Again, easy things to say are often hard to do
This is an unusual and pretty special group. You all have been doing this for a few years already and have already done important, meaningful projects, yet it still feels like a young organism with far more ahead than was has already happened. You are a self-described group of “do-ers.” The orientation is toward projects, most of which need some level of financial support. To consistently pull that off, there has to be structure and responsibility. And yet it is heavily populated with free spirits. The company overlaying with the community is an interesting structure that I think will always have some tension around hierarchy and governance.
One of the conundrums of online groups is the inevitability of conflict. That is endemic to all groups forming up, but this is a medium where conflict is inherently hard to resolve. In the past couple of days I read a number of conversations here where this showed itself. In a group of free spirited self-starters like this, falling into arguments is just going to happen, especially when putting together projects and defining group governance.
I have wrestled with this problem for years and I don’t have easy answers except to make sure that everyone recognizes the inherent difficulty of resolving conflicts in online conversation and resolves to oversupply understanding. Give slack in abundance. We’re functioning in a limited environment based on words and word choice. (As an aside I have to marvel at everyone’s ability to articulate in English when it isn’t your native language), and yet we know that there is more than words going on. Old hippie that I am, I still call them vibes - the unseen energy that travels between people. The thing that blew me away about online conversations way back when I first got into this, is that vibes magically travel through the wires and ether along with the words. But they are bound together with the words chosen to convey them. Nevertheless, those vibes are going to influence reactions and those reactions may or may not get properly articulated in the words of a response.
Some people are better than others at choosing those words. Some people can make their point quickly with economy and some people can’t. Some people are happier or more irritated at a given moment. Some people have a pressing other issue crowding their mind while they are trying to focus on a conversation here. Some know and see each other outside of online (“in person”) to varying degrees. And some people have existing outside relationships with each other that influence what they say, and others in the conversation might not know what “baggage” they may be bringing with them.
Again, I have never found a good way to deal with it other than to really try to understand what someone is trying to say and give them a lot of slack. Hopefully over time I will get where they are coming from. And plenty of times I have said the wrong thing and caused a bad feeling in someone that took a long time to work out, if it ever got worked out at all - many did and many did not.
As an aside, it is a very good thing that you have face-to-face meetings built into the core of ER. The blend of online and F2F creates a kind of social alloy - very strong if the people involved still like each other after the early rush of those first gatherings.
I’m not talking about trolls or people who seem to be here just because they need someone to pay attention to them, although they too are inevitable and always suck some of the energy for themselves, or try to. I’m saying that this is a complex and deep relationship-building endeavor where, as it says in the I Ching, perseverance furthers.