Be nice!
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Vimeo has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few weeks. In the last two days we’ve had more visitors, pageviews, uploads, new users, and overall activity than ever before. Actually, every Sunday/Monday we set new records. For a place that is orders of magnitudes bigger and more complex than it was just a few months ago it still feels intensely personal, and I think that’s our greatest achievement. It upsets me sometimes that we can’t keep everyone happy all the time, but I’m glad that the people who work here (and are soon to work here) get it.Earlier today, a new vimeo user got indignant about uploads being turned off for a little while. In a fit of rage, I started writing out why his claims were ridiculous, inconsiderate, and just plain wrong — then I paused and looked at the other user feedback. Everyone was supportive and thanking the team for letting them know what’s up.
And I thought about it.
I think Vimeo is one of the only communities that really looks out for one another. It was a year ago (almost!) that I found vimeo and was so amazed by the considerate and friendly atmosphere. No flame wars. No chat speak. No spam. And you know what’s cool? It’s still like that. I mean, it’s bigger, it’s harder to connect with each other like we used to in our little communities, but it’s still good old Vimeo.
I responded to the douchebag in a much more civilized way than I wanted to, but I think for any new users who see the post, it’ll be important for them to realize that douchebaggery is not acceptable.
And I guess it worked a bit! I just got this e-mail from someone on vimeo:
“you know, it’s funny, vimeo has taught me a very valuable lesson: get along with people on the internet (be nice!) i think every single message board system i have ever seen gets mucked up by some people yelling at each other. it’s just a bizarre phenomenon of non-accountability by internet users. but i think vimeo is changing this. and it’s awesome.”Yes.
