Respect? Just for friends?

Image from www.SmtMagazine.co.uk

Ok so I sit here at 5am on my 25th birthday, angry, a little mad and in all honestly very very upset and sad.

I'm a member of what we call the "Gold Blogging Community" or "Gold Making Community" and today for the 1st time ever I am not proud to be...
(Now a lot of these feelings are based upon a long term annoyance with certain issues that i feel have come to a head over 1 specific issue. so please take my writing throughout the latter part of the post as a general message i hope to portray to EVERYONE!)

There are some issues in the community, that rightly so are brought up and dealt with, the main one always being stolen content. Now 1st off I won't discuss if old arguments or new are rightful. I have my specific opinions and they are that opinions.

HOWEVER I will state if anyone is intentionally claiming others work as their own then they should be disgusted with themselves! on the other side if your a writer/video maker/podcaster/etc who feels someone is stealing your content, then contact them and see what can be done about it.

Now that little bit is out of the way I want to talk about respect and Manners.

I know what your thinking "Oh here we go a British guy, and good manners rant again"
but there is one thing I thing that i believe in my life that I really want to share with others.

It is not how we treat our loved ones that marks us as a man! It is the Respect we show ourselves, in our dealings with others, that shows true character!

I don't know if this is a quote from someone famous, or something a family member or teacher said to me growing up but it is something I firmly believe in!

This does not mean that we should, allow our opposition, or people that we do not agree with freedom to abuse us, or do wrong against us, but it means that we should even when mad and angry have the strength to be polite with our arguments, and hold respectful talks to resolving an issue.

By respect I mean simple things like not name calling, not belittling or intentional harassing people, as well as more complex things like hate campaigns and publicly humiliating them when it is inappropriate. Humiliation is a strong thing, and sometimes necessary, however when the target has remorse and is going to appropriate measures to make up for there wrongs then it is not respectful and in my opinion petty. (I'm talking about general issues here, not massive ones such as world politics etc)

Respect has a lot of different meanings based upon personal opinion, and to my mind there are two types of respect, the respect for someone you care for and love, and the general respect for yourself that controls the way you deal with others.

Now personally I like to have a lot of respect for myself, and how much I'm worth, so I therefore will not lower myself to publicly rudeness or humiliation of others when I can help it. I'm only human and yes the occasional name will be screamed when someone pushes into me, or cuts me up in traffic, but this is immediate reaction, not thought processed actions taken after the instantaneous reaction.

Yes you must earn my respect from others, and for me to go out of my way for you. But for me to deal with you with calmness and manners, you can do what ever you want, because I RESPECT myself!

Maybe this post will be ignored by people, maybe it will cause some to attack or ridicule me, but I had to rant, and the post is simply my opinions.

My pride for the gold making community will return, and my anger at it will be small and short lived as I love the community so much, but my activity in it may not, who knows.

A very tired and emotional...getting older :S Gimp Signing out