Sure, there’s also the Clique of Those Who Think X-Pac Isn’t All That Bad, or the Billy Gunn Deserved His Push, or even the Chyna Will Have A Career After The WWF.
[sub] To be the Clique, you have to beat the Clique, WOOOOOOOO[/sub]
You remind me of a girl I went to high school with who was “fast tracking”. Why are you fast tracking?, I asked her. She told me that she wanted to get out of high school and into university as soon as possible because, quote “I hate all the people here. They’re so immature.”
At this point, I delivered a savage beating while screaming “IT’S THE SAME PEOPLE! THE PEOPLE IN UNIVERSITY ARE GRADUATES OF HIGH SCHOOL! THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME! THE SAME! YOU MANIAC!”. At this point I sank to my knees and sobbed for the human race.
Do you believe that people get some pill that makes them stop excluding others when they recieve their high school diplomas?
In conclusion, “IT’S THE SAME PEOPLE! THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME! THE SAME! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU TO HELL!”
He’s probably celebrating the fact that those godless Leafs won another game and too busy to notice you and defend the integrity of the board.
I only know this because we are in the Hockey Lovin’ Canuck clique.
I don’t think the cliques are intentional, but they do exist as a result of “on board” and “off board” bonding between members.
These bonded Dopers might very well be more inclined to jump in and back each other up during a big argument. Don’t ya think? Ya think that they might be inclined to cut you some slack when you screw up but might roast an outsider for the same thing? Huh?
No newbie or non-bonded Doper is going to garner that kind of support.
I find it interesting to watch what transpires when the existance of a clique is mentioned. Usually there is an immediate sarcastic exaggeration. This tactic is used in order to belittle the clique statement without actually having to address it. The comes the “I didn’t even know I was in it” and “hey, can I join?” jokes which also fail to address the statement. Finally, someone comes along and deals with it by denying such a possibility. This is the pattern in every single thread that I’ve read in which cliques are mentioned.
Is it really so hard to admit that it is human nature to bond and form informal support groups? Us versus them? Sure. Happens every single day in real life folks.
I’ll use the example of the workplace to flesh this out a bit. Do any of you work at a company big enough to have multiple departments?..or multiple shifts? Don’t tell me that you’ve never observed the cliques that form in those situations. Our department is good and righteous, that other department is a bunch of non-caring fuckups. Those lazy fucks on second shift don’t work as hard as we do…etc.
Cliques form and exist everywhere. Even here on the SDMB. I repeat, cliques exist on the SDMB. Why? Because people have bonded, and once the bonding has taken place these people tend to give each other different treatment.
Dopers on the outside can sometimes see this. Don’t think that they can’t, and don’t fucking pretend like the cliques don’t exist.
Thanks, Krispy. I now have the image of glued-together Dopers in my mind, and it ain’t pretty.
Clique was probably a bad word choice; it implies a deliberate, snotty, puerile exclusiveness that isn’t so much here.
That said, Krispy is right, but I don’t see it as cliquiness as such. As he says, once you’ve posted/worked/hung out with the same bunch long enough, you’re going to develop anything from a shared context at least up to genuine honest-to-god friendships. It’s not done to be exclusionary or evil, or anything; it’s just human nature.
I’m pretty new here and, a couple of times, I’ve had the thought, “Huh? Whu happen?” when someone refers to some in-joke piece of board history. Does it bother me? Not really; I’ve had that happen to me when I’ve started a new job too, getting whooshed by reference to something that happened before I got there. It’s not an SDMB thing, it happens in real life too.
Fred Death - can I be in your clique? Please? Pleeeeeeease? [sub][sup]Waddya mean “no”? Bastard. Never liked you anyway.[/sup][/sub]
Anyway. I’ll have to agree with red dragon on the “ignore the newbie” trait. I’ve seen hilarious or insightful newbie comments get the cold shoulder where I know damn well they’d get a mention if the poster was well known. I’ve felt it myself - I hit about 300 posts or so and noticed that people were starting to respond to my more lucid moments. 600 and they were responding to the not so lucid ones. 1000 and I’m getting (very occasional) mentions in threads I’m not even in*.
This is inevitable. Time is limited and we respond to the relationships we already have first. We’re social animals and societies need constant tending. Subconciously, we’re dealing with business first.
And if I have friends here, damn right I’m looking out for them. And damn right I’m far more likely to speak up. And that’s the way it should be, because they’re friends. And I’m sorry, but friends are more important than strangers. Until the strangers become friends too.
pan
*and yeah, I love it. You KNOW you all do vanity searches too. So kiss it, babes.
Diane, did I not offer you to the “Club” meeting and show you the “secret handshake” in Amsterdam?? 
I don’t know that there actually ARE cliques…but I can see where it would be very easy to get that impression.
When I go into #sd, usually at least a couple of people will say “hi”…and if folks are in a rollicking good mood, a FEW might say “hi.” However, I don’t consider myself part of the “#sd clique.” There’re plenty of people in there who find me repugnant, I refuse to blindly back up “the channel” just because someone says something the majority don’t like, and I don’t being chat shit onto the boards.
You could say there’s a clique of people who all read each others’ LiveJournals. I won’t jump in and defend anyone just because they have a LJ, and I don’t talk about LJ stuff on the boards (unless someone has the poor judgement to pull a LJ issue on here with which I heartily disagree).
I haven’t been around long enough to know all of the little Wally and Melin And Serlin “inside jokes” that people keep making. I was around for Jack Dean Tyler (the JDT to whom people keep referring) but I didn’t think he was amusing or interesting enough to keep remarking on MONTHS after he was here.
I don’t tell people not to feed the trolls, but I roll my eyes every time I see an “old-timer” type “DNFTT!” I mean, duh. Even typing THAT feeds them, and you’d think the “old-timers” would have understood this by now…but NOOOO.
Anyhow, anyone who thinks I (in particular) am in some kind of clique is deluded. I’m not popular enough to be in any sort of clique. And the people who are…still don’t realize they are either.
Does it really matter, in the final analysis?
Well, if you put that out there so only a few people get it, yeah, that is cliqueish. Which is fine. If people get it, good for them. Let them get a chuckle out of it or whatever. I don’t have a problem with the various group, I’m just admitting they exist.
When I spoke of #SD, I meant the way they interact on the mesage board. I’ve never seen anyone in chat get ignored, unless they were trolling or something. You guys gave me ops powers the first time I was there, and I still don’t even know what it means. 
I know you mean that as a joke, but its true. The next time someone starts a thread about wrestling fans being idiots, we’ll all be there ripping them appart. I know it, you know it, and I’m sure others see it.
I don’t think they are intentional either. As you, and others have said, its a result of bonding over time. This bonding is what has made SDMB a good place, IMO.
Well they don’t those bastards. And first shift are even lazier. (Us 3rd shifters hate everyone)
You mean they don’t still rule?
How does one “own” a chatroom? Thats not sarcastic, I don’t understand IRC all that much. Does this mean you started the room or something?
I love all this discussion about The Clique[sup]tm[/sup]. As a Newbie, I concur with the comments that the dopers who know each other IRL (or even just through their posts), are a bit suspicious of us. But I don’t hold that against them. It’s human nature as kabbes and Krispy Original point out. IRL I behave the same way… I’m a bit wary of strangers even though I warmly greet them and assume good intentions on their part. This warm wariness is what I’ve experienced from The Clique[sup]tm[/sup] in the short time I’ve been aboard.
Perhaps Colibri or some other biologist could state this in more scientific terms, but humans are such social animals that it would be outrageous to expect this grouping/bonding would not naturally occur.
However, I don’t like to use the term “clique” to refer to these bonded collections of dopers… it seems a bit too standoffish for my taste. I mentally tend to think of these groups of people in terms that Kurt Vonnegut used in his novel Cat’s Cradle, as either a granfalloon or a karass.
The sports fans (or flirting fans… whatever) congregate into granfalloons. The dopers whose posts reinforce and resonate with each other are perhaps members of a karass. People with similar likes and dislikes tend to congregate together. IRL we all do this all the time. For example, if I meet someone who is also a “MadGrad” (University of Wisconsin-Madison), there is a different reaction than if that person was an Illinois (or whatever) grad. I’m not surprised that this happens in these boards too.
As I said, this doesn’t bother me. Over time, I hope to be accepted one way or another, and will be or not be accepted based upon my own behaviors and value to others. If I become an outcast then it’s my own damn fault… not the fault of others. I have been thrilled and honored with the responses to my only two OPs so far… they’ve both gone to multiple pages and my very first OP made Threadspotting. I don’t say this to brag (well, OK, maybe a little…), but more to point out that I haven’t felt or experienced the exclusionary behavior that I expected.
So it goes.
Clique is not a good word here. It implies a conscious effort and some co-ordination on the part of the “members”. According to your definition, I’m part of the “Oldtimer Clique”, but I have never considered myself an “Oldtimer.” However, I can see how a newbie could. So now you’ve got a poster pointing at me and telling me I’m part of a clique and me sitting at my computer wondering what the hell he’s talking about.
And newbies do get ignored. When I first started posting, I’d make a wonderfully insightful and witty post. No response. Then somebody would restate two post later what I’d just said and bam, all of a sudden it’s a great idea.
So I got sick of that shit. I’d quote what I said, then quote what the other poster said and ask why didn’t anybody notice me?
The answer was always “Well, I did notice it. I just didn’t think to respond to it.”
You are right Biggirl, clique is the wrong word to describe it. It is however, the most often used word to describe the various groups of friends here.
I didn’t mean to point at you, or any specific person.
As a few people pointed out, these groups are natural when you have such a large, diverse community like we do here.
Forgot one thing.
Biggirl, all clique jokes or comments aside, with your registration date, you are an oldtimer to most people here. It wasn’t meant as an insult to you or anyone else.
Yep, that’s exactly what it means. When you want to start a channel on IRC (a bot (like the infamous X) controlled channel, rather) someone has to be the… well, Admin. is a good way to describe it.
Joph is the one that set the channel up so he’s the admin. and has a level of 500 (the highest you can have), there are certain commands/settings that only he can make. Anyone can be an op if they are “op’d” by someone with the @ by their name. However, this doesn’t make them an op as far as the Channel itself is concerned. They can do the same things as a “real” op (change topic, op, deop, ban, kick, etc.), but they can’t do those things through X.
Joph can (and I believe has) set people as “official” Ops through the system and X. I do not know who or at what levels. Before they Great Hack there was a place you could go to check that sort of thing. I don’t think there is anymore. I’m sure if you asked, he’d tell you though.
And thus ends IRC 101.
Thanks Mauv.
Well, I used quotes around “own” because it was partly tounge-in-cheek. You’re right in that no one technically owns an IRC channel. However, as Mauv said, I’m the registered channel admin on the Undernet Services bot, X. I do own Mortwight and Nephwrack and pay money out of pocket to keep them on the channel in case X goes down or is split (which used to happen a lot in the past but not so much now).
Yeah, there’s a few others registered on X. To be honest I couldn’t tell you exactly who off the top of my head, mainly the original people from '99 who are still regulars on #SD and who showed an interest in it (Doob, Demo, Max et al).
Anyway, I actually did have an ironic semi-point in that I technically run the show but am not on near as much as many of the #SD regs and often come on to see someone new and am told “That’s so-and-so, she’s been coming here for a week now!” I don’t feel like part of the in crowd in my own home! 
If you want to know more about the inner working of #SD, catch me in channel or mail me or consult your local library. No need to hijack this further.
I’m a member of so many cliques I can’t even keep track of them all.
Silver Fire called me an #sd chat whore, thus that I must be.
[sub]Hey Joph, can I have an X account, too? Demo and I tried to set me up with one before, but it was giving me crap.[/sub]
I am definitely a policy wonker.
It would not take long to discover that I am in the liberal gang. Or in the liberal thug squadron, depending on your political orientation.
I’m in the mid-range oldtimers’ clique with Hama. There are lots of things I do remember, but was not around long enough to see all of the magnificent scandals and shitstorms.
So consider me named. I’m in a clique and I’m proud!
Hey blur, I didn’t take it personally. I was just using myself as an example. It was only very recently that someone called me a cliquemeister for the very first time and I was-- taken aback and a little flattered as well.
When someone is accused (and that is usually how a new person means it, as an accusation) of being in the Elite Clique and the accusee acts surprised and sarcastic, most of the time the accusee is being sincere.
These accusations usually fly when a newbie is getting lambasted. People get fried on this board all the time. When the person getting whooped is a new poster, then cries of “stupid newbie” and “secret cabal” are just par for the course.
The Oldtimer Cliquemaster has spoken. So it is said. So it shall be.
If you’re the Cliquemaster, can I be the Gatekeeper?
So… now am I not only the Dreaded Lick Monster of #straightdope [sup]TM[/sup], I’m in the Elite Clique [sup]TM[/sup] and the Middle-Aged Oldtimer Clique [sup]TM[/sup] TOO?!
You like me! You really really like me!
::runs around flinging rose petals::