I’m cutting off ties this year it seems - I’m a big fan of Theatre Australia, a forum for theatre people, but over the last year or so I have been more and more in the line of fire from ‘Walter Plinges’ (our name for anonymous posters) who seem to think that being an active member in the community is a bad thing. I usually get called a know-it-all, for trying to reduce the number of 13-year-old wannabes who post annoying ‘help me I want to be famous’ stuff and never return for an answer to their call for help. Or else I get accused of being ignorant, as in a recent thread on how Avenue Q is going to flop (their position, not mine) when it comes to Melbourne later this year.

I’m sure that lately this frustration of mine has shown in my postings there, and though I’ve tried to temper myself and ignore the debates, name calling, and the like, I’m frankly jack of it (haha, that’s a weird phrase… "frankly jack" ) so I’m cutting myself off.

I’m not just a member there, but I actually have the highest number of comments on the site. The person with the second highest number would have to post twice as much in order to catch up. I’m constantly visiting the site, and actually, there are some really good and well informed discussions on a range of subjects (mostly theatre production/tech) that I want to continue reading. More to the point, I have actively taken part in contributing to the FAQ, where I posted up info for new/emerging artists on how to find work, and added my database of links that I used in my days of ‘The Prompt Copy’, a free publication I used to run. This stuff isn’t online, as far as I’m aware, anywhere else for Aussie theatre people, and represents part of an invaluable set of articles on Theatre Australia for those of us who work here.

The site is set up in an odd way - anyone can post, which means there’s often a lot of mudslinging from unknown people about some amateur show in Perth - and if you do register as a member (more than 10 000 people are signed up) it really doesn’t stop you from getting attacked. Last year one member had enough and left; they came back later, but haven’t really been active since. 

I’m actually a great advocate of getting everyone involved, and despite appearances and what I get accused of, I’m not trying to make the site ‘mine’, but rather a place of understanding, friendship and collaboration. Funnily enough, Puppets and Stuff is an ideal forum: everyone there is there to help each other; people come for advice, get it, and feel happy doing so; when criticism is offered it is done so with both tact and politeness; and criticism is also taken with equal enthusiasm. Because there’s a feeling of collaboration and learning, it’s an enjoyable forum to visit.

Lately, Theatre Australia has become more and more a place to attack others. Criticism, whether it be in the form of a review, a trolling comment on someone’s blog or forum thread, or just midguided commentary, is rampant. Instead of taking criticism as it’s meant (at least in the reviews section), actors and crew post angry attacks in response. Granted, the majority of Theatre Australia’s users are amateurs in Perth, and they may not have the same attitude towards criticism as professionals do, but this pervasive air of argumentativeness draws the site into a realm that is quite unlike Puppets and Stuff.

It is particularly frustrating to me, as, over the holidays, we got our usual set of spammers. As anyone can join the site, spammers sign up, then proceed to use the internal messaging system to spam the members. I’ve gotten good at ’spam baiting’, in order to distract the spammers until the site admin comes along to ban them; this happened twice over Christmas. Luckily, the site admin has given me more access to the backend (I had special privileges before) meaning I can now ban members if they turn out to be doing bad things.

While I’m happy to have these new powers, I also want to avoid overusing them, or indeed mistakenly using the powers to do something by accident.

As such, I’ve decided that the best thing for me to do is become a ‘lurker’; that is, to visit the site, read the posts, try to make sure the community doesn’t get spammed/scammed, and for the most part, leave everyone to themselves. I am still trying to make a concerted effort to continue updating the FAQ, which is perhaps one of the better places online to find out info for Aussie actors/techies on where to start in the industry. I will naturally be adding an occasional word or two about projects I have or classes I’m running, but for the rest, I leave them to their bickering.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong in being vocal; particularly as the majority of members/unregistered posters don’t even bother and then complain that the site’s crap because nobody replies/there’s no good info/nothing’s up to date/whatever. The fact of the matter is that the site’s been going for just over 10 years now (probably 11 actually) and is designed to meet the needs of the community; the site admin will make changes if we ask for them. It’s kind of like people being annoyed at not being given freedom of speech and accusing people of taking away the opportunity/place to make a statement… and then those same people not realising that they just spoke up and used the forum to do it. 

Anyway, the point is, I’ve had enough of being the frontman (…er, woman) for ignorant twats who can’t even bother to use their real name (yeah, I get accused of that too. My nickname on the site is ‘Na’, which is short for ‘Naomi’, and my full name and website is listed in my profile… so I don’t know what they’re on about) to accuse me when it’s natural I’d be defensive of a community I’ve been a part of for well over 8 years. And I’m tired of being a scapegoat because someone else can’t be bothered contributing something useful, meaningful, or spelled without using ‘text’ language. So I’m now a lurker… and trying desperately to hold myself back from defending my reputation and blasting those ‘Walter Whiners’ out of the water. Why should I be made to feel bad for having knowledge of the local industry and wanting to share it? And why can’t I have an opinion without being accused of trying to take over the world, being ignorant, or being a know-it-all? What pisses me off the most, is that when I do debate things I try to back up my arguments - and when these Walters try to reply, the only thing they ever use as an argument is name calling. It’s a sad state of affairs when something as uncontroversial as a theatre forum gets as bogged down as an argument over … say, intelligent design and evolution.

…Sigh, even when posting a short note of ‘goodbye’ (of sorts) I get attacked by a nameless no one. It gets at me every time, and yet, I steel myself and try not to get pulled into this cycle of harassment.

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