Are you hearing this?

[UnderpΩny]

Alright I've managed to put my finger on what bothers me about this post, and of other messages like this, of which I've seen quite a few lately. What you're kind of doing here, is taking a percieved problem, and transplanting that across the whole community. The hidden implication seems to me to be that, everyone has changed from being.... "good" bronies into being "bad" bronies, and that's not true at all. And that's clearly NOT what you're trying to say here, but that's what it reads like. To me, at least.

I joined the fandom because everyone seemed so lovely, and I have not seen that changed. If anything, everyone has become more lovely.

[Tephnos]

Alright I've managed to put my finger on what bothers me about this post, and of other messages like this, of which I've seen quite a few lately. What you're kind of doing here, is taking a percieved problem, and transplanting that across the whole community. The hidden implication seems to me to be that, everyone has changed from being.... "good" bronies into being "bad" bronies, and that's not true at all. And that's clearly NOT what you're trying to say here, but that's what it reads like. To me, at least.

I joined the fandom because everyone seemed so lovely, and I have not seen that changed. If anything, everyone has become more lovely.

Not at all. But it is true that a lot of the negative parts of the community are seeping over to some of the once 'good' bronies, and they'll partake in the trolling back and forth as a result, simple because with growing popularity = more of these bad apples.

If you've not yet read the Dear MLR thread, we have our own sets of problems as well, although that is more a lack of communication and respect than anything else. Since all of us here I believe to be good bronies at heart, I do think we can work that over. We just need it to be taken more seriously.

[Navron]

This isn't about trying to change the people themselves in the fandom, but instead, a new mindset where we refuse to promote the bad apples of the fandom, and instead only promote the good apples.

It's very hard to change an actual person, but not giving them attention doesn't give them any power, just like how the original people who discovered the NCF has given more power to the NCF just by telling the community about them, thus angering many and giving them more publicity.

The mistake I've made, and I'm sure many others have as well, is I've spent time trying to argue with the bad apples, or write more long posts on how they're damaging perception. That obviously gives them more publicity, while at the same time, I'm focusing on trying to push back the bad, but not spending any time on the good.

I like to think of it as a crowded room. You have one guy doing something bad, but nobody notices until the good guy comes up and confronts him about it, and now everybody sees what it is.

On the other hand, if the good guy doesn't acknowledge the bad, and instead calls everybody over to check out something else, then everybody goes over to see what the good guy's up to.