Respect-- Why I Use It And Why You Should, Too.
Entry posted by EmperorWhenua
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26/02/07
This is a blog from last year that I am editing to show you exactly how my mind works and my ethics that I so vigoriously show in the forums.
First, as many of you know, I am a person on wich respect is my building block. I believe that there are many ways to contribute respect and many directions to give it in.
I am fairly well recieved with the younger members who just enter the crazed city of BZP. They come out of their world of simple living and they are perfectly fine, as they are on the top of the world. Then they enter the realm of BZP; luminaries such as Kex and bonesiii tower above them with their influencial shadow wiping out theirs; staff with an iron fist ruling like dictators; thousands of other members that seem to all speak at the same time; all the things that we are all accustumed to are like New York City to a farmboy. Words cannot discribe what it feels like. The newbie has hands of jellow, his head is hot, he is sweating... all the while trying to post. He makes a topic. Five minutes later he looks at it nervously, afraid to see if it was well-recieved or not. It turns out it was closed, as they say, and he could not say anything about it. He looks at the homepage and wonders, This guy gets one-hundred posts in his topic and I get one that says 'closing.' How do they do it?
As this may not happen to all of you, I know it happens to most new members. Well, respect to the rescue. I see their topic, know how he/she feels and sympathise for them. I go, PM them, say hello and offer my services, also giving them reccomendations on who to ask for an av/banner combo. They say thank you, say they appreciate it and I watch them go down a good path. I have never seen a single one of my apprentices, as I call them, who made a mistake afterwards. I am very proud of them and they are thankful of me. Respect was shown there. I respected them for what they can be, and they respected me for what I am.
I follow the same principle in many other ways, among them my staff/member relation. I once had the fiercest disdain for munkeymunkey (and his hobitt avatar 
) because I considered him a threat to the newbie members. After a while and a conversation with bonesiii I realized I was wrong. I saw that he was doing his job and nothing else. I learned to respect the staff for what they are, but I stll thought they did not respect the 'common members' for what we can be. I corrected myself in that. I saw like this: all members are pieces of coal. The new members and the others who are nothing but simple citizens were just coal. The lower-grade staff were pieces of coal that were blessed with the oil. The higher staff were complete with the oil and the fire. They were blazing lights. This picture in my mind was what started my entire philisophy. So in other words, I blame munkey.
I followed my respect patters all the way through to this day, adhering them to my day-to-day life. I respected them. All based on respect.
As many of you know, I am a fighter. A duelist at heart, I fight for honor. As a sword fighter and debator, I respect all opponents and never underestimate them. I respect their stratgies, their wins, their losses... everything. Also, because of this, I am practically unbeatable. I can take suffering, harm, pain, you name it, and use that to boost my own morale. How? I can take all that power and harness it to make my will stronger. With all that power, I can never loose. Many members have locked horns with me and lost because my will to win was greater than theirs. All the while, I give then my insight. If they do not accept the truth or just disregard my words, I tell them that if they wanted to be great, use respect and wisdom to see through their own shield. Respect is once again used as a weapon of great power and never looses.
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2/2/07
Here is my second part. 
I refuse to use name calling as a typical offencive tool. In fact, the only offencive measure I take is when the other party will accept it, like in a duel when they will want to be attacked. You will never find me calling a staff member names either. The supposed time that I called Omricon "ex Mr. Meatbag" was not supposed to be offencive. This is partly an explanation to that event. That was my idea of a joke, albait bad joke. As some of you know, Omi refered to himself as "Mr. Meatbag" in the Star Wars fad topic when he was Han Solo. I was not thinking at the time and I thought I was funny. The joke was taken the wrong way and I was not very well-recieved. My apologies to both Omricon and Tufi Pyufi, both of whom assumed I was meaning ill intentions. I am now promising that that will not happen again. I want to make it clear that I am beyond simple offencive traps such as that and restrain myself to do so at every occasion that it is easy to slip up.
However, I do not like it when a senior member says "You will refer to me as ______" or "I want you to call me _____" as these are symbols of a large ego and feeling of being challenged. Intead, I prefer when a person say "I did not like the way you called me. I would appreciate it if you would call me ______". This is a respectful request, not an egoistical demand.
I also have a disdain towards others who think themselves as royal. Bonesiii and I both agree that the ego is a monster within one's mind and must be ousted before it causes damage. An individual who has their noses high typically has problems with the lower caste because they think of them as lowly. They have trouble destroying their ego because it is what gives them their supposed "power." At least, that is what they think. (I will get into depth of this in the next paragraph.) The remedy for me is this: if they do not do it, then someone has to do it for them. I, in short, am a dragon killer. I kill other's inner egoistical dragon and solve their problems, even if it seems like a mean gesture. I play doctor, but I never will pubicly humiliate them. I believe in one-on-one fights, so many of my operations are done behind closed doors, as it is a perssonal thing.
Now the authority and power-- where did it come from? Well, not from the sky, so rest assured. The "power" that the staff derive their power from comes from us members. Look at it: without us, there would be no topics to close, no PE levels to change, no posts to edit, no post count to fluctuate, no orders to give... nothing! Additionally, many of the staff forget that they were once at our level too, and fail to give slack to the mistake members. I am not saying that there should not be any punishments, just a little respect. You may still question the fact that we are the giver of authority, as BZP is not a democracy. Well, let me explain. The currency of any nation is determined by the amount that nation is worth. For an example, our USA currencies value derives from the amount of gold and silver we have, not because the goverment say it is worth whatever it is. Price of gold goes down, our moneies value oes down. It is the same thing here with the staff; the less members BZP has, the less powerful the staff are. It is a balance between the two that keeps BZP going.
Now, again, the staff must recognize the fact that we are their source of power and they must respect us for that. We must respect the staff for what they are, and in return they will respect us. The balance must be kept going, and almost every uprising we have had was because of a lack of respect on someone's behalf. I wanted to make this entire fact public because of my mistakes in the recent past and because I felt the need to make a call for some respect in the forums. My number one goal in BZP is not making a hot topic (Done that), not to win a BBC (No interest), and not to make a bunch of posts (Too selfish in my poinion), but rather to make respect as common as posting. It is an art that must be brought back, if it ever existed in a large amount.
I respect and appreciate any thoughts concerning this and am always ready to discuss matters with others. And do not forget to respect other's opinions! 
~EW~
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