Time machine, Network 54 where are you?

[GordonJ]

Oh, Car 54 Where Are You was an early 60's sitcom about two NY Cops who were bumbling their way to their own kind of success. Anyhow...

By 1999 my reputation online was established on many forums as a sometimes knee JERK response, and my recent Warrior Forum posts still show he hasn't gone away completely although I am a kinder, gentler Gordon than I once was.

Once in awhile I'll go back in the time machine. Here is a post made by Steve MacLellan on May 24, 1999. 17 years ago and we were already established online, makes one feel his age.

I complimented Ken Silver on his professionalism running his forum (wow, look at those names on his Network 54 forum, many IM successes)...and how I sometimes wished I could be more like Ken. Steve responded with:

*****
Yes! Ken's reply is very elegant. He is the personification of diplomacy. Not like web sites. Everyone is always trying to improve their own. The idea, of course, is to have these operate like a quality piece of software. Beautiful graphics! Top-notch "ad copy," super smooth navigational construction. Purge the human element. Is that always a good idea? I am under the impression that folks like to do business with REAL people. Real people have emotions. They get "ticked" when confronted and bothered. There isn't anything mechanical about it.
From the time you were were farming the "small potatoes" patch over on Dave's board, I saved a lot of the articles you wrote to disk. Not only is the ad copy compelling, but it is injected with SO MUCH human feeling...
Your stories were marvelous. I could almost see you marketing yourself as the World's Worst Singing Telegram. Yes, there were times when you SCREAMED, times when you were UPSET, and you darn well let everyone know. The point is, you produced credibility as a REAL person, one with emotions and feelings, that you put into your work.
If diplomacy is akin to professionalism in the "real world," that's acceptable and expected. You can see the person you are talking to; know that he/she is real. Do you think we risk losing something by striving to purge the human factor out of our responses on-line? Are we becoming to mechanical by doing so? Are we going to sharpen and mold ourselves so that we can be like our web sites, and always operate like a quality piece of software?
Me? I kinda' liked your occasional Knee-JERK response!
********


I think by this time, some of those early forums were gone, or dissolving or morphing.

The funny thing with this is some of those 1999 questions are the same as they are today about getting the most from a web site and all that.



Anyhow, we oldtimers are giving way to a new bunch of IMers, who seem to me, to all have knee JERK responses to MY posts...HA!


OK, back to now.



Gordon