Piss me off? No. Make me resentful? Yes. I have better things to do today than weed the garden but this is a time-sensitive discussion and traditionally, it's my job to lance the boil. The fact of the matter is we can't put "you're wrong about muting" in the primer because Hubski is a highly-personalized experience. So every time we have an influx of users, we need to have a highly-personalized discussion of why you're wrong about muting. We do this because Hubski is a fragile ecosystem subject to shock and when a whole bunch of people show up and find nothing to talk about other than their freeze peaches, they drive away the people who actually add to the discussion. So somebody - and it's appropriate that it's the most polarizing member of the entire site - has to shape the discussion in such a way that the people who demand their freeze peaches get it but also in such a way that the people who make this place what it is feel they've gotten their voice represented, too. It's impossible to get the hang of a community's long-term dynamics without being a long-term member. It's also impossible to retain long-term members if the environment ceases to be conducive to them. And every time we get a Reddit influx, I see a whole bunch of new names and notice a dearth of old. The yammering about stuff other than what was here before you drives away the people who make this place what it is. Not all at once, and not totally, but we're legitimately fighting attrition. 8bit is putting on his "I don't have to suffer you crackers" face which is never good. Ref has been largely absent, minus some lashing out. Several other names I'm forgetting are finding better things to do, primarily because we've got a bunch of new faces jostling around and shining their newness. And I'll bet every one of you has some greatness. And I'm looking forward to finding out what it is. but 8bit wrote a goddamn video game about Hubski. If I have to burn every last one of you to the ground to keep him around, I'll do it with a smile on my face. So the gentle "there, there, mute isn't so bad, actually it's really handy!" discussion for the newbies has to be balanced out with a "STFU and get out of my way n00b" flavor for the old guard so that they remember that this land is our land and that we will always favor the incumbent. there are two sides to the discussion and both of them need to make it from "peaches fresh or frozen" to "be excellent to each other." It's nuance that I didn't really want to flex today, but there it is. Does that make sense?
It makes absolute sense. It actually reminds me of an article I read damn near a decade ago at this point about maintaining the core users of a community so that others don't get alienated as the atmosphere drifts from what it once was, leading to splintering and basically just becoming the rest of the internet. We used to do this by flaming and trolling every single new member. Most people would leave. So yeah, I get ya. ;)