> That was massive. Space, I've been waiting all day for a follow-up to your post last night, and I think the reason that you didn't post this last night was because you've been writing this one NONSTOP since then :P

I did sleep last night. But it is true that between the point where Sam posted his post and the point where I posted mine, I spent every waking hour either thinking about or writing this post.

> Anyway, I'm going to just snip huge portions out of the original, so I may very well miss a few points. But I do feel compelled to respond to what I think are the most important subjects brought up.

When you read my post, you need to remember the context in which it was created. I was asked why people felt offended as a result of last night's events. I answered, as honestly and clearly as I know how. When I say that I felt that I was being disrespected, for example, there can be no grounds for /argument/. The fact is, I was there, and I know how I felt.

You are arguing, perhaps, that I /shouldn't/ have felt offended. Perhaps you are right. But the fact is, I /did/ and so did lots of other people. And I did my best to explain /why/.

> Anyway, the point was missed. I don't want to speak for Sam and Dave, but I seriously doubt it was either's intent to manipulate the feelings of chatters. Were they trying to fool people? Sure. But there's a difference between that and maliciously trying to hurt someone.

I am not claiming that it /actually/ was either Sam or Dave's intent to manipulate the feelings of chatters in order to maliciously hurt them. Indeed, after reading Sam's post, I feel that their intent was probably quite the opposite. However, what I said was that they /created the impression/ that they were trying to manipulate people's feelings in a malicious way. Furthermore, there were several things that happened that seemed to indicate to me /at the time/ that this malicious manipulation of people's feelings was done on purpose.

What I am claiming was that it was this /perception/ which caused people to become angry at Sam and Dave.

> Consider the whole thing as a practical joke. Have you ever told a friend something that wasn't true just to mess with them? Howard makes posts every now and then telling stories and ends with "Did I get you?" These certainly could be construed as manipulating people (he almost always fools me). Yet I see no complaints about that.

But here is something I hope Howard will never post:

"I recently found out Wormwood's phone number, and I thought I'd give him a call to say 'hi'. But when I called him, he told me to fork off and that he thought I was an idiot and a piece of garbage for bothering him. I am extremely hurt by this and I was wondering if anyone else could explain to me why he said these things. -H"

Half an hour later, after Wormwood's account has been deleted and Howard has recieved half a dozen posts sympathizing with him and saying how they think Wormwood was acting like an idiot, Howard posts, "By the way, I made that last post up. Got you!"

This, I believe, is the effect that Sam and Dave created in chat last night. I hope that I have been able to illustrate the difference between this sort of scandalous "lying" and the humorous "lying" that Howard engages in.

> Creating confusion and doing unexpected things are the heart of practical jokes. Of course, those not in on a joke may not find it nearly as funny as those perpetrating it do, but so long as no harm was done

Uh-huh.

> there's usually not much to complain about. Heck, in The Sting II I was the victim of an elaborate prank, which I find hilarious.

First of all, Radebur was more funny than frustrating, as I have argued. Second, you /knew/ there was some sort of prank going on all the time. Third, nobody (seriously) accused you of being a bad person; at least, nobody who people would take seriously.

> Furthermore, I don't remember Sam or Dave saying "If you didn't think it's funny than leave!" Their sentiment was more like "if you're offended by this, leave." That seems harsh, but is it really? It's Sam's website. He has ALWAYS maintained that he runs it for his own personal amusement; the fact that others enjoy it as well is a happy coincidence.

It's harsh if you read it the way in which I think it was interpreted. Read my "question 3".

> This place isn't a democracy...

Sure. There's plenty of content here that I don't find funny; indeed, some that I think is offensive. I don't have any problem with it. In fact, I don't even bother telling Sam that I find it offensive; it's not important enough.

What's not okay is to maliciously manipulate other's feelings for your own amusement; and to tell scandalous (as opposed to humorous, see above) lies about people to get a laugh out of the confusion that results. It's not okay because the humor comes /from the fact/ that other people are being hurt.

Whether or not this was the intent of last night's events, this is, I believe, the way in which at least some people percieve it. I think that people certainly have a right to get upset about this sort of "humor" wherever they find it.

> There was an intent to "manipulate" people. Was it to annoy and frustrate them?

I think that there was a /percieved/ intent to annoy and frustrate people. Remember, I'm not explaining why people /should/ be offended about what happened last night; I'm explainging why people /did/ get offended about what happened last night.

> I don't think so. The rest of the analogy is way too loaded for me to touch (and this is disclaimed; no real harm or loss of money/resources occured).

I felt that I needed this analogy to prove that it's not okay to make a joke where the humor comes by maliciously manipulating other people's feelings. I didn't try to draw any more than this out of the example. I used the /next/ example to show that this was true whether or not people actually got physically hurt.

> Nobody was studying in RinkChat. Heck, nobody was really having much of a conversation. The entire time I'd been in there basically the driving force of the night had been Sam and Dave doing weird things.

"Studying" has nothing to do with my point. My point is that (1) It's not okay to make jokes where the humor comes from hurting other people's feelings and (2) The joke last night was percieved as being the sort of joke where the humor comes from manipulating people's feelings. And that's why people were offended by it.

> > If Sam and Dave intentionally pulled the gag described above, then as with the kid who put the backpack into the basement of the library, it was no joke. Indeed, to copy what I said about that kid: "It was a prank that showed a lack of respect and consideration for the people [there]...it presumed that provoking those people to be angry or frustrated was funny. Such a prank is inherently destructive, and therefore /not/ okay."

> No. No no no no. Don't you see? This is RINKCHAT. This stuff happens ALL THE TIME. People come in and ACT WEIRD. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's stupid, sometimes it's annoying. It's usually disruptive, but once more nothing really important was happening.

Again. There's a difference between acting wierd because you want to be /funny/ and acting wierd because you /want/ to annoy people. There were indications that made it seem that Sam and Dave were engaged in the latter activity: that they were annoying people /on purpose/. I believe now that this is not the case; but I think people believed /then/ that it was the case and that this caused them to be offended.

> This is not a SERIOUS place. It can be serious, but the majority of the time it's people talking about their day, making small talk or just being weird.

But it is a place where we respect each other, and where we don't try to hurt each other on purpose. Rinkchat Rule #2 states this explicitly. I don't think it's presumptuous to demand just a little respect from the webmasters of this site -- even though it is their site and they can admittedly do whatever they want.

> I know for a fact Space wasn't around for either episode of The Sting. I was :) I remember Morris messaging me "Now is the time for the kick!" because he was pissed at Rad during the first. During the second, it totally disrupted the conversation, and Rad made fun of everybody there (while multiple people called for kicks). To say that BEER/BUTT are different because they are disrupting the chat and making fun of other chatters is nonsense.

How about this perception: BEER/BUTT are different because they are disrupting the chat /on purpose/ and are not even making an /attempt/ at being funny. They are doing /nothing/ but being frustrating and annoying. They are here for /no purpose/ other than to frustrate and annoy.

Again, I don't believe that this was the case. I believe that this was /perceived/ to be the case.

> I thought BEER/BUTT were funny, personally. Even funnier once I knew who they were... Much like Rad, they're funnier once you get the joke.

I /still/ don't get the joke. "Watch as a couple of drunken frat boys mess up the chat and insult everybody until they get bored and go away!" Yeah, real funny.

> > - People said /throughout/ that they found BEER and BUTT to be offensive and thanked Sam and Dave each time they kicked them. Yet, Sam and Dave continued to bring BEER and BUTT back. Why?

> Because they were SUPPOSED to be offensive. It's part of the prank. It's deeply inherent in any form of satire, and doubly so in a practical joke like this. Nobody in there at the time seemed REALLY offended.

Uh. No? People said they lost respect for Sam and Dave and that they felt like leaving Rinkchat forever. On what grounds do you say that these people didn't seem really offended?

> > - After it was over, Dave said (to the best of my memory): "You mean we actually PISSED YOU OFF? YES!!"

> See above.

But you can see, I hope, how this sort of comment could lead to the /perception/ that, as I have stated, Sam and Dave were engaged in creating humor by maliciously manipulating other people's feelings.

> > - Either Sam or Dave (I can't remember) said: "Yes! We actually RUINED THE CHAT!"

> I don't remember this off-hand.

I may have misquoted it slightly. But I know that something to this effect was said, and I'm pretty sure it contained the phrase "ruined the chat" and cited this as though it were a laudable accomplishment.

> > - Stephen said something to the effect of "Sam has been PMing me throughout the evening. He's making a funny joke by ruining Rinkchat."

> I was being sarcastic.

Oh.

> > - As I have shown above, BEER and BUTT do not make fun of drunken frat boys. They make fun of Rinkchatters, and the ineffective response of Rinkchatters to those frat boys.
>
> Not true. Look, why would Sam possibly want to make fun of how ineffective the RinkChatters are at kicking people? That's not remotely funny or interesting.

Your last sentence is my point. Not only is it not remotely funny or interesting, I think it's offensive to Rinkchatters.

Your point is that Sam wasn't trying to do this. Mine is that whether he was trying to do this or not, he /did/.

> If you're not an admin you can't kick people (unless you're an op in an adminless room of course). This wouldn't be funny. Nobody meant to that the joke was "ha, ha, you can't stop these guys!"

But I think it was perceived this way. See above.

> In order to make fun of drunken frat boys, you HAVE TO BE ANNOYING if you're going to satirize them. BECAUSE THEY ARE ANNOYING. That's the idea.

But, I think, you also have to make fun of them! What is funny about a couple of frat boys who annoy /us/ and then leave? It makes fun of us, not the frat boys! (Indeed, I think that this sort of thing could be seen to imply that the frat boys are superior to us.)

> Nobody got killed (the Othello example I snipped). That's horribly out of line.... continuing:

I don't think it was out of line. Again, I only used this example to prove that it's not okay to make a joke by blaming something evil on somebody else and then laughing as everybody else gets angry at that something. I didn't use the Othello example for anything more than this.

> Theft is FAR different than accusing somebody of being annoying. These are complete and total fals analogies, and they're not remotely fair.

Wormwood and Morris were percieved as having been accused of /deliberately/ attempting to /frustrate/ and /anger/ Rinkchatters. They were percieved of having been accused of /disrespecting/ all Rinkchatters. I don't think there's too many accusations that you can level at somebody in a chatroom worse than that.

> > I was angry with Wormwood because it appeared that he had played the "joke" that I described earlier: he was trying to get a laugh by annoying and frustrating Rinkchatters and by making Rinkchatters look silly and ineffective. In short, he was being disrespectful to all of us. If he was standing in front of me, I would have punched him. I'm serious.

> YOU ARE OVERREACTING. Well, maybe not. I punch people if they bother me.

I don't. But I will punch people if they /insult/ me or if they are /deliberately/ trying to /hurt my feelings/ just because they think it's funny to see me hurt.

> SILLY IS NOT A BAD WORD AROUND HERE. WE ARE SILLY ALL THE TIME.

Okay. Bad word choice on my part. I think you know what I meant.

> > I know that Wormwood said that he did not feel good about the fact that he was being scandalized (although not in those words). He said as much in his post to this thread.

> Wormwood really should get a handle then. Like I said in response to his post, I've been possessed and worse in chat (read Sting II, which makes me look silly and "ineffective"). This wasn't that bad of a thing. People should lighten the hell up. If this website was some sort of medical forum where we discussed things in seriousness all the time, I could see why this would be upsetting. BUT THIS IS PAR FOR COURSE. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST JOKE OF ITS KIND. I HOPE IT WON'T BE THE LAST.

See above.

> Furthermore, most people in chat seemed to be playing along. Morris was making jokes, and WW never seemed very upset. If I'd been accused, I would have just played along. Come on.

This didn't seem to me to be the case. I can't quote anything because I don't remember the incident well enough, but I distinctly remember feeling that Wormwood and Morris /did/ seem upset. And, as later incidents proved, they /were/ upset.

> > How do I deal with the fact that I was so angry at him that I wanted to physically hurt him, when in fact he had done nothing?

> I suggest you think on why you could get worked up over something so freaking trivial.

It didn't seem trivial. It is not trivial when someone wants to hurt your feelings just to get a laugh out of seeing you hurt. See above.

> > 2. Dave said, "You mean we actually PISSED YOU OFF? YES!!" Were you really happy that you managed to piss us off? Furthermore, was it your goal?

> I've probably overstepped by bounds by answering this already, since it's not a question I can answer. I apologize if I've written anything about Sam/Dave's POV that isn't true.

These are rhetorical questions. I said as much at the beginning. I know the answer to most of them now; I am using them as a /device/ to show why people might have been upset last night.

> > 3. Sam said, "Does anyone else want to leave? I'm serious. If anyone here finds this sort of thing offensive, I don't want anything to do with you." (The quotations, of course, are to the best of my memory but probably not exact.) Do you really not want anything to do with people who don't find it funny to scandalize and insult people? How about people who don't find it funny to be manipulated into being annoyed, angry, and frustrated?

> It's not my site, but I won't miss anyone who's going to get their undies in a twist over something as silly as last night. "Scandalize and insult people"?? WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME!!!

No. We don't. We don't because we respect the feelings of other people. See above.

> > 4. Dave said, "I have come into this chatroom many times, and have seen idiots having much stupider conversations than this one." Actually, the language he used was more rude than this, but I don't remember it exactly. My question is, who are you talking about when you are referring to these "idiots"? Wormwood? Flyingcats? Me?

> If you've never seen stupid people having stupid conversations in RinkChat, you've obviously not been around enough.

Uh. My rhetorical question was, "Who are you calling an idiot?" And what I meant was, "Do you or do you not have respect for Rinkchatters?" Simple as that.

> > -Spacebar

> No one said you had to find it funny. I find "The Dialectizer," "Things People Said," and "Slapdash City" all to be not funny. I've told Sam this before. I've never told him that those features make me "lose respect for them" or that their inclusions on the site make me want to leave. I JUST DON'T READ THEM. There's a difference between not finding something funny and getting all pissy about something, which is what happened last night.

> This is a humerous website with a heavy emphasis on satire and parody. Nothing that happened (except for some people getting way too upset for a minor incident) was out of the ordinary last night.

> Stephen

What was out of the ordinary last night was that events transpired that could be taken as disrespectful. A "prank" was pulled that could be seen as having derived its humor from the fact that people were hurt by it. Rinkworks is a humorous website, but there are traditions of respect and courtesy. If these traditions are upheld, then really, there's no problem.

-SB