The value of "time in the community"

Context, context, context!!!

In some instances, it makes sense to bring up seniority. For example, historical information. Or if you're wondering if something has a pattern of repeating over time...anything, really that comes with time and experience.

BUT age doesn't always mean wisdom. So stating that one is wiser or more correct than another purely due to age or the amount of time in the community is not reasonable. I'm sure there are newer or younger people in the community with more wisdom than others. What good would it do us to to discount what they have to say because they don't have seniority?

I bring this particular story up occasionally because it highlights to me that 'time in the community' doesn't really mean much to me.

When I was youth officer, we had a minor around for a while. Her name was something that some might take offense to (though it was not in itself offensive) and I sent her a message asking why she chose it. Her description of what it meant was wiser than much of what I've heard from adults. This particular individual easily accepted when they felt they were wrong, admitted to changing their mind about topics when someone made a good argument and were, quite honestly, one of the most Jedi, Jedi, that I've ever come across. I feel that she rather put me to shame!

I often feel when someone says 'oh this person has been around longer than you' or 'I've been a Jedi since X date' that it's sort of an ego thing, meant to put down those who are being spoken to. Usually, because it's used in the sort of tone that says 'I know better than you.' As Jestor said in his post, he used to say to me that he'd been a Jedi since whenever, but it was always to compare or contrast in a non-judgemental type of way.. when used in posts by others it rarely seems that way.

I feel that comments about 'time in the community' are a diversionary tactic often used to avoid a proper discussion.

rugadd wrote: If I can't get over how a person's communication style makes me feel, I need to take a break and consider my own perception flawed as I am unable to pay attention to the important parts of the message.

I must admit, I have a tough one with this.

Part of it is that I consider tone to be part of content, as in speach. But maybe other peole don't.

And wisdom can come from all kinds of off-putting sources, and if I can't hear that message, I'm losing out.

Cabur Senaar wrote:

rugadd wrote: If I can't get over how a person's communication style makes me feel, I need to take a break and consider my own perception flawed as I am unable to pay attention to the important parts of the message.

I must admit, I have a tough one with this.

Part of it is that I consider tone to be part of content, as in speach. But maybe other peole don't.

And wisdom can come from all kinds of off-putting sources, and if I can't hear that message, I'm losing out.

When I speak to someone face to face, I certainly consider what their tone(and body posture, and environment etc etc stuff you can't get online) tells me. But on a forum, I find I impose a tone more then observe one, so I can't trust it. Does that make any sense?

Lol. Tenure should have no bearing on what is tolerated and what is not. Some of the worst behavior I have seen has come from people who shout their tenure to anyone who will listen and used as a justification. And time doesn't necessarily mean you've actually learned anything or grown.

I think its not the time spent, but the journey made.

and I have to agree with Jestor. Why does it matter? Its all too easy for it to become another little sticker for our ego to collect and show off.

As I understand it, TOTJO has gone through several phases of growth and change in terms of developing what it as a general whole holds as important. A number of us, I'm inclined to think, have gone through reconsidering and adjusting what matters most according to what we observe happens with our discussions and achievements through that time.

I can believe that in the earlier years of this temple, "time in the community" might have been deemed important, but possibly most due to the fact that the community itself still wore a common paradigm found in most other types of communities such as gaming communities for example. Since then, the temple has developed a different attitude through the social, philosophical, and spiritual lessons that have likely shown us that this former paradigm is no longer necessary for demonstrating worthiness as a Jedi.

The issue comes in when some members who were around during (or since) that past paradigm, haven't caught up or felt willing to follow the changes the community in general has had. Some have been away and don't know that this has changed, and some have been attached to this older paradigm because that may have been the stage of the community that they most came into their own with.

Five years from now, I suspect the community will have changed even more and some of us from this stage may feel as those of past stages have about "time in the community".

Jestor wrote: It feels like bragging, or defensive when it is brought up in other ways... To ME, not that it does to anyone else....

Why is it important?

Where you see Bragging and Defensiveness. And others see Ego

I see Reference Points and Scitations. Either for the Authors own benafit or the readers.

Just because the past of someone isn't important to you.....dosn't mean it dosn't hold great importance to the person remember it. I mention it all the time. Never Ever Ever has it been to Brag. To be Defensive. Or to be Egotistic. It has always been a reference point in my piss poor attempt to get my point's and views across.

I suck at communication. I freely admit it.

But it dosn't do anyone any good to always assume that means I have ill intentions because of it.

I would argue that those who have been around the longest should be the most gentle, most forgiving, most compassionate. I don't understand how people who have genuinely been at this for almost a decade could not have experienced their hearts being broken and mended hundreds of times by some of the people they've met and things that have happened here... one would want to become so willing to bend and welcome and forgive and understand and include those around them. My heart practically explodes with love for some of the people here (especially those I've had conflict with in the past) and I see that only growing as years roll along.

So I don't understand the hostility from some of those who have been around the longest. At all. I tend to follow the GIGO ("garbage in, garbage out") system of thought... what has been put into you that is boiling over with such anger now? Take time out of it... look at what we are right now. Yes, change hurts, but it's not here to hurt you. Why rest on the laurels of having been around for years? If you're not going to let it change you, squeeze your heart, and if you're not going to make a real effort to continue becoming the best version of yourself, why bother?

Snowy Aftermath wrote: I would argue that those who have been around the longest should be the most gentle, most forgiving, most compassionate. I don't understand how people who have genuinely been at this for almost a decade could not have experienced their hearts being broken and mended hundreds of times by some of the people they've met and things that have happened here... one would want to become so willing to bend and welcome and forgive and understand and include those around them. My heart practically explodes with love for some of the people here (especially those I've had conflict with in the past) and I see that only growing as years roll along.

So I don't understand the hostility from some of those who have been around the longest. At all. I tend to follow the GIGO ("garbage in, garbage out") system of thought... what has been put into you that is boiling over with such anger now? Take time out of it... look at what we are right now. Yes, change hurts, but it's not here to hurt you. Why rest on the laurels of having been around for years? If you're not going to let it change you, squeeze your heart, and if you're not going to make a real effort to continue becoming the best version of yourself, why bother?

Unless I'm mistaken, the social values of older generations of the community were fairly different than much of what we have here today. I don't think this is to say that Jedi were about being a bunch of a-holes, but rather that values that some here might associate with being politically correct did not exist as much at that time. So, some of the Jedi from that time who are either away for years or who are more personally attached to that generation tend to carry over those old ways to today's interactions.

So I'm seldom trying much to be rude, though that is a word that was used on multiple occasions to describe my behaviour at the time, never really at a time when I was still new and shy to speak my mind (that was admittedly much softer back then, too).
I am however happy to say that aside from personal relationships and what ever happens within them, if someone is so fragile that text off a screen can seriously hurt them for much of the rest of their week, maybe the internet really isn't that good a place for them. The parental hands that close a child's ears when ever someone is cussing aren't here and while not all of us are adults, I don't think we should expect to be treated like children either. On a side note, in a more literal sense I think those hands are actually a bad thing for the child as it would be a bad thing for us if we introduced them figuritively.
As for representation of or by the community (if it can even be called that), in my admittedly subjective opinion that is yet another childish and blatantly tribal thing. If we mean what we say when we praise and encourage individuality and diversity, making a symbol and a banner for it is somewhat hypocritical. We are not one people united, we are a multitude of persons and just as we shouldn't speak on each others behalf freely, so shouldn't we allow ourselves to become part of the total grey mass, faceless, anonymous. None of us are substitutes for any one of us, neither individually nor collectively. The face of Jediism should not be something we create for the world. Instead we can show them all of our individual faces, and if the world feels afterwards like it needs to mold a grotesque approximate to generalize us with, that's their prerogative.
Now, is it okay for a veteran user to be more... free in their approach than a newcomer? No, in terms of the rules it technically isn't. Trust and respect are of course things earned over time and over interaction. And so as our enforcers learn to understand our individual quirks, misunderstand fewer of them and as a result become or seem to become more forgiving. People who constantly or grossly misbehave usually don't stay long enough for that to kick in, so it seems that the ones who can "afford" being a little rougher around the edges now are users with a history of beeing smooth enough to pass the entry level filters at some point. Is this fair? No. Is this just? No. Is it avoidable? I don't think so. Now I do of course have a bias having been on a few occasions a beneficiary of moderator leniency and while I acknowledge that some of that stems very much from the sheer amount of time I spent here and how my peers value my past contributions, and do appreciate the slack I am sometimes cut as a result, I wouldn't want either to be used to actually justify any of my misbehaviour.
So it is something of a messy mix here. The time it takes to understand and integrate personalities naturally and inevitably leads to unequal treatment between the strangers and the fellows. One can only hope to be aware of this and to not let our apeish tribal biases add even more to this discrepancy between those our instincts tell us are the "us" and those we perceive as the "them". We do understand that time and familiarity are not an actual excuse. Rather they allow us to be more patient with those we can expect to reward our patience in short enough time. It is a privilege we cannot avoid generating for the time-tested users yet cannot afford extending to newcomers also.