Independant Council's Report!
(The content of the above named document is too explicit for Geocities' Guidelines, therefore, although I provided a disclaimer - where none was placed on the original - my pages aren't worth being deleted because of the President's alledged escapades!!)Before you get too engrossed in my writing,
let me offer you my Guestbook:
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Well, I've been trying to help people in GeoCities' Help Forums since July 1997, almost a year, as this is being written. Within that year, lots of things have changed, on the Internet, at GeoCities, and, the GeoCities' Help Forums themselves. Recently, I've begun helping in GeoCities Help Chat. The Help Chat allows one to receive gratitude from those one has helped, but, it moves at a harried pace, without allowing one to show examples. The Help Forums are low on gratitude, but, one can help at one's own pace, examples are possible, and, sometimes, best of all, one can copy~paste answers to questions asked & answered before!
This particular Rant concerns Helper Burn-out. On May 6, 1998, a CL (Community Leader) at GeoCities told me that "Geocities is currently growing at 10 to 15
new members per minute..."!? That's a lot of people joining an Internet community. I believe, unfortunately, that most of the people that are joining the Internet community, these days, are basically "jumping on the band wagon" - not wanting to be left behind by what seems to be the rest of the world. To put it more bluntly, those who were afluent enough, adventurous enough, intelligent enough, and forward-thinking enough, were on the Internet before the dawning of 1996...those that have joined-in since (including me...), are becoming also-rans - more and more so "as times marches on"!
Currently, I'm helping a 32 year old woman get web pages created and uploaded...she just picked my e-mail address from the Help Forums. Although she's been connected to the Internet for almost a year, she doesn't seem to know much about how the Internet works. Ah, well, perhaps she just isn't as intrigued and interested by computers and the Internet as I am, though she seems to have a fair amount of computer literacy. Anyway, I've been spending days attempting to explain GeoCities' EZ Editor, and, how to write links using it. I'd never set my browser to either of GeoCities' Basic or EZ Editors until I was inevitably asked how to use the darned things. That's one thing about needing to help people...one desperately wants to give full and correct information, and, feels badly if that goal cannot be fulfilled. I imagine I'll spend at least another week helping this woman make her pages, and, it might go faster if I wrote them all myself!
Last night, my second time helping in GeoCities' Help Chat, I had someone ask me how to center the right-hand side of their web page. I asked for the URL, and it was given to me. A more messed-up page I hadn't ever seen before...well, maybe I had, but, I hadn't been asked to fix the whole thing, either! I told K_r_A_c_K_e_R@yahoo.com it was messed up pretty badly, and that I didn't have the time to fix it. So, K_r_A_c_K_e_R told me that friends, his "sponsor" (a Free Page needs a sponsor??), and a class(!) were expecting it to be finished soon, and, that s/he was 14-years-old. So, being a dutiful helper, disappointed if I cannot help when I've volunteered to, I took a half-hour to fix his page and make it as close to technically perfect as possible in that time...and, to leave a comment stating that I'd worked on it, "signing" it with my e-mail address - if I was fixing a homework project for him/her, I wanted them to get (less than) full credit! Well, I finished working on her/his page, then, uploaded it to my site for it to be seen and copied, and told him/her. What was her/his response? "Mine was more perfect than that." So, I said a quick, "Bye-bye, page deleted!", and wiped his/her refurbished page from my disk space. It's one thing to accept something that someone's given you, especially their time, graciously, but, to give them grief for a "gift" is too much!
I don't know if K_r_A_c_K_e_R was actually 14, or, just saying that to get me to better his/her page for her/him, but, being treated so badly after spending my time getting his/her page into some reasonable semblance of "good" HTML deeply shook my conviction about helping people with their web pages. That, and the seemingly lower intelligence level of those currently writing their web pages, makes helping people to communicate on the Internet more and more difficult. I'm certainly not going to my local Wal*Mart to purchase a copy of Microsoft® FrontPage 98 just so that I can help people troubleshoot something they've spent approximately $150 to buy, hoping that it would create mistake-free web pages! C'est la vie...the more people set upon getting their presence upon the Internet, like following the tattoo and piercing crazes, the less and less actual content will be available on the Internet.
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This, of course, isn't my Rant #354,698...so, don't even bother trying to find those "that came before". I chose the number at random, and, it basically represents a guesstimation of things that I might've ranted and raved about, but, not paper, keyboard, nor mini-cassette recorder was close at hand (Besides, I dislike transcribing, anyway...). I've got a bunch of yellow, legal-sized papers that I did rant and rave upon, but, those are stuck in the "I don't transcribe" limbo, currently, and perhaps forever. Hmmm...maybe I'll start writing rant #354,699 as a continuation...if this free-form bitch proves to relieve pent-up tension!?
If this gives one the impression that I rant and rave a lot, well, in all honesty, that impression isn't misleading. Most times, there isn't someone around that I can gripe to, so, writing these things down allows me to get them out of the way. It's amazing, actually, how theraputic writing can be! Top |