Saturday, July 05, 2008
21:48 by FoxTwo
Yes I do know cliques will ALWAYS form in any social environment. Humans are gregarious - we always seek out like-minded people and connect with them. That's how societies develop. That's how villages and towns and cities are built.
Giving a label to a group of people will always happen. The "popular", the "bad", the whatever. In your own email client, or even in hotmail and gmail, you can create your own distribution list. In this list, you normally put the people you connect with regularly on it, so you can share jokes, funny pictures, or anything with your friends, ALL your friends, by just typing a label. It's not a bad thing to get a label. Even among friends, you have "best friend" and just "friend" labels, to denote how close they are to you. Not everybody is your friend, and certainly you should have very little, or just one, "best friend".
I know Daphne meant no harm in her original post about "in-groups". She was just putting a label on something, to better describe a group of people. I mean, it's going to get tedious naming the said individuals time and time again. Was it a mistake? I don't know. I have no opinion on this. I just understand that Daphne was just attempting to describe a group of members.
Then, there is the original ideal of ping.sg - to be a platform for everybody, regardless of your popularity or how "in" you are.
It just appears that some members feel that the original ideal should be upheld - one platform for all, and not to segregate members into various groups. Personally, I think this ideal should be upheld too. Equality for all!
However, the recent debate about the use of the label "in-group" got way out of hand too quickly. I personally have made many friends when I joined ping.sg. For want of better words, I belong to the "lim jiu" group of pingsters (*grin*). Although I seldom join them for their outings and activities, that by no means imply I elevate myself above them or I am an "elite" (or otherwise). I just do not forsee the said activity to be interesting to me, or I could be otherwise engaged during the timing of the said activity. Usually I appear for activities that involve liquor (*grin again*), and one should not be surprised that the same people will turn up for such an activity - not everybody drinks, just as not everybody likes the colour purple.
The sudden ban of dk from ping.sg really will adversely affect the image of ping.sg. To any outsider, a ban of a long-time member of ping.sg without some sort of formal announcements as to the reason why, shakes the confidence of the masses. Right now speculations are rife that the ban was due to the disagreement of ping.sg and dk's opinions. Without some sort of formal clarifications, such rumours and speculations will take on a life of its own, and will, very likely, be counter-productive to ping.sg. As we all know, word-of-mouth rumours spread like wildfire and soemtimes, have a greater impact than any official "advertising" or PR campaign.
For all we know, dk could have been banned for a totally different, and possibly unrelated, reasons. For now, we don't know. From the way it looks now, he got banned for caring. Then in this case, should I start to be more aloof? Should I start not to care, because if I care too much, the same might happen to me.
I love ping.sg. I love the virbancy of the whole thing, the people, the good times (and the bad). I identify with the ideal too - to be a platform for everyone. I really hope to see some form of clarifications, because I truly want to know where I (and everyone else) stand.
21:48 by FoxTwo
I Am Saddened By Recent Events In Ping.sg
Yes I do know cliques will ALWAYS form in any social environment. Humans are gregarious - we always seek out like-minded people and connect with them. That's how societies develop. That's how villages and towns and cities are built.
Giving a label to a group of people will always happen. The "popular", the "bad", the whatever. In your own email client, or even in hotmail and gmail, you can create your own distribution list. In this list, you normally put the people you connect with regularly on it, so you can share jokes, funny pictures, or anything with your friends, ALL your friends, by just typing a label. It's not a bad thing to get a label. Even among friends, you have "best friend" and just "friend" labels, to denote how close they are to you. Not everybody is your friend, and certainly you should have very little, or just one, "best friend".
I know Daphne meant no harm in her original post about "in-groups". She was just putting a label on something, to better describe a group of people. I mean, it's going to get tedious naming the said individuals time and time again. Was it a mistake? I don't know. I have no opinion on this. I just understand that Daphne was just attempting to describe a group of members.
Then, there is the original ideal of ping.sg - to be a platform for everybody, regardless of your popularity or how "in" you are.
It just appears that some members feel that the original ideal should be upheld - one platform for all, and not to segregate members into various groups. Personally, I think this ideal should be upheld too. Equality for all!
However, the recent debate about the use of the label "in-group" got way out of hand too quickly. I personally have made many friends when I joined ping.sg. For want of better words, I belong to the "lim jiu" group of pingsters (*grin*). Although I seldom join them for their outings and activities, that by no means imply I elevate myself above them or I am an "elite" (or otherwise). I just do not forsee the said activity to be interesting to me, or I could be otherwise engaged during the timing of the said activity. Usually I appear for activities that involve liquor (*grin again*), and one should not be surprised that the same people will turn up for such an activity - not everybody drinks, just as not everybody likes the colour purple.
The sudden ban of dk from ping.sg really will adversely affect the image of ping.sg. To any outsider, a ban of a long-time member of ping.sg without some sort of formal announcements as to the reason why, shakes the confidence of the masses. Right now speculations are rife that the ban was due to the disagreement of ping.sg and dk's opinions. Without some sort of formal clarifications, such rumours and speculations will take on a life of its own, and will, very likely, be counter-productive to ping.sg. As we all know, word-of-mouth rumours spread like wildfire and soemtimes, have a greater impact than any official "advertising" or PR campaign.
For all we know, dk could have been banned for a totally different, and possibly unrelated, reasons. For now, we don't know. From the way it looks now, he got banned for caring. Then in this case, should I start to be more aloof? Should I start not to care, because if I care too much, the same might happen to me.
I love ping.sg. I love the virbancy of the whole thing, the people, the good times (and the bad). I identify with the ideal too - to be a platform for everyone. I really hope to see some form of clarifications, because I truly want to know where I (and everyone else) stand.
Labels: blog, internet, ping.sg
