An Open Letter to the SiF Community

UPDATE: I am not the user "DEJAQ" on SiF, nor do his actions or opinions represent mine. I have absolutely nothing to do with this individual.

UPDATE: Unfortunately a few people have taken this video as hate speech against SiF, well it isn't.

Please read what I have to say before you assume this is one of those immature "SiF bashing" videos.




An Open Letter to the SiF Community


SiF is frequented by many kind, friendly, intelligent people.

However, a few of these people are also members of an elite of know-it-alls who think they alone are the stars of the show and have a monopoly on being respected or knowledgeable while all other users are expected to be "spectators" and quietly agree with whatever they say.

The elites with their various "credentials" generally have little patience or leeway with anyone outside this fold who violates their "monopoly", and immediately become snippy and feisty as though they've been personally disrespected or infringed upon. These signals are subtle and easy to overlook, but exist nonetheless.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being an outstanding member of the community, but it seems to me that certain outstanding members covet the title like a championship belt and intend to knock any upcoming competitors out of the ring.

While the restriction on duplicate active threads of the same subject is totally reasonable, it sometimes feels as though members are expected to read every post on every thread on the entire forum spanning back the last three years, as presenting a question or discussion idea in any way similar to an old one will often get you snapped at by "SiF veterans" who will warn you not to "spam" the forum with old topics/questions, even if you have something new to contribute or discuss.

This indirectly penalizes anyone who was not a SiF member at the time a certain discussion or topic was addressed and creates a hierarchy as to who does and doesn't receive the privilege of being listened to. This hierarchy transcends post-count, seniority, and administrative status.

SiF's unique status as the largest and most regularly frequented Thomas&Friends and The Railway Series forum geared toward an older audience makes it one of the few available options for such discussion, and therefore I have, and will continue to put up with it since the positives of the community overall outweigh the negatives.

Despite the frustrations, SiF is ultimately an enjoyable community, though of course not perfect.

Hopefully this gets all SiF members to not feel as though everything they say and do on SiF is an investment in their status or popularity.

It is not the purpose of this message to cause unrest on SiF, or be taken as a personal attack or libel against any individual member of SiF, nor is it intended to condone rule breaking, rouse disrespect for SiF's moderators and administrators or place blame on individuals based on seniority or popularity.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• SiF
• Community
• Sodor
• Island
• Forums
• Thomas
• Thomas&Friends
• Awdry
• TTTE
• The
• Railway
• Series
• TWS

[CurtisWarner]

I am not "DEJAQ".

[evanASF27]

With that out of the way, I personally (not speaking on behalf of the staff) find your comments interesting... perhaps not life threatening =P but still, valid suggestions for making the forum a happier place.

Some of the "elite" stuff just happens... it happens everywhere on a lot of forums. As for this "Thomas monopoly", we *do* get information just because we've got a ton of members and people just happen to stumble upon things first. That's natural.

[WarriorStarTug5]

Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for SiF, but I personally find that "certain persons" seem to have little or no respect for Non-SiFers.

SiF is not evil, and neither is YouTube, or any other Thomas fan community, and, my personal feelings towards Ryan in the case of Daniel Snell aside(I served as one of his moderators for 2 years and never saw any hateful statements toward SiF or Ryan come from him), hope that someday everyone will be able to see that.

[TheFattHatt1943]

@shadoweduniverse ha

[shadowedmultiverse]

@scaryfried SiF is shit, that's what it is.

[shadoweduniverse]

@TheSiFAdmin sif are teh geh

[shadoweduniverse]

SiF... more like... SiFilis... tee hee

[sodorsno1]

Couldn't have put it better myself!

[sodorsno1]

Sodor Island Forums. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. It's only mentioned, erm, everywhere!

[scaryfried]

What is SiF?

[WarriorStarTug5]

It's the same theory as in politics: Whoever is in "Power" or is a big name is the one who gets blamed when someone needs a "Bad Guy" to blame for problems which are often caused by the accusers themselves! It happened with Clinton, it happened with Bush, and will happen with Obama. I'm not accusing YouTube Thomas fans or SiF of causing the Not-So-Great SiF/YouTube war, or any other group or individual for that matter, it's just that the big names always take the first blows in a conflict...