My name is Red Heron (online, in writings, etc. ... it's a "Pen Name" or "Professional Name" that I've used for just a couple of years now).
My real name is Ray Jenson. I founded Jedi School and the new up-and-coming United Jedi Council. I've been a practicing Jedi since 1996, when a teacher elected to teach me from the Star Wars saga rather than give up on trying to teach me. She wound up changing my entire life from one of trying to kick everyone's asses and hurt them to one of kicking everyone's asses and helping them. So if I come off as a little direct, please understand that my aim is not to bully or demean; it's to help. I strongly believe that the role of everyone in the community is to be of service to those not in the community.
And I'm pissed off.
Aside from that, I want to congratulate Alethea for the hard work of building another sub-community of Jediists who are actually on-topic and fairly active for once. This is the way a healthy forum should look. But that's really just because I think building any community is difficult.
<rant>
I'm going to be posting as many of my reasons as I have room to post (I hope I don't have to have multiple posts). I'm going to get very blunt, so if I offend anyone, I'm sorry you feel offended, but I feel a strong need to explain my own position on the idea of voting for "community standards" without involving the entire community. I'm pissed off, but I've really been giving this considerable thought. If I offend you, don't consider my points invalidated just because you don't like them. Some of the language is harsh; this is intentionally calculated to evoke a response. Please consider the resulting emotions (if you have them) as evidence that my points matter, rather than evidence that they don't. They matter, because this is a point in our history where such a choice is going to lead us into failure.
The question of ranks to me is a point which has been rehashed enough times in the past 12 years that I should think the point reaches us. And yet I see only evidence that it falls on deaf ears. The point of ranks is that we cannot agree.
And to hold a vote with so few people clearly demonstrates a lack of willingness to truly adopt a community standard... how can it be a community standard without the members of the community involved?
Seriously, this is the same wrong-headed, self-centered, power-driven bullshit that plagued our community 10 years ago. When will we learn that we must simply accept one another and tolerate the differences as differences in perception, rather than trying to unify a community which is already largely unified? The only people who aren't unified are those who are competing for power--most of the people in this forum, for example.
Drunkards! You are all drunk on the power of leadership of your own organizations, never stopping to consider for a moment that your own actions are what tear the community apart. Alethea, I understand your aim, but this is not the way: it leads to the same power struggles we've had going now for almost 2 decades online. Power is given by the community; it is not taken in the name of community unless you intend to take it without the community's consent. If you want a community standard, have the whole community involved, not a minority of it. Closing the vote off means that we didn't get to hear all of the voices. If you are so desperate for power, go try to grab it for yourself... and watch as the power structures you create come crashing down around your ears in your ignorance of how they are made.
We are separate. We are equal. We are ALREADY a community. But the "community leaders" are so busy trying to figure out how to lead or to seize power or to screw over that other site that they overlook the primary consideration that gives them any kind of authority to lead: the community itself. This is why Adam Possamai (PhD) said that we resemble a Jedi Disorder more often than a Jedi Order. This is why our numbers have dwindled over the years. This kind of pointless philosophication of something which isn't even practical yet is exactly the kind of thing that people in the community keep doing.
We need to simply accept that we are one community, period. End of sentence. Sure, we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, but if we are to espouse the ability to tolerate others' beliefs as valid, we need to begin by accepting that not everyone agrees, and just agree to disagree. And when we have a silly competition, we need to bring it to light and actually fucking practice what we preach with regard to philosophy. If we wantonly ignore the very things we espouse, such as tolerance, especially where other Jediist (and related philosophy) organizations are concerned, and especially where one another are concerned, or we are hypocrites.
We should begin with the understanding that we are already a singular community with many different viewpoints, rather than ending there. Tolerance should be our foundation, rather than our undoing.
There was a comment about the United Jedi Council's founding documents earlier, made by Jax, in which she said that I was putting the cart before the horse on some point or other (and it was a valid point, though not relevant to that particular situation). This whole charade of voting on community standards is worse than that: it's putting the cart before the invention of the wheel.
Before we "reinvent the wheel" we should consider whether or not we have the wheel to begin with. Without the correct pieces, we have nothing. And this entire business of deciding and agreeing benefits us nothing if we don't actually have the entire community present.
Are we now to make Jediism a religion of self-deprecating, useless dogmas? Do we really need to repeat the failures of history that badly? Have you forgotten the past so readily?
Drop this stupid bullshit fantasy where you think this charade of voting makes it applicable or even practical. We need actual community support, not just a few representatives. We need to establish ourselves first. And that means we need tolerance more than we need fancy rules or regulations. We need to understand that our philosophies are not just meaningless words, but ideas and concepts to be put into practice. We are continuing to act like the laughing stock that we are made out to be, and we are doomed to failure unless we have something that benefits people.
Of what use is having our beliefs if nobody benefits from them?
Seriously, folks... pull your collective heads out of your arses, those that this applies to. And think before you decide that it doesn't. Thinking helps. But accept what is obviously in front of us.
Stop making yourself believe that your organization is better than others. And you do, or this competition wouldn't exist and we would instead be discussing something much more useful to the world.
Stop believing that you have the final say in your communities. You might, but those who disagree will go elsewhere.
Stop trying to play games of power and control. They're pointless and only lead to petty squabbles of which corner of the imaginary acre we get.
And most of all, stop trying to unite a community which is already largely united. The leaders aren't; but the rest of the Jedi world pretty much is. The more we recognize that fact, and accept the beauty of being able to have diverse beliefs, the faster these kinds of stupid games will cease.
Be sensible.
Be Jedi for once.
Thanks for your understanding, those who do. I'm sure I'll get all kinds of hate mail and even a death threat or two (wait... Hannigan *was* banned, right?), but the reality of the situation required that you really consider what it is that you're doing. It's harmful to the community to eliminate voices based on any kind of preferential status. It's detrimental to the community to say "Woops, sorry, but you aren't active enough for our tastes online, so we're going to dictate to you this standard which we're arbitrarily deciding."
</rant>
But seriously, I love the fact that this is active. I just wish I could see the activity as beneficial or even productive.
My real name is Ray Jenson. I founded Jedi School and the new up-and-coming United Jedi Council. I've been a practicing Jedi since 1996, when a teacher elected to teach me from the Star Wars saga rather than give up on trying to teach me. She wound up changing my entire life from one of trying to kick everyone's asses and hurt them to one of kicking everyone's asses and helping them. So if I come off as a little direct, please understand that my aim is not to bully or demean; it's to help. I strongly believe that the role of everyone in the community is to be of service to those not in the community.
And I'm pissed off.
Aside from that, I want to congratulate Alethea for the hard work of building another sub-community of Jediists who are actually on-topic and fairly active for once. This is the way a healthy forum should look. But that's really just because I think building any community is difficult.
<rant>
I'm going to be posting as many of my reasons as I have room to post (I hope I don't have to have multiple posts). I'm going to get very blunt, so if I offend anyone, I'm sorry you feel offended, but I feel a strong need to explain my own position on the idea of voting for "community standards" without involving the entire community. I'm pissed off, but I've really been giving this considerable thought. If I offend you, don't consider my points invalidated just because you don't like them. Some of the language is harsh; this is intentionally calculated to evoke a response. Please consider the resulting emotions (if you have them) as evidence that my points matter, rather than evidence that they don't. They matter, because this is a point in our history where such a choice is going to lead us into failure.
The question of ranks to me is a point which has been rehashed enough times in the past 12 years that I should think the point reaches us. And yet I see only evidence that it falls on deaf ears. The point of ranks is that we cannot agree.
And to hold a vote with so few people clearly demonstrates a lack of willingness to truly adopt a community standard... how can it be a community standard without the members of the community involved?
Seriously, this is the same wrong-headed, self-centered, power-driven bullshit that plagued our community 10 years ago. When will we learn that we must simply accept one another and tolerate the differences as differences in perception, rather than trying to unify a community which is already largely unified? The only people who aren't unified are those who are competing for power--most of the people in this forum, for example.
Drunkards! You are all drunk on the power of leadership of your own organizations, never stopping to consider for a moment that your own actions are what tear the community apart. Alethea, I understand your aim, but this is not the way: it leads to the same power struggles we've had going now for almost 2 decades online. Power is given by the community; it is not taken in the name of community unless you intend to take it without the community's consent. If you want a community standard, have the whole community involved, not a minority of it. Closing the vote off means that we didn't get to hear all of the voices. If you are so desperate for power, go try to grab it for yourself... and watch as the power structures you create come crashing down around your ears in your ignorance of how they are made.
We are separate. We are equal. We are ALREADY a community. But the "community leaders" are so busy trying to figure out how to lead or to seize power or to screw over that other site that they overlook the primary consideration that gives them any kind of authority to lead: the community itself. This is why Adam Possamai (PhD) said that we resemble a Jedi Disorder more often than a Jedi Order. This is why our numbers have dwindled over the years. This kind of pointless philosophication of something which isn't even practical yet is exactly the kind of thing that people in the community keep doing.
We need to simply accept that we are one community, period. End of sentence. Sure, we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, but if we are to espouse the ability to tolerate others' beliefs as valid, we need to begin by accepting that not everyone agrees, and just agree to disagree. And when we have a silly competition, we need to bring it to light and actually fucking practice what we preach with regard to philosophy. If we wantonly ignore the very things we espouse, such as tolerance, especially where other Jediist (and related philosophy) organizations are concerned, and especially where one another are concerned, or we are hypocrites.
We should begin with the understanding that we are already a singular community with many different viewpoints, rather than ending there. Tolerance should be our foundation, rather than our undoing.
There was a comment about the United Jedi Council's founding documents earlier, made by Jax, in which she said that I was putting the cart before the horse on some point or other (and it was a valid point, though not relevant to that particular situation). This whole charade of voting on community standards is worse than that: it's putting the cart before the invention of the wheel.
Before we "reinvent the wheel" we should consider whether or not we have the wheel to begin with. Without the correct pieces, we have nothing. And this entire business of deciding and agreeing benefits us nothing if we don't actually have the entire community present.
Are we now to make Jediism a religion of self-deprecating, useless dogmas? Do we really need to repeat the failures of history that badly? Have you forgotten the past so readily?
Drop this stupid bullshit fantasy where you think this charade of voting makes it applicable or even practical. We need actual community support, not just a few representatives. We need to establish ourselves first. And that means we need tolerance more than we need fancy rules or regulations. We need to understand that our philosophies are not just meaningless words, but ideas and concepts to be put into practice. We are continuing to act like the laughing stock that we are made out to be, and we are doomed to failure unless we have something that benefits people.
Of what use is having our beliefs if nobody benefits from them?
Seriously, folks... pull your collective heads out of your arses, those that this applies to. And think before you decide that it doesn't. Thinking helps. But accept what is obviously in front of us.
Stop making yourself believe that your organization is better than others. And you do, or this competition wouldn't exist and we would instead be discussing something much more useful to the world.
Stop believing that you have the final say in your communities. You might, but those who disagree will go elsewhere.
Stop trying to play games of power and control. They're pointless and only lead to petty squabbles of which corner of the imaginary acre we get.
And most of all, stop trying to unite a community which is already largely united. The leaders aren't; but the rest of the Jedi world pretty much is. The more we recognize that fact, and accept the beauty of being able to have diverse beliefs, the faster these kinds of stupid games will cease.
Be sensible.
Be Jedi for once.
Thanks for your understanding, those who do. I'm sure I'll get all kinds of hate mail and even a death threat or two (wait... Hannigan *was* banned, right?), but the reality of the situation required that you really consider what it is that you're doing. It's harmful to the community to eliminate voices based on any kind of preferential status. It's detrimental to the community to say "Woops, sorry, but you aren't active enough for our tastes online, so we're going to dictate to you this standard which we're arbitrarily deciding."
</rant>
But seriously, I love the fact that this is active. I just wish I could see the activity as beneficial or even productive.
