social beings and we cannot be completely self-made or independent as we cannot live without the help (and hindrence) of others - however that may be organized.

D.:

E, you wrote, "however most people here seem to mouth an embrace of diversity while having very narrow ideas of acceptable (political/philosophical) thinking, and even wanting to impose it on others, with a "means justifies the ends" attitude!"

E: "I would be comfortable with this statement if you had used the word 'some' instead of 'most'.

We are diverse in our opinions as well as our colours, backgrounds, languages, cultures etc."

S.:

"MY PERCEPTION IS THAT OF "MOST" AND IT IT FORMED BY THE # OF POSTS MADE BY ACTIVE MEMBERS - YOU ARE CORRECT i HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT THE 10000 MEMBERS WHO DO NOT POST AN OPINION. YOU PERCEPTION MAY BE DIFFERENT - INDEED, IT IS THROUGH DIVERSITY OF PERCEPTIONS, CONCLUSIONS, OPINIONS AND THOUGHT PROCESSES THAT WE HAVE DIVERSITY AT ALL! IF WE WERE JUST PARROTS, ALL STUDENTS WOULD BE GRADED A+!"

 Thanks S. for these two messages.