Aminet 44/Aminet 44 (2001)(GTI - Schatztruhe)[!][Aug 2001].iso/Aminet/demo/mag/GDS-DISC11b.lha/text/CURSE&BLESSING

Text File | 1998-10-02 | 5KB | 155 lines

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«c1»THE BLESSINGS & CURSES OF IRC«»
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«c3»BY DARKHAWK/IRIS«»
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«c2»Many people in the scene have a modem
nowadays or are otherwise connected to
the «c5»internet. «c2»Once there, you will
eventually be drawn into the Amiga
scene specific IRC channel called
«c5»#Amigascne. «c2»This is an interesting
place for several reasons, and it
certainly warrants an article about
the dangers and benefits at being
online on that, and other IRC
channels.«»
«»
At first sight, it seems like a new
world opens up for you, you meet a lot
of fellow sceners, chat with them,
exchange ideas, watch the famous
persons fool around, you get a lot of
stuff faster, you might even come to
meet your own groupmembers on the
channel, exchanging work and ideas
with them, and timing the making of a
production from there. Thus, at first
sight, the «c5»IRC seems like a blessing,
«c2»and the circle of sceners you get to
know expands dramatically.«»
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So, the positive things about the IRC
is the «c5»communication, «c2»the people you
can get to know, the easier access to
productions and knowhow. On top of
that, the relationship in your group
can also improve dramatically when
everybody is online and meets there.
The IRC seems to be a very sociable
place with a lot of blessings for the
new IRC'er.«»
«»
However, after a certain amount of
time has passed, after you have been
regularely online on #Amigascne, a
different picture begins to show
itself, and then you will see and
perhaps experience for yourself the
downside of IRC and the Amigascne
channel.«»
«»
If you become addicted to your daily
dose of IRC, your motivation for doing
scenework will go down, regardless of
you only spending your IRC time on a
scene channel. When going online, you
will not have enough motivation left
to log off and do some serious
scenework, no, you will not be able to
log off, even if you feel like you
should, you will hang around, hoping
to chat a bit more with some person.
«c5»The IRC will sort off leech your
motivation right out of you, «c2»until the
point where you just sit infront of
your IRC screen and wait for something
to happen. Even if you do not end like
that, you will spend some time on the
IRC, time which had better been spent
doing scenework, especially if you
only hang out on scenechannels anyway.
You might get inspired and recharged
for scenework by being on e.g.
#Amigascne, but beyond a certain
point, things will work in the exact
opposite way, so you have to be real
careful and find the golden
middlepath.«»
«»
One of the positive aspects about IRC,
that about «c5»getting to know a lot of
people, «c2»is also one of the negative
aspects. Chatting via the IRC will
only get you that far, you will not be
able to really get to know the
people you chat with, you have to meet
people in the real life too, to
experience «c5»real social interaction.
«c2»However, it seems that if you hang out
on the IRC a lot, you come to think of
social interaction as synonymous with
chatting, and you loose a lot in this
way, not only being able to booze with
other people, hehe. In other words, if
you overdo chatting, your relationship
with other chatters will have a
somewhat shallow character, especially
if you do not feel it neccessary to
meet up with them in real life.«»
«»
Besides those points, «c5»#Amigascne is
really a somewhat sad place «c2»in some
ways. There are usually atleast 20
'people' online, but if you sort away
ex. sceners, bots and idlers, there's
only 2-3 people left out of 20, heh.
It might take some time to notice, but
the activity level of the channel is
quite low. Some interesting people
start interesting discussions about
the scene now and then, but mostly
there is just long periods of silence
or a lot of small talk about PC games
or the like, by some lame «c5»ex. sceners
still sticking around on their PC's
«c2»because they have nothing else to do.
Eheh, upps.. Other ex. sceners are
nice enough though, and you can get
some interesting discussions with
them. That's also the mainpoint about
#Amigascne I guess, not the general
activity level but more that you can
meet up and chat privately with a lot
of different sceners whom you can get
to know. However, the general channel
can be a very depressing experience
too. If most of those people present
on #Amigascne actually WERE the scene,
we would be totally dead now, hehe.«»
«»
«c5»The conclusion.. Nothing that is good
is completely good, and nothing that
is bad is completely bad. «c2»The IRC most
certainly has its uses, but you have
to be real careful if you don't want
your scenish motivation to suffer.
Otherwise you will become like what
seems to be the mainpart of the people
on #Amigascne, a collection of
has-been's and never-will-be's, who
just hang around, who have had the
spirit leeched out of them, or who
have never even possesed the spirit.«»
«»
And I didn't mean to insult any active
sceners here, new or old, only to warn
them; «c5»handle the IRC with care, «c2»or
risk loosing your scenish motivation!«»
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