Yeh, but bear in mind that for every two people diving into the discussion there are six sitting back and saying the whole thing is ridiculous. Those are the posts and comments that don't get linked on metafandom and all the eager discussers seldom get to see, but believe me there are tons of them out there. On my flist and in RL discussion with other fans I saw far more people saying 'a plague on both their houses' over the OSBP than felt they had to dive in and add to the dogpile for either side. And no, it wasn't a discussion about discussion, it was 'god, they are at it again' and then moving on to something more interesting. That attitude is always going to be the dominant one in fandom whilst these discussions are so unpleasant because most people just don't have the mental energy to waste on something so upsetting. And they really are upsetting, not by virtue of the subject matter - I don't think I've ever seen anything on LJ that upset me in terms of subject matter - but because of the nastiness of the dogpiling. I've been dogpiled on two or three occasions and I know I didn't benefit from the experience, I seriously doubt the dogpilers benefited from the experience, and I also doubt the lurkers benfited. I also know I've never observed a dogpile and felt I learnt anything from it other than sympathy for the pilee and contempt for the pilers. Dogpiling is just bullying as far as I'm concerned - cruel and non-constructive. It's not a coincidence that the people shouting loudest about most of the recent kerfuffles are also some of the most controversial and least liked people in the fandom.
Oh and as for metafandom - that is not a true diversity of opinion. Only left of centre stuff ever seems to get linked there. I can count on the fingers of one hand the right of centre commenters who I've seen get metafandomed. That reflects the political bias of fandom as a whole of course, but the right of centre comments are out there, you just have to know where to look. (Mostly flocked to avoid dogpiles from the lefties, of course.)
Sorry to vent, but the self-rightousness of a lot of what I've seen in fandom makes me sick. However much I may or may not agree with a particular issue, I can't stand dogpiles.
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Date: 2008-05-08 06:17 am (UTC)Oh and as for metafandom - that is not a true diversity of opinion. Only left of centre stuff ever seems to get linked there. I can count on the fingers of one hand the right of centre commenters who I've seen get metafandomed. That reflects the political bias of fandom as a whole of course, but the right of centre comments are out there, you just have to know where to look. (Mostly flocked to avoid dogpiles from the lefties, of course.)
Sorry to vent, but the self-rightousness of a lot of what I've seen in fandom makes me sick. However much I may or may not agree with a particular issue, I can't stand dogpiles.