unforum

[rose]

"Us" And "them" And "We"

[dorkmaster not logged in]

Rose, I see what you're talking about, but I have to admit I think in general, it's a natural extension...

What I have found, more often than not, is that anytime you're introducing a tightly-knit community to a larger community (in this instance, the ARGN/Unfiction community, to a poker community) you're going to naturally have a little us/them comparison, or naturally you're going to associate with one side or the other.

However, I don't feel this will really last, as in my experience, UNF has been exceedingly accepting over periods of time, when it comes to people who don't know what's going on, or when someone comes in as an "expert in their field" and were piqued by some facet of the game.

For example, when say, people came into the ARG world from the "Matrix" World with Metacortechs or something (and there were a couple who did cross over, due to searches for fanfic or what-have-you), those people were accepted, and welcomed due to their knowledge of the "universe".

In this case, the universe is poker. "The poker people" that are ignorant, or indifferent to the ARG going on behind the poker front are part of this world, this universe. While it's easy right now to classify us vs. them, I think that line is naturally going to blur all on it's own as the game progresses.

The UNF people are already realizing the benefits of becoming more "poker people"-like. And I think that anyone who's enjoying playing poker on this site without playing the ARG is going to find that there's more fun in playing poker with a purpose, and will slowly adopt some UNfictiony ways of doing things too.

So while I understand your concern, I think the past has shown us that overall, we're a community of inclusion more than exclusion. More importantly, I think that the nature of this game all by itself, will take care of most of these perceived divisions amongst the players of Last Call Poker.

I know, this is only my opinion, but I'm just not too scared. I think that there's always going to be goons on both sides of the equation, but overall, I think we've got nothing to fear.

[dorkmaster NLI 2x]

Also, in terms of your discomfort with posters using "We" or "Us" when clearly referencing an idea that would typically be an "I" idea, I can understand your point, but again, don't think that anyone is trying to rope people together with that idea.

For a horrible example:

Now, if someone said "We hate purple people", well sure, the purple people of that community would not feel rightly associated with that one joker who thought everyone agreed with his one-sided, single-minded, idiocy. However, if someone wrote: "We think the game could be better", and they can back that up with conversations, or chats or what have you where more than one person thought of it, then I think that's valid use.

Your example of the cheating in poker thing... I think that the idea, whether agreed upon by everyone as "the thing to do" was at least thought of by quite a few UNF-ers. Therefore, the use of "us" or "we" I think is perfectly logical and correctly used.

[dorkmaster 3x posts! =:-O]

Sorry for the triple post, but I didn't log in, so I have no choice...

Rose, I also want to make sure you know, I'm not pickin on ya. I just tend to disagree. I really respect you in the community and all. I'm not startin a fight or anything.

[rose]

dorkmaster

[joebrent]

If it's good enough for Pink Floyd, it's good enough for me.