Negativity police are after me! Help!

It's a slow day at work (like, I'm just about the only person here) so please bear with this self-indulgent post as best you can.

See, there are certain unwritten laws in the world. Taboos if you will. Things people never say out loud, but everyone sort of knows you're not supposed to do them. Like walk double-dipping or wearing loud shirts. And because these things are LAWS, obviously they need to be policed.

My felony? Negativity. See, I turned off my reputation because I don't believe in artificial reputation representations. Long story. That, however, hasn't stopped me from regularly checking the reputation comments I get in my User CP, because I'm just deathly curious of these things, to the point where getting reputation with no comment is ever so slightly disappointing. The comments I do get are usually interesting, sometimes bizarre, occasionally insulting, but rarely consistent. One comment, or rather one thread, however, has consistently shown up - that of negativity. In fact, of the very few comments I can actually see, I have two that are, to quote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I strongly suspect, having been a fellow forumite with you all these years (good god it's been 5 years...) that it's people who cannot grasp criticism versus attack.

Do you ever have anything positive to say = most likely, "why aren't you agreeing with my idea"? even if said idea is filled with naive assertions and impossible desires.

Positive as usual = may be... "I'm going to try this well-beaten dead horse out for myself and see if it rides the way I want it to".

Seriously. Sam? Swear to god you're one of the most clear, intelligent, informed and gracious people on the forums.

Don't ever change.

Personally I tend to not care what other people think of me or what I post. I post my own feelings and opinions on a given topic, nothing more. I tend not to sugar-coat things and sometimes that gets me into trouble, and if something's on my mind I have to let it out. Sometimes that can make a situation a bit confrontational. Is it the most mature attitude to have? No, but it's just how I'm built and while I have done things to try suppress it I think I'll just always be this way to some extent.

I think some people tend to turn things into a personal vendetta. You mentioned you got some negative rep on the Suggestion forum? I've been a part of many different forums, MMO or otherwise, and in most suggestion type forums when someone posts something most of the time they seem to think they've come up with a truly wonderful, innovative idea, and expect nothing but positive feedback. When they see that some people don't agree with their ideas they become outraged and try to fight back and defend it. I'd wager that might have had something to do with it.

I wouldn't get upset about it though. I've gotten a few -rep with some funky comments myself that made me go "uhh..what?". I tried to make a joke in one thread and someone down rep'd me and labeled me "obtuse", but I just shrugged it off because what do I care about what some random person I don't even know on the internet thinks of me? (or that they can't seem to get a joke, though as my friends say: "sarcasm doesn't exist on the internet")

All in all I wouldn't let it get you down...that's kind of an ironic thing to say given the circumstances of this thread huh?

I want to shy away from the specifics of how and why, because it really isn't as important, but there's one thing I'd like to respond to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurugi Personally I tend to not care what other people think of me or what I post. I post my own feelings and opinions on a given topic, nothing more. I tend not to sugar-coat things and sometimes that gets me into trouble, and if something's on my mind I have to let it out. Sometimes that can make a situation a bit confrontational. Is it the most mature attitude to have? No, but it's just how I'm built and while I have done things to try suppress it I think I'll just always be this way to some extent.

In general, I agree with you - I tend to not let other people's opinions dictate how I act and what I say. However, and that might be a semantic argument, but I always feel it's a good idea to CARE about what other people thing. You don't always have to act on it, and indeed, I wouldn't advice just kowtowing to peer pressure, but I consider it information in the purest sense. Knowing how people in general react and understanding what they like and dislike, even just vaguely, can be a BIG help in retaining some level of dignity for me. If I posted everything I wanted to post, I'd either have been banned for life or would have been completely hated

I'd also like to thank those of you who gave me their support. I really, REALLY appreciate it, believe me. However, it reaffirms my conviction to keep my reputation off. Since making this thread, I've gotten more positive reputation in, what? An hour? Than I got in the past week trying to be constructive and consistent. I got one negative rep point, as well, though I have some suspicion it might have been a joke. But this is why I don't like a numerical representation of reputation as a general thing - outside of the very few truly great people here on the forums (and I will still cite Arcanaville just off-hand), none of us really deserve the truly high levels of reputation, me least of all. I enjoy the comments, surely, but I will keep my reputation to myself. It's just not real compared to the reality of what people actually really think.

That said, my planed 15-step programme for becoming more positive seems to have failed. Somewhere between trying to give up "bah humbug" and trying to think of ways to cheer up, my enthusiasm hit rock bottom and I retreated to my room to listen to depressing music. I found, to my shock, that I just don't have enough black clothes to make even one entirely black outfit, and I used to! My black jacket is too warm for this weather and my black pants are just too old. And, hell, I don't even have a black baseball cap. How did that happen?

And, please, if I somehow manage to unintentionally convince you that the world is a terrible place and life is meaningless and not worth living, don't believe me. I'm probably wrong, and possibly very confused.

*serious note*
I'm actually currently unable to get myself depressed, which has essentially robbed me of my ability to write fiction. I'm in the process of trying to squeeze dramatic impact out of a more upbeat narrative, and I'm not sure how well that'll work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I know people that I consider to be negative most of the time. I also know people who always seem to be happy. I don't understand either. I always try to be positive, but sometimes I do get down. And you know why? I'm only human. And so are you Sam. (I hope ) If someone gives you negative rep, ignore it. Its as simple as that really. A little red dot against your name means naff all.

For what it's worth Sam I think your one of the most respectable people on the forums.

I saw the following play out in another thread, and I think it's a good example of what's wrong with the rep system. Names have been changed in an attempt to preserve anonymity. (I have no doubt if this gets read by the person I'm quoting then I'll start getting dinged.)

Awww man I love reading the comments to kinda funny some of them, but what really bothers me is the grey rep with no comment. Now what am I supposed to think of that, was the person neutral?

Ya ya it means they got no rep themselfs but it seems like neutral to me.

And to quote a great Captain "what would drive a man to neutrality"

You don't seem unreasonably negative to me, Sam.
But then, maybe that's just because I'm unreasonably negative!

0.0

Satanic Hamster, that post was a cheap trick!

MY fav neg I just got came from a thread over in the Freedom server were someone was flaming the game and the dev's. I asked a simple question as to what he was hoping to accomplish by posting such a post and that accidents happen and things change like every other MMO that has ever lasted this long, but things do get fixed and we can not over look the QoL changes and stuff that the devs have done for us. Instead of commenting in his thread he left me this rep

"stupid"

I could not help but laugh and refill my booze

Dunno why it matters I guess. I like the colors green and red, but I love purple the most.

Sam, you make baby Jesus cry daily. You should be ashamed of yourself. Take more drugs.

Sam

at the very least, you can write a 'wall o'text' that is enjoyable and informative to read.

don't change because someone can't take the brainpower

I have gotten virtually no reputation tags. However of those I have recieved the only minus ones were because I was being negative. Apparently the negativity police miss the irony that they are being negative themselves.

Funny thing I've noticed, numero uno: Some of the biggest twits on the forums have gotten their Rep insanely high via the asinine Forum Games thread or similar means.

Funny thing I've noticed, numero due: I am a negative forum poster. I have three bars of positive Rep. I think people actually do it to annoy me. Someone repped me for ragging on how useless Rep is.

What these prove is that Rep is utterly pointless on its own.


As for people secretly leaving you negative notes because you openly said negative things, that's just the culture of the modern day and age. I've been called insensitive for calling people to task on being irresponsible to the point where they were literally putting people's lives in danger. This is the same kind of culture that awards medals for 23rd place, borne out of some grand idea that everyone's special and unique and worthy of admiration and no precious budding flower should ever be crushed by being told just how bad their ideas really are, how faulty their thought processes, how flawed their vision (I swear, this is not a Jack Emmert dig).

Which is, of course, all poppycock. Raise a child in a sterile environment, and the first time they catch the sniffles in the real world, they'll be hovering on death's door. Also, the backstabbery people perpetrate on those who literally have the spine to stand erect from these huddled servants of conformity shows that the system isn't working to begin with. Or else, shouldn't these masturbatory sycophants be encouraging you to be negative?

I think I've given out rep at all less than a dozen times, and I only glanced at my own rep comments once a couple of months ago. It doesn't matter, I don't care, and it's mostly a waste of my time to bother with it.

YMMV.

The thing I LIKE about rep or at least the presence of the system, is that you can comment aside from making a post about something. Without derailing the thread, in other words.