Gregory's Server
discourse about norms is not rigidly prescriptive. people coming in are overwhelmed by cultural differences, and are looking for a quick heuristic to avoid conflict, and a good quick heuristic in this case isn't really possible? other people are using this opportunity to try to reason about their own intuitions and get feedback. we tend to do this collectively during influxes of new users, since seeing norm violations reminds us to think about norms.
so, if you're a new user: people who are discussing existing norms are not necessarily trying to shame you! (if people are trying to shame you, you'll *know*.)
read the discourse & inform yourself, and try to understand how *you* want to behave, based on knowledge of how the people you respect & care about would like to be treated.
there are always a handful of very loud people who will treat their specific hangups as universal rules & try to convince you to act a certain way without justification. you don't need to simply accept their decisions -- which is good, because they disagree with each other. but also, they deserve some empathy too, because the very rigidity that makes them difficult to deal with points to real pain
decide who you want in your life, and once you have decided, make those people comfortable around you.
there are always a handful of very loud people who will treat their specific hangups as universal rules & try to convince you to act a certain way without justification. you don't need to simply accept their decisions -- which is good, because they disagree with each other. but also, they deserve some empathy too, because the very rigidity that makes them difficult to deal with points to real pain