A certain prolific member of our community has loudly proclaimed his abhorrence at the idea and existence of networking in the mongering world. Let’s look at this for a minute.

 
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 85% of jobs are obtained through networking. In my own experience all of the jobs I have gotten in my life were a result of networking.  

 
The only jobs of which I am personally aware that were not obtained through networking have almost entirely been recent college grads or others with limited experience. Of course, as with everything, there are always exceptions. But those exceptions total no more than 15%.  

 
So, if you’re looking for a job and you can’t or won’t use networking, you’re fighting with others over that 15% of jobs left over.  Unless you’re living with your parents, looking for a job without leveraging networking looks like a pretty bad idea.

 
In the mongering world, networking usually doesn’t have a direct impact on your ability to get an appointment or to have a great session. I have found it makes a very significant difference indirectly.

 
There is a clear reason that monger forums are so popular. They provide a networking platform for mongers to share intel to the larger group and privately. Anyone using a monger forum to proclaim that they hate networking is simply saying they hate themselves and everyone else on the forum for being there.

 
Not exactly a formula for establishing credibility, I think.

 
But maybe they’re only saying they hate direct messaging? Except that makes no sense at all. A key component of networking be it for your career or anything else is one on one interaction. This allows people to ask specific questions and receive answers that require a shared trust and understanding that simply cannot exist in an open forum. Few want to expose any helpful personal information to the unreasoning wrath of a psychotic troll (it has established that internet trolls are a combination of narcissists, psychopaths and sadists)..

 
What do you all think? Does it make sense to abolish networking, or even one on one networking, in the mongering world?

I'm a strange monger; I'll admit it.

 

I'm a full disclosure monger with the orgs, the kgirls and my network monger brothers.  Fortunately, with 30 + years of Bay Area mongering under my belt, I've yet to be burned.

 

I've got my fave orgs and have preferential treatment with them to varying degrees.  But I pay as I go.

 

I like squirters!  Really!!  LA Ruby, Yuffie, Ji Won just to name three.  And I was directed to them all through my network monger brothers.

 

YEMV

Though my experience and preferences are different from yours, I too owe a lot of other mongers for great tips I’ve received (in the forums or in direct messages) over the years.

 
I think networking is awesome, too!

Anyhow. I know op has read my posts and he's seen my arguments. And he's misconstruing them. Clearly, he is responding to my posts even though he claims to not have read them. How can he address anything in my posts since he's claimed to not have read them??  That's like discussing a book you haven't read.  

 
Anyway. How can I hate everyone on these forums if I like my monger bros and want nothing but the best for them? Well, honest monger bros. Maybe a few more qualifiers but still.  

 
I don't mind networking as in, sharing info. This forum and other forums exist exactly for these purposes. I'm all for open information. I know how it can suck being someone with zero info and no connections. So I think information out in the open without having some "mentor monger" is vital. I don'tind info being exchanged in pms either. What I do mind is negative info being exchanged in pms but the info never made publicly.  

 
Back to general usefulness of networking.

 
What I mind is networking with explicit goal of quid pro quo. Or a job. The goal of making "friends" solely to use them is absolutely foreign to me. It feels dirty. Making connections so you can then use those connections to push yourself, your job, your brand, and advertise it to someone else, is just wrong to me.

 
I like meritocracy. And I like the idea of being realistically able to achieve anything you want without any external help. That's what American dream is about, at least in theory. You are self-made. Not your network made. Not your entourage made. All it matters is what you stand for. Not who you know or who your relatives are or who your friends are. Getting your job through a relative is Nepotism. Getting a job through your friends is Cronyism. These don't reward you being good at your job. These reward things that aren't even remotely related to your skills. How is it even remotely fair?  

 
Of course, the American dream is fake, and I'm sure most of people here have read or watched The Great Gatsby. No matter how much success Gatsby has, he can never be one of the people there. In that case, it was class that was the issue.  Tbf a century later, people respect money a whole lotta more than class... yet the American dream is still an illusion. Since so much is done through "networking" that is cronyism/nepotism and "lobbying" that is a thinly veiled bribe.  

 
Op says he hasn't had a job that wasn't fueled by networking. But why is it a good thing? What point is he making besides it being effective? I've admitted networking Is effective. Absolutely. So is kissing ass. Many tactics and instruments are effective. That doesn't mean that I have to like em. Do you know how many people get promoted only because of ass kissing? But I hope you do understand why some may not like that route.

 
So op, ask yourself - why is it for every job you needed netowkring? Were your skills in information security not good enough? Was the hr department of places that were hiring so risk-averse they wanted an employee referral/vouch over someone who didn't have it? Why did you actually NEED networking? And once you have the answer for that question maybe - just maybe - you will understand my position.

far outweigh any negative aspects.  Guys that go "lone wolf" in the Kgirl scene will waste a lot of money on girls that are not a good match for their tastes and preferences.  Networking has allowed me to keep my percentage of disappointments as low as possible, while allowing me to stretch my hobby budget farther with the kind of girls I prefer.  Reviews are a good source, but when you PM a reviewer with a question, if they don't know you, you may not get a response.  Guys you network with will usually give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when you ask about a girl they have seen that you are considering.  It's a relationship built on trust over time if you expect to hear the bad as well as the good.  

 
It would be great if TER would allow private discussion groups the way some other sites have.  This is the most effective networking tool I have found.  This format allows you to discuss Kgirls within a group of mongers while being certain the girls cannot access what you are saying because the board is password protected.  A lot of guys won't post anything negative publicly because some Kgirls know their TER username and would give them blowback about it.  

I was just thinking about this while on a long call with a team of people troubleshooting networking issues (the IT kind of network, not a relationship network).  

 
Today, I noticed again how having a bunch of smart people together raised the skill level of others just by association and communication. This is one of the key benefits of networking with others. There is a lot of knowledge that simply isn’t available any other way. For example, in today’s call, two of the guys went off together to review one of the topics so the junior guy could learn from the senior engineer.  

 
There are some who complain about this and say things like “well, if the documentation was done properly..” and so on.  The trouble is that documentation can only represent the state of knowledge just prior to publication of the doc. And, even then a deep dive into all of the topics covered is actually impossible. And that’s not even covering documentation errors that were missed prior to publication.

 
So, a significant amount of the transfer of tribal knowledge always comes through some form of networking. Always.  

 
On the other hand, there are people who really suck at communicating with and learning from others. And they can become good and even great individual contributors as long as everyone keeps their shortcomings in mind and doesn’t push them about their issues.  

 
It takes all kinds. Even the guys who will never learn at the rate they could if they could overcome their issues can still be valuable. I know one that I’ve worked with for many years. I trusted him to keep himself in check once when we went on site at a major customer’s IT site. But I took my eyes off of him for 30 minutes. And, of course, he did something incredibly stupid that got us all kicked off site.  

 
I worked through the issues with the customer and brought my team back. Just left my puzzled (“what did I do wrong?”) colleague in his hotel room and had him remote into a teammate’s laptop so he could cover issues calling for his area of expertise.  

 
I’m sure we all know guys like the colleague I mentioned above. And, of course, there are mongers like that, too.

" This format allows you to discuss Kgirls within a group of mongers while being certain the girls cannot access what you are saying because the board is password protected.  A lot of guys won't post anything negative publicly because some Kgirls know their TER username and would give them blowback about it.  "

 

How will the board being password protected prevent girls, org shills and such from accessing it? The password can be shared, guessed, passed. The member invited can be an org affiliate, a snitch who will report things back to a girl/org and so forth. There simply isn't a way to prevent that.  

 
With every private group I'm part of and not a part of I've came to accept that there will be moles, org snitches and such. And if you make it super private like 5 people, it probably defeats the purpose.

 
Another issue is that private groups don't encourage mongers to participate publicly. If anything, it's the opposite. Once they realize they can get all info from private group, they rather share info there. Does it benefit them? Oh hell yeah. Does it benefit others or community? Oh hell no.  

 
And as far as people not saying negative things publicly and there being blowback.... Besides hearing it from you being the biggest irony ever...Id venture to say at least for bay area most don't divulge their ter or forum ID. But even if they have, isn't blowback for deserved negative feedback a shitty practice?

I agree with you about the effectiveness of private discussion groups. But I think their primary advantage is the ability to have quick, efficient discussions with absolutely no disruptions from trolls.  

 
That is huge.

 
It’s not that you don’t get contrary or even negative opinions in these private discussion groups. Completely the opposite. Members are simply more free to surface what they are thinking. But they’re doing it in constructive ways without ad hominem attacks and grandstanding.  

 
Look at our least useful threads here. Cut out the ad hominem attacks and grandstanding. You’ll find a much more readable and useful thread. If someone can’t contribute without an ad hominem attack or grandstanding then they almost never have anything of value to add to a private forum discussion. Leave that crap for the public forums to sift through and find the occasional tidbit of value buried in the steaming pile.

 
Depending on what the goal is, I will typically put together groups of three or four initially. I tend to avoid private groups larger than 12. If it needs to be larger than that it’s time to throw it open to the public forum at that point.

 
I do this a lot at work. I either assign or lead a group of three or four hand picked resources with an aggressive goal and schedule. It’s extremely effective. In a small group like that nobody can be a freeloader when there is an aggressive goal and a tight schedule. If a member turns out to not be a good fit you just politely say something like “I think we’ve accomplished all we can here, thanks” and create a new group without them.

 
The net is that private groups are a tool. They are very effective at some things if managed properly. But public forums just like this one have great value, too. Though that value of public forums can be more readily diluted and even derailed by a sufficiently determined troll, as we have seen.  

 
Note that TER does have a somewhat limited ability to form private groups. You can just do direct messaging with multiple mongers. It works and is effective. But I’d hesitate to do it with more than three, maybe four people.

-- Modified on 12/8/2021 7:54:10 AM

I think framing the question on networking/groups as a tool is a good one. Like all tools (or knowledge or technology or power or....) the assessment of good or bad is not universal but really about how both individuals and the relevant group use the too.

 
I think it's also worth pointing out that as group size increases then the diversity of both interests and preferences increases so whatever the average value of information shared exists is probably inversely correlated with group size.

which makes it important to put some limitations on membership in a networking group.  The ones I have been in are usually limited geographically to SoCal (although I was in one in the BA when I used to travel there more often than I do now), and that the guys hobby at certain minimum volume level in order to have enough personal experiences to be able to make a meaningful contribution.  Obviously, a guy that sees 6 Kgirls a year is not a good fit with guys who are seeing one to three a week, or more.  Any intel he can provide will probably have already been supplied by someone else, and he is not in a position to move quickly to take advantage of positive info on touring girls who may only be in town for three weeks.

Imo the latter part is only relevant if we are talking about "networking group" as a "trading info" group.  

 
Hence again evoking echoes of what I myself don't like about this kind of networking. The idea of owing someone anything for their info and having to produce at least equal amount of info in return. A quid pro quo, so to speak.

 

Personally, my kind of network is a brotherhood where there isn't a hunger, or even worse - a freaking trading post - for info. Anyone can contribute in any manner they want and any experiences, however rare or numerous, are cherished. Info is flowing freely, as are "latest events and happenings". A place where folks aren't afraid to speak the truth and discuss girls/orgs/monger matters freely, no matter who might be reading. A mongers paradise,so to speak. Utopian? Maybe. My dream is to have anyone who wants to hobby to have access to all info possible at their fingertips and make the best decisions possible. And ideally all that info isn't held by some elitist group. And a place where people aren't pressured into doing toftts. They can go at their own pace and be treated exactly the same as high volume folks. Imo it doesn't matter how many girls you fuck. It's how you participate in the community.  

 
Now, a utalitarian network where people care only about new arrivals before reviews come out, ie to beat the proverbial clock, is rather drab to me, personally. With that said, as negative first impressions are far more likely to be found in private groups than publicly, I feel like that kind of info needs to find its way to public reviews before some poor souls waste their $ they otherwise wohk have held were theg to read the review in time. So I do think these networks are effective, but only for select few who are in the network. The goal imo is to make this info accessible to any monger who wants it. Bad goods should be known as bad goods in public, just like good ones. The issue is this info is for internal use. Many people who get the info that new girl X is bad, will not share it with the outdid world, and the helpfulness of the info is limited by member count of the private group. If we're talking about a low member count private group, like 3-4 people, might as well say that this info only helps 3-4 people.

Like useyrhead said, the benefits of a private network is no disruption from trolls. Based upon his response, it would appear Felcher Boy doesn’t understand that.

CDL, I get what you’re saying. But I think monger forum structure is less rigid than that. And, as I’ve said before, networking is not just about intel, in my opinion.

 
The need for structure - in my mind - is almost entirely for the purpose of
 * minimizing the corrosive influence of trolls with their ad hominem attacks and grandstanding
 * minimizing repetitive questions and the need for them - this need can also be met by including people willing and able to summarize and document the collected wisdom of the group
 * limiting exposure of those mongers who are *not* “full disclosure” (almost everyone) - protecting monger privacy is more important than many seem willing to admit
 * protecting sensitive info about orgs and girls (locations, etc)

 
Sure, if you’re establishing a small, run and gun group you want to keep it tight. Though having a senior guy who was run and gun for a long time but is no longer, and is well respected by the rest has advantages and I’ve seen this done effectively before. These guys lend perspective and can keep communication going smoothly when those inevitable conflicts arise. The most important criteria for group inclusion, in my opinion, is mutual respect in common with the group, interest and good communication skills.  

 
When running other monger forums we found that including respected senior mongers, if they were interested, could make a significant improvement (depending on the senior monger’s attitude and communication skills, of course) in the overall tone of the community.

 
The ability to include people who fit well the the group and have lots of experience, whether they are active or not, provides (or at least can provide) reservoirs of knowledge and wisdom that are hard to come by. As we all know (well, all except the Monger Lorax, I guess) for many reasons the collected wisdom and knowledge of mongers comes largely from word of mouth. It is rarely written down. Because of this, monger group selection is more effective in the long term if significant attention is paid to enabling open communication between both more experienced and less experienced members. Sometimes one on one. Sometimes in smaller groups. Sometimes in the open forum.  

 
As long as the information is being shared somewhere within the group, the effect of it tends to spread. In my experience, the major impediment to the spread of valuable knowledge or intel is the influence of troll behaviors. When flames and grandstanding and long pointless arguments are common most people will tend to guard their communication. Hence, you just won’t commonly see lots of sharing of any kind of knowledge in that kind of environment. Some will persevere even when there is conflict. Many will not.

" minimizing the corrosive influence of trolls with their ad hominem attacks and grandstanding"

 

I'm just wondering, do "felcher" and "lorax" and "bpos" get any exemptions from ad hominem attacks? Or are ad hominem attacks OK as long as they're done by the right people? Seems to be that way.

-- Modified on 12/9/2021 12:45:21 PM

One of the dead giveaways that you’re dealing with a troll is their almost complete inability to recognize, much less acknowledge, their own culpability for the problems they cause. Though they will sometimes admit they are wrong, it is usually because they are recognizing they have to choose something (usually minor) over which they must do so in order to maintain some semblance of credibility.

 
Though I admit to continually being amazed at the tolerance level of trolls for their credibility loss. But, it takes all kinds. And even trolls occasionally contribute something of value. Whether it’s worth wading through all the rest of the troll dung is an entirely different discussion.

 
This is just my opinion based on observable data available to everyone. Up to each of us to draw our own conclusions.

"even trolls occasionally contribute something of value." That is especially true of our own little Felcher Boy. He has a trove of information about KGirls. It's like he does nothing but search the internet and create a KGirl database. He could be so helpful to others by sharing information. Instead her persistently rambles on about his socialist, egalitarian hobby rhetoric that no one else subscribes to. He's like a broken record. He's completely self-destructive. And what's worse he knows it and doesn't care. His sole objective is to troll our boards in hopes someone, anyone, will have a back and forth discussion with him. I feel such pity for the little fella.

Those are descriptive nicknames, not ad hominem attacks. You’ve earned those.