One of the things that keeps happening in all of these threads is that different posters focus on extreme negatives. When the opposite negative is talked about, the farther extreme opposite is raised as a counter point and whatnot... Hehe, that can be a bit silly.
Bad is bad. Whichever side it falls on. Extremes on either side of any such conversation are obviously a bad thing. (i.e. vet SG members being snobbish, rude, dismissive vs. new SG recruits being too shy, overly demanding, overly-critical anti-socials)
[The following is a combination of being completely messed up on cold meds for a sinus infection that won't go away and a new cold that just came along on top of it along with a healthy dose of perpetual humorous cynicism. So, please keep that in mind.
P.S. I freely admit that the meds may not be playing a factor at all.]
Let's face it... the best and worst part of any collective group of people are... People.
When they're great, they're great. When they're not, they're not.
Humans seem to function best with each other when the interaction is violence.
You hit them harder and drag away their valuables... All is good.
Works nicely.
Getting along... Not so easy. 
It's very difficult to overcome these human-based issues in any and every situation. Online gaming interactions are definitely included.
When something goes wrong against what you (the universal you) would like, don't just jump to the conclusion that the reason is some negative factor that you've either imagined or experienced in the past.
The key to working together is giving people some benefit of the doubt.
Is a group struggling? Why? Is there potential there for greater? If so, don't dismiss them as only being that negative possibility... Maybe you are part of the solution that the SG needs.
Is a new member struggling struggling to get involved? Why? Is there potential there for greater? If so, don't dismiss them as only being that negative possibility... Maybe you (Or the SG) are part of the solution that this player needs.
I use this mindset for both joining and recruiting.
I'm a patient person. I don't just join things without looking into it, trying it out... I am a huge proponent of teaming with and playing with groups before making decisions.
Talking about how things will be and/or are is an entirely different thing to how things truly will be and/or are.
There's no workaround or way of discovering the true chemistry of relationships, other than actually trying it out. (That's right, honey! Let's just get it onn and see!! [okay, that was the meds])
Lastly... Never forget to-
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
I'd say they major culprit in all of this is Ego, Vanity, and Pride.
Whenever people interact one of the three are always in play, even with those shy individuals who never say a word.
Your elitists and cliquish well that's vanity right there (even though we all know that people with seemingly large amounts of self esteem are actually have the most fragile egos)
You say your shy and you don't talk to others or say you cant talk to others easily, that's pride. If you weren't proud of calling yourself shy you would make an effort to get over your shyness. (This could also be known as apathy) You can try at anything and not be good at it but once you give up and label yourself as "shy" and never open your mouth then that's a pride in your own limitation.
Lastly, the ego. The one thing I absolutely love about my friends is that we don't placate anyone's ego, let alone each others. We call each other out on our own BS constantly, we mock and ridicule and turn our foibles into a joke because once you take yourself seriously and cant laugh at yourself you'll never change.
So yes super groups, seeing as they are a group of internet people who never have to look each other in the face, have a huge tendency for all of these problems. However if people just got over their owner inner bs, put all prejudice and bad habits aside and tried to act like rational human beings well that would solve tons of these problems. Unfortunately I'm finding people just cant do this and the best we can ask for is that people become aware when they are being douches and hopefully that wisdom will lead to change in behavior.
After all life without change is death and stagnation.
Hehe, this is the truth, the solution and the problem to everything.
It's all the same thing. The balances of confidence, respect, ego...
Perhaps instead of focusing on SGs, we should work on world peace... Maybe SGs will be helped out in the process. 
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Perhaps instead of focusing on SGs, we should work on world peace... Maybe SGs will be helped out in the process.
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Let's see how many of you actually get that.
<_<
>_>
Quote:
Agreed to an extent. There's a certain amount that can be reasoned with and accepted. It's when that leads to OOC cliques that favoritism begins to grow amongst the people and then clashes start. I'm all for recognizing an SG first, joining it if it fits the concept of my character or rather they only want a particular concept to join their SG, but it's when those IC feelings lead to OOC behavior. That's when I start getting sick of being around people who follow that trend. |
Originally Posted by Hero Prime
While I dislike the idea of a supergroup BEING a clique, I think a successful role-playing group will exhibit some clique-like behaviors. Any group must be selective on membership, and RP groups all the more.
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Otherwise I agree completely with the rest of what you said.
I believe all of us were actually talking about OOC cliques. I can't speak for the others but that's the idea I got from them.
Beer beer BEER!