With a wry bit of amusement I've seen Shogot's latest self destruction and the reactions from it about his imagined problems with the skin contest --aka gui olympics --.
There is a silver lining. All successful communities have these problems. They are a natural result of human politics. It doesn't matter if your community is the PTA or church group or in the cyberworld. There are those who are leaders and create things for others. And there are those who are envious, petty and jealous who try to destroy those things. Leadership in community comes from building something or tearing something else down.
From what i gather this shogot person was once a person of some importance. He used to be a builder of things and amassed political capital as a result. Time seems not to have been kind to him. It is far easier for a small petty person to regain their former stature by trying to tear down those they perceive as leaders and movers. By tearing their opponents down they see themselves as rising up.
It never ends well for the tearer down. In time they expend all of their stored political capital. The end results in either ejected from the community or isolation.
The bickering of this skin contest -- gui olympics -- demonstrates that the community has reached critical mass. it is big enough that people care enough to build it up and nurture it. The dark side is that it is also big enough for the petty and envious to do ugly things.
