Some unusually tense events occurred in RinkChat last night. Actually I'm surprised they don't happen more often, but I consider that a testament to the fine stature of the members of the RinkWorks community. Nonetheless, last night events occurred that caused at least two if not three people to want to leave RinkWorks permanently and two or three more to have lost respect, either for the site or for me personally. For the benefit of those who weren't present, but still care to bother with the sticky details of this episode, I will relate what happened, and afterward I will address those individuals who were upset over the incident and invite responses, from anyone but particularly those who were upset by the matter enough to want to leave. Since those who were upset are generally individuals about whom I have respect, I am genuinely interested to hear their side of things.

This account of the events is given from my own point of view, because that's (obviously) how I saw them. If others have crucial differences in the way they saw these, please let me know.

It started innocently. Dave and I noted the increasing use of Japanese in RinkChat and decided we would have some fun with it by coming in as Le_Dave and Petit_Sam and bandying some French about. That didn't work, because it turned out most of the room knew French better than either of us and started joking around with us. It was fun, don't get me wrong, but it was a stupid gag that backfired on us, so Dave and I decided we'd try a different tack. So we started talking in code, speaking using the command syntax and punctuation of C++. That didn't work either, because once again, everybody caught onto the joke and started playing along. Again fun, again a backfired stupid gag.

And so Dave and I decided we would come in as obnoxiously named frat boys and have a loud conversation with each other and ignore everyone else. (Actually, what I had in mind was mimicking what actually happened in RinkChat earlier this year between two individuals who did come on drunk and who were indeed obnoxious and whom I did indeed have to ban from the chat room.) I came in as BEER41193, and Dave came in as BUTT09873, and we started talking to each other, feigning drunkenness and being obnoxious. Now, RinkChat has a swear-word filter, and we made use of that. Obscenities were faked, because the filter was in place and would convert profane words to euphemisms. So we could mimic the speech of drunken frat boys realistically without damaging the family-orientation of the chat room overmuch. I also took care to make sure there wasn't anyone too young that was present. I think the youngest person at the time was Wormwood, whose exact age I'm not sure about since he may have had a birthday since I last knew, but who is around the middle of teenagerhood and is mature enough to see R-rated movies. Beyond filtered words, there were some chauvinistic comments made, which were moderately crude but not explicit.

What is important to realize is that by imitating crude, drunken frat boys, neither Dave nor I were implicitly *endorsing* such behavior. Frankly, both of us ARE quite offended by the genuine frat boy stereotype. There are few I have LESS respect for than people who have no other ambitions in life than to drink and "score," nor the sense of class to keep from using profanity as punctuation. It's, frankly, disgusting. I can understand being offended at the endorsement of behavior like this. What I don't understand is being offended by joking about it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After BEER and BUTT had been rowdy and obnoxious for a while, they left, and I came "back" and started pretending to ask what was going on. BEER and BUTT re-entered and were kicked, and then Stephen got the idea of pinning the charade on Wormwood and Morris. So I followed his lead, pretended to compare IP addresses, and put the blame on them. They got kicked by either Dave or me, I don't remember which, and we pretended to chew them out. The joke was winding down at this point, and we were about ready to spill, but I was just waiting to see where this was going. Neither Wormwood nor Morris particularly responded to the accusation but were somewhat silent, and so I shifted my approach, had BEER re-enter, and faked a "confession" by Wes (aka Jimmy of York). Wes denied the accusation, but I persuaded him through a PM to go with it, and I'd vindicate him later. So he started goofing around with us, and finally we decided the joke was old, and we gave it all up and confessed that we were behind it all.

Spacebar said, "That was NOT funny," and left.

c0bra said, "Well that ruins the site for me," then, "Bye RinkWorks," and finally, "If you're the kind of person that thinks it was funny, then I don't want to be here. Please delete all of my account information, I won't be needing it," and left.

Morris said, "Sam, I have lost a great deal of respect for you." Shortly afterward I said, "If something like that makes you actually lose respect for me, I don't want you here." I am tentatively regretful for saying that. I was shocked and angry everybody was having such an overtly negative reaction to it all, and I spoke out of anger and frustration. Still, from the way I perceived the episode, Morris' comment DID seem like a ridiculous overreaction, and it did hurt. Morris probably looks upon the episode differently, however, and so maybe the way he perceived the situation justified the extremity of his criticism of me. I don't know. This is why I'm posting. To find all this out. At any rate, Morris left, returned later and said, "Sorry. I only left because Sam told me to," and I asked him to read and reply to this forum post, when I was done writing it, and he agreed.

I will be emailing c0bra and Spacebar, to let them know of this forum post, and invite their responses. I also invite responses from Wormwood and Kaz, who also had some degree of negative reaction to the episode (how extreme, I do not know, except that they didn't leave because of it).

At any rate. Down to the nitty gritty.

Two people wanted to leave RinkWorks forever, and at least five were upset, and I would dearly love to know why.

1. I can accept it if Dave and I were accused of dragging the joke on for too long. Even we thought it was getting old at the end and were frustrated that we didn't seem to have a tidy way to conclude things. But I can't believe this is the only thing people took exception with. People want to lose respect for me as a person, others leave RinkWorks forever, because I carried a joke on too far? I don't believe any of them would be so fickle or hypocritical. None of us is perfect. I wish I had an infallible sense of comic timing. One of the reasons I write humor features for RinkWorks and am not a stand-up comic is because I don't. Nor do any of the people upset at me. This may have been one of the problems, but if it's the only one, or the most severe, good riddance. But I think more of all of you for me to believe this is it. Or even that it's worth holding against me in addition to other transgressions.

2. I can accept the criticism that the gag was old, but I don't agree with it or agree that this, either, is worthy of lost respect and abandoning RinkWorks for. Secretly masquerading as other characters has been done before, before, and before, right? Yeah, it has. But not in this way. Puns, knock-knock jokes, impersonations, wordplay, slapstick pratfalls -- all of these are forms of humor that have been done before, before, and before, but there are thousands of variations on each. An original twist to an old idea makes it worthwhile. Now, Dave and I may or may not have SUCCEEDED in doing the old masquerade gag in a fresh way as to make it funny, but we were certainly attempting to. And if we failed, so what? So we made an old joke. Is that worth leaving RinkWorks for? Is that worth losing respect for me over? No. Every last one of you have made attempts at humor that haven't panned out. Some work, some don't. That's the way of things. If that's it, if, as RinkWorks' webmaster, I'm expected to be infallible with my sense of humor, good riddance. But I don't believe that's it either, so I'll strike that from the list of possibilities, too.

3. The joke wasn't funny. Ok, fine. You didn't like it. See above. Not worth leaving RinkWorks forever over. Not worth losing respect for me over. It was at least an attempt to liven things up in RinkChat which, frankly, has been pretty dull lately.

4. You found the joke morally offensive. Why? The joke did not imply the endorsement of the truly pathetic frat boy caricatures we portrayed. In fact, the very fact that it WAS a joke, I would think, have, if anything, indicated that we DON'T endorse those attitudes and values. Otherwise, why would it be funny? Half of what we were doing was MAKING FUN of brainless frat boy types, for heaven's sakes. I can definitely see actual frat boys, *especially* the ones that ARE crude drunks, being offended, but you guys? Perhaps you found the portrayal of BEER and BUTT to be too realistic and not enough of a parody. Well, (1) we WERE also trying to do a masquerade thing, so making the parody overt would have given it away, and (2) if a miscalculation of tone on our part for one isolated incident is enough for you to lose respect for me and leave RinkWorks forever, then do you hold yourselves to that same standard of perfection?

5. You found the joke to be in poor taste. This seems to be the most likely reason that I can think of, and it is one of the more rational reasons I've thought of so far. Ok. If this is it, I would ask to you please tell me why you thought it was in poor taste. I admit it skates on the edge, and I can definitely see why some people might not appreciate it. What I don't understand is why this one moment of poor taste seems to be extreme enough to outweigh all you've ever found good about RinkWorks in the past, all you've ever read on this site and laughed at in the dozen humor features and seventy odd RinkChat Archives, all you've ever found rewarding about the RinkWorks community, so that I'm somehow not worth your respect and RinkWorks is not worth your time. If indeed I did err and cross the line of good taste, which I am, at the moment, honestly willing to consider, why is it so great an offense that it can't be forgiven?

I've listed all the reasons I can think of at the moment. If I've missed a reason, please enlighten me. If it's one of the above, please let me know. If it's several of the above, combining to make the incident a greater offense than for any one reason by itself, please let me know.

I just want to know what happened. Because I *do* care about this community and also about refining my skills for entertainment. Please elaborate with as much explanation as is required. I *am* open-minded about the possibility that I miscalculated something in all this. At the same time, I'm not going to promise I'll agree with your assessment, but even if I disagree, I'll respect you for trying to give me your side. If you'd prefer to email me rather than make your comments publically, I'll respect that also. My goal here is to understand each of your reasons for reacting as you did.