I found myself having to step back a little bit yesterday after a sort of forum binge since this forum started, and after reading the Effective Forum Usage article I gained some clarity.
The important advice I came away with was to be very conscious of why you go to the forum, similar to only watching television when you know beforehand what it is that you want to watch. If you have your reasons for visiting the forum clearly defined, you are not as easily dragged out of yourself and into unconscious patterns.
Another aspect I found is that it's important to feel a certain detachment from the forum and from the community. The ego (in my experience) can very easily use an online forum as an outlet for unconscious identification patterns. |