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Wag
 
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Flannel (1/23/2007)
Goodness you flatter yourself. 
If I could afford to outsource flattery, I would. Since I've been accused of killing it (and sort of agree), I think I might as well embrace it. Opinions should and will differ, but I think it's hard to claim to that
* I didn't play a role in killing the thread
* That it wasn't/didn't become a Christian-bashing circle-jerk (as I understand the term to be used)
* That I wasn't aggressively pushing people to back up their bigoted statements
You could take the position that it wasn't that bad a thread as they go, that the opinions expressed weren't so very bigoted, that it wasn't me pushing the 'hypocrisy' button that killed it, but the way in which I pushed the button (hard?) - but I find that a bit hard to maintain while looking at the thread (a gun is fired, someone falls over dead - perhaps he had a dicky heart and the nose gave him a heart attack? Blood on his clothes - haemophiliac stress-induced nose-bleed).
Obviously, I'm more than happy to wrap myself in the robes of the Saintly Bigot-Fighter but, given how indifferent I am to conventional morals most of the time, you have to wonder if my reaction in this case doesn't suggest that it was a somewhat extreme example of common forum bigotry.
Marios
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Heroic Knight
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Marios (1/23/2007)
I see that, but I don't think it makes any more sense explained long-hand (although it is clearer).
(1) I can see a case for this if you're actually repeatedly spamming a thread with adverts for viagra or simply double/repeat-posting but, presuming that you're always posting in reply to someone, I don't see that you're actively discouraging someone else from posting by making it difficult for them to do so (granted, they may not want to get involved in a serious thread with big posts - but that's their personal preference - and shouldn't count as an argument for people not to make serious/big posts anymore than my preference for serious big/posts should prevent people from making short/silly posts if they want to).
(2) You can only monopolise something if you can take exclusive control of it - this doesn't seem possible on a forum unless you're an admin/mod. You can say someone contributes 'excessively', but then it's a matter of opinion what excessive means in any given context.
(3) Sounds like 'being snooty/acting like you're better than us' by using a more formal style (providing/asking for references to statements attributed/declamed). I think precisely the same thing applies in reverse - threads where no one bothers to reference/make any attempt to reference sources/back-up statements are off-putting to people who do.
Why such extreme examples? As humans we are greatly influenced by even the smallest things.
1)If I make a post which is met with a derisive response I will be discouraged from posting again.
2)If the length and volume of posts is so great that I felt my post would be lost in the avalanche of textual outpourings then I will be discouraged from posting
3)If I have to spend several hours looking up the meanings of the words in some posts in order to understand what people are talking about then I will be discouraged from posting.
Marios (1/23/2007)
I think so, but then I don't see a need to enforce or discourage certain posting style.
Niether do I, simple consideration is all that is required.
Marios (1/23/2007)
You seemed to be saying that some styles are bad/offputting and people should refrain from that sort of thing.
Ok, hostile posts are bad... but I never said long posts=bad. Long posts can be useful, unneccisarily long posts (I think) can be offputting. As I've said this thread was not a complaint nor even a critisism... just opening things up for discussion to get other points of view.
Marios (1/23/2007)
In response, I think it's better for people who see these things as bad and want to have a discussion without them to start a new thread with a rider at the top saying "lets try to back-up statements with references/lets not to try to back-up statements with references and all that guff".
First off, IMO such riders would be counter-productive... Secondly lets not think of these things as "bad". Debate and discussion is about communication, you have your style I have mine. If I can't follow what your saying, and you can't see what I'm saying because it gets lost while scrolling through endless pages then we're not communicating effectively.
Marios (1/23/2007)
Pillows smother people because you can either a mouthful of pillow or a mouthful of air - that doesn't seem to be the case here. Pillows in a shopping aisle don't smother people. Fair enough, people may complain that there are 5 aisles of pillow/pillow-related produced and only half an aisle of the bondage gear that they are interested in - but the metaphor breaks here because anyone can stock the shelves with whatever they want. It's a bit like an independent television producer (with their own independent setup and channel) complaining that there's nothing but shit on TV. People who want to watch channel 59 - despite finding all the other channels utter rubbish - only have to go to the effort of pressing '59' - they aren't 'intellectually smothered' by the opportunity to click on all the other channels.
In all honesty this is the point in your post where I gave up and made myself a fresh cup of coffee....
Marios (1/23/2007)
Fair enough, but other people have used this as an example and I think it's a pretty good one.
Yes, but I'm trying not to single out any specific person...
Marios (1/23/2007)
Why? If we hadn't posted what we did where we did, why presume that other people would have?
I didn't "presume" anything, I suggested that a good case could be made that if the posting styles were more open then more people would be inclined to participate. "Humanism is a good example, its something which I would have considered participating in but I personally quickly got discouraged by the volumous posting.
Marios (1/23/2007)
I think there's a good case to be made that I did kill (or, at least, played some part in killing) the 'God Hates Gays' Christian-bashing circle-jerk by aggressively pushing people to back up their bigoted statements. This strikes me as analogous to walking into a room full of people giggling about smelly Asians asking them why they think Asians are smelly and why it doesn't apply to them. The chances are good that people will stick up for their points, but probably only long enough to back out of a sticky situation and only as hard as you hold them to those points by throwing their words back at them. I really don't think that's something to apologise for (although I quite agree that it is 'unpopulist' behaviour).
Much as I countered the "Thatcher is wanted for war crimes and would be arrested on sight in half a dozen countries" brigade which no doubt made me equally (if not more) unpopular. Much as I admire anyone who has the guts to stand up against the baying mob I have to say that I fail to see the relevance at this time.
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Prodigal
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Feral (1/23/2007)
nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
The internet is not the Promised LandNot yet, but I'm a patient optomist and occasionally I see a little ray of hope flashing through the broadband..... But the fact the it isn't shoudn't stop us from exploring our little area of webland and seeing what we can make of it.
Feral (1/23/2007)
nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
If you do something which encourages someone to stop posting on one thread and start posting on a new thread on the same topic (but with a debating style that suits them better), you haven't 'driven them out' of anything. They're still freely expressing their opinions, and there's no reason for anyone to get territorial about the situation just because they're now posting in a browser window with a different thread title.A nice thought, but human nature being what it is how likely is it?
I think these two points contradict each other. I think that one way to "explore our little area of webland" would be to encourage people not to start feeling territorial about one particular thread (since in fact, someone who stops posting on one thread and starts a new one instead has not been robbed of anything or had their freedom of expression restricted). You can argue that it's not very likely to happen, and quite possibly you're correct- but without a solution to this sort of very basic issue, I'm afraid I don't feel massively optimistic about the prospects for internet communication in general.
Feral (1/23/2007)
[quote]nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
Imagine two forums, Forum A and Forum B.That (for me) doesn't answer the question. Would you find it more interesting if we heard from wider range of voices with other ideas/opinions/attitudes?
It IS slightly evasive, yes, but that's because I wasn't entirely happy with the way the initial question was phrased.
Obviously I'm not going to reply by saying "no, to hell with a wider range of voices, I like my discussions nicely elitist with no weird opinions that might be different to mine." I realise that's a bit extreme, but I find it quite hard to think of a way to answer "no" to the question without sounding silly. I don't have a problem with rhetorical questions in general, but in this particular case I don't think it's a particularly helpful one.
Perhaps the hypothetical example I gave wasn't a very good one. The question I was trying to illustrate with it was: which do you think is more likely to encourage a diverse range of ideas, opinions and attitudes? Encouraging people to feel that they can say whatever they want to say, and ignore anything they're not very interested in reading? Or encouraging people to feel that everything they post has to be carefully vetted, since if it contains anything that might be in some way off-putting to a hypothetical forum-user (even if you don't understand WHY it would be off-putting) then it shouldn't be posted. I personally feel that the first approach would be more likely to encourage diverse ideas/opinions/attitudes than the second one.
I don't want to come across as heartless and exclusive and indifferent to other people's feelings, but I'm afraid I still don't like see what's so off-putting about having to start a new thread if people on a different thread are writing what you see as badly-written posts which you don't really want to have to read through.
WARNING: the information above may have been subjected to dangerously high levels of ignorance.
OOC (and on Pagga): Carrie
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Wag
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Feral (1/23/2007)
Why such extreme examples? As humans we are greatly influenced by even the smallest things.
Partly because extreme examples are clearer and partly because I don't think it's a good idea trying to second-guess people's responses to 'the smallest things'. As far as I can see, there are only two ways we can actually deploy any consensus about how people ought to post - either by stipulated rules or peer pressure (frown power). Personally, I think those are quite extreme responses - in a free medium like this - so I think statements have to be held up to a reasonable level of skepticism.
Feral (1/23/2007)
1)If I make a post which is met with a derisive response I will be discouraged from posting again.
Fair enough, but you didn't say 'derisive posts' (or even 'posts that someone might consider to be derisive'), you said "discourage their continued participation by means of high volume posting". I don't think that's at all the same thing as 'personal attacks'/'snotty attitude'.
Feral (1/23/2007)
2)If the length and volume of posts is so great that I felt my post would be lost in the avalanche of textual outpourings then I will be discouraged from posting
Hmm - but the whole point of the thread seems to be arguing that smaller more concise posts make for better communication. If that's really the case and everyone perceives it that way, if someone wanders into a thread with massive posts and then makes their point with a small one, won't people preferentially reply to the small post, effectively outperforming the large post/er?
If people don't think that will happen, presumably it's because they don't think that's the case (i.e. people will keep replying to the big post because it contains more points that people want to reply to). This seems pretty open and democratic to me. If they don't want to share a thread with big posts at all, why not click the quote button and then put their response in a new thread with a request for 'concise replies only please'?
Feral (1/23/2007)
3)If I have to spend several hours looking up the meanings of the words in some posts in order to understand what people are talking about then I will be discouraged from posting.
If it takes you several hours to look up the meaning of a word, then you are probably going to be discouraged later on, even if you make it as a far as posting. If you care about a subject, but don't recognise the terms, I don't see what's stopping someone from saying "Hey, I don't get all those terms, could you explain?" - I don't think other people are necessarily going to know ahead of time which terms will confuse people and which terms will safely serve to allow concise discussion of particular concepts.
Feral (1/23/2007)
Niether do I, simple consideration is all that is required.
But it's hardly simple if different people have different opinions on what it means.
Feral (1/23/2007)
As I've said this thread was not a complaint nor even a critisism... just opening things up for discussion to get other points of view.
Ok - I think everyone involved is taking that as read - criticisms of your case are directed at your case, not you.
Feral (1/23/2007)
If I can't follow what your saying, and you can't see what I'm saying because it gets lost while scrolling through endless pages then we're not communicating effectively.
Yes, but I think it's the place of the person who's having difficulty to say "Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here/Sorry, I can't follow your debate". If they can express what they are having a problem with in a manner in which someone can respond to, then there's room for progress. If all they can say is "you talk too much/your post is too big" then it's a bit difficult to respond.
Feral (1/23/2007)
In all honesty this is the point in your post where I gave up and made myself a fresh cup of coffee....
Either you can be bothered to read someone's post or you can't. It was a chunky paragraph, but only because I made a point 'gently', then went through it with several examples of why I thought it was the case.
You said:
Feral (1/23/2007)
At what point does a high volume discussion between a limited number of posters cease to inspire other people to express their ideas/opinions/attitudes and starts to smother them?
I don't think that occurs at any point. "Smother" makes sense when you talk about people being "smothered" by pillows - I'm not "Smothered" by the internet or all the parts of this forum that I don't have any interest in. The only larp event I'm attending at the moment is Maelstrom, so all the others in that sub-forum are surplus to requirement and quite irrelevant ot me - but I don't resent them and wouldn't if there were 10 times as many (just so long as I was able to find the Maelstrom section). As I said - there's a trade-off between the brevity of "Your analogy is stupid" and "Here's how I think the word smother makes sense and here are some examples of what I mean by sense and here's what I think are some better analogies and this is why I don't think your analogy applies".
Feral (1/23/2007)
Yes, but I'm trying not to single out any specific person...
That makes it rather difficult to knock about real examples - without which, it's not at all clear that we're talking about the same thing.
Feral (1/23/2007)
I didn't "presume" anything, I suggested that a good case could be made that if the posting styles were more open then more people would be inclined to participate.
Consider it corrected from "presume" to "would you presume".
Feral (1/23/2007)
"Humanism is a good example, its something which I would have considered participating in but I personally quickly got discouraged by the volumous posting.
It's a bit unfortunate - I spun it off because I wanted to take a whack at humanism - in particular secular humanism which largely defines itself in opposition to (and as better than) Christianity. There was one little niggle about atheism/agnosticism at the top which I wasn't particularly interested in, but it was a response to someone else and pretty much on topic.
If the topic remains dominated by atheists/agnosticism, it might be worth spawning a new "Secular Humanism" thread, but many of the same definitions are needed in each case (it's clear from that thread that if you don't take the space to lay out the definition then people will get confused). Maybe you already know what naturalism is or that Confucianism doesn't have a supernatural salvation concept, but I don't think that's true of everyone who was involved in the thread.
Feral (1/23/2007)
Much as I countered the "Thatcher is wanted for war crimes and would be arrested on sight in half a dozen countries" brigade which no doubt made me equally (if not more) unpopular.
Let's not fight over the thorny crown - you have it Wednesday through Friday, I'll have it Saturday through Tuesday.
Feral (1/23/2007)
Much as I admire anyone who has the guts to stand up against the baying mob I have to say that I fail to see the relevance at this time.
It seem pretty relevant to me since we're talking about people killing threads/discouraging people from posting - I can't think of a better recent example. Baying mobs aren't always wrong and others would see such 'guts' as moral ambivalence.
Marios
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Overlord
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nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
I think that one way to "explore our little area of webland" would be to encourage people not to start feeling territorial about one particular thread (since in fact, someone who stops posting on one thread and starts a new one instead has not been robbed of anything or had their freedom of expression restricted). I think in this its an idea to look back at some of the general posting guidelines. When I mentioned point 11 about Mugger's Alley I thought I was making it pretty plain that I didn't want any one person to dominate the discussions. I also added quite a lot of implicit advice against the style of long posting that closes down discussions. Ultimately the unwritten rule is that the subject starter is the authority on a thread in terms of shaping its discussion unless the thread starts to contravene the boards rules or is complained about, then a mod or admin starts looking into things. From that point of view, my life is made easier by having lots of participants and succinct posts that give additional opinons creating a gradually evolving consensus or conflict. This keeps interest up and also goes to the heart of what I consider a forum to be about - lots of views, pluralism if you will. In my view I think people should put their opinions on a forum with the understanding that a) they could be wrong or b) someone could persuade them otherwise and leave open the possibility that other people are going to have better ideas that may contribute to theirs. That to my mind is the most positive thing about the human condition, that by putting more minds to something you can create an object that is greater than the sum of its parts. But similiarly I'm not inclined to run Rule7 in a way that dictates a style of post because going by the above paragraph that would be hypocritical in relation to my statement about being open to other people's ideas and contribution.
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Heroic Knight
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nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
I think these two points contradict each other.
I don't see them as contradictory at all.... in a rant thats totally unconnected to the rest of this thread, we are human beings with thoughts, feelings, emotions... when we connect to the web we're still human so why should our web behaviour be any different than the way we behave in person? We're not fluffy always considerate at one with the universe supreme beings at home, nor are we constantly adversarial callous and derisive creatures who hurl insults every other sentance in person, so why do some people take on these exagerated personas on the web? Sometimes I feel that the "remove" and anonimity internet communication provides creates an unintentional (and sometimes intentional) detachment where people just see the "web persona" and unwittingly forget that there's a real person behind it. Its silly hurling insults at someone in a forum and then excusing it by saying its just the web. This is our corner of webland so why should insulting someone here be any different to insulting them on the phone or in person? If this is our forum, if this is the corner of webland that we inhabit then we should ditch the exagerated personas, act more naturally, and remember that that there's a human being on the other end of the text. "Exploring our little area of webland" is about exploring the personalities, thoughts, opinions, and feelings of the people that inhabit it, and thats not something we can do if people are being sidelined.
nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
I think that one way to "explore our little area of webland" would be to encourage people not to start feeling territorial about one particular thread (since in fact, someone who stops posting on one thread and starts a new one instead has not been robbed of anything or had their freedom of expression restricted). You can argue that it's not very likely to happen, and quite possibly you're correct- but without a solution to this sort of very basic issue, I'm afraid I don't feel massively optimistic about the prospects for internet communication in general.
I don't think that a territorial attitude has anything to do with it, more a feeling of frustration and alienation. As for a solution, I think its simple.. think person not poster.
nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
It IS slightly evasive, yes, but that's because I wasn't entirely happy with the way the initial question was phrased.
Ok, maybe I was being a little unfair.
nesciomancer (1/23/2007)
but I'm afraid I still don't like see what's so off-putting about having to start a new thread if people on a different thread are writing what you see as badly-written posts which you don't really want to have to read through.
There not badly-written, nor is it that I don't want to read them (I generally do read them), but lately there's been an awful lot of them and there is only so many hours in the day. 
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Heroic Knight
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When I looked at the forums yesterday there was a lot of very long posts and I started this thread as a jokey response without thinking of the ensuing discussion, if my comments seem rather fluid its because I honestly haven't formed an opinion either way. I don't think long posts are necesarily bad or problematic but I do find myself in agreement with Allen about "Pluralism".
Marios (1/23/2007)
Partly because extreme examples are clearer
Sometimes yes, sometimes (as I think in this case) they have a tendancy to distort the original meaning or issue.
Marios (1/23/2007)
As far as I can see, there are only two ways we can actually deploy any consensus about how people ought to post - either by stipulated rules or peer pressure (frown power). Personally, I think those are quite extreme responses - in a free medium like this - so I think statements have to be held up to a reasonable level of skepticism.
I agree, these are extreme and unneccesary responses. This is a small issue about small influences that may or may not possibly constitute a potential minor problem. The fix (if it needs fixing) would only require a little nudge. Sometimes awareness is all it needs.
Marios (1/23/2007)
Fair enough, but you didn't say 'derisive posts' (or even 'posts that someone might consider to be derisive'), you said "discourage their continued participation by means of high volume posting". I don't think that's at all the same thing as 'personal attacks'/'snotty attitude'.
Your right, I did not cover derisive posts in my original post. Thats probably a matter for another thread some other time.
Marios (1/23/2007)
Hmm - but the whole point of the thread seems to be arguing that smaller more concise posts make for better communication. If that's really the case and everyone perceives it that way, if someone wanders into a thread with massive posts and then makes their point with a small one, won't people preferentially reply to the small post, effectively outperforming the large post/er?
Actually the point of this thread was to brighten my day slightly with some light relief.... however, again I think your right people would/will/do respond better to a concise post.
Marios (1/23/2007) | | | |