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Weeding the Garden

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Jawsus-son Starship

13:02 / 30.03.06

Some good points, I'll offer my replys and see if we can come to some understandings;

can I ask Math whether he can offer any better justification for posting this then 'because I can'?

I actually can't come up with a better justification than that. See, I thought conversation was just for random banter, and this is squarely where this thread would lie. As such, I'd like to think I didn't need any real justification for a thread which I consider to be for the banter.

How can something you don't care about be the ultimate comeback, which you have to seek a mightier, ultra-ultimate comeback to counter?

It's not so much the insult that bothers me, but repetition of said insult. He could really say anything continually and I'd need a one-liner that would kill it into the ground - like the time he continually called me Steve McDonald (from Corrie) due to my hairline, for a month, before starting to sing "Steve mcDonald had a farm, e i e i o." THe only way this stopped was when I told him he had a giant cock nose every fifteen seconds, which was so inane that he just stopped out right from doing it so he didn't have to hear it again. That is not working for this one.

I do however, think that people should be free to post criticism of threads that they deem to be out of place on Barbelith.

Agree when the thread/post is of importance, but to something so throwaway is this really needed?

I must admit that I got a bit kneejerk when I saw this thread, and as such should probably apologise for it, but I did feel a little attacked, though now I'm not sure why.

13:11 / 30.03.06

Most of the replies to the initial post seem to be taking a light-hearted swipe at the thread rather than anything else

'Light-hearted' I see, 'swipe' I don't. You may be right though.

My question wasn't about the direction the thread took, but the initial intention and expectations of the thread from the perspective of the person who started it (and then, as far as I can see, abandoned it).

As I said, I can't help with the intentions of the thread-starter. However, it seems to me that, getting back to the garden, if someone drops a turd on the lawn we have plenty enough people here with the wit and intelligence to polish it, or with the good sense to walk around it. Maybe it's just me, but those seem far better options than picking the turd up and picking it to pieces.

Incidentally, as the new tax year is about to start, I was wondering about resurrecting this thread. Any views?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:14 / 30.03.06

Smoothly Weaving is it worth having a dedicated thread to discuss what The Conversation is for, and what is and what isn't acceptable? I get a feeling that expectations have begun to change of late.

Smoothly, I've finally got my donkey in gear and so the thread is here.

miss wonderstarr

13:20 / 30.03.06

However, it seems to me that, getting back to the garden, if someone drops a turd on the lawn we have plenty enough people here with the wit and intelligence to polish it, or with the good sense to walk around it. Maybe it's just me, but those seem far better options than picking the turd up and picking it to pieces.

I'm not really sure this metaphor works, because polishing a turd would be a highly unpleasant experience not akin to making a decent thread from an unpromising one, and picking a turd apart isn't really comparable to critically analysing a post.

But you also, working within this not-entirely satisfactory metaphor, seem to have missed an obvious option: picking it up with a spade and hoying it onto the compost. That is:locking and deleting. I'm not saying that's the best option with every "turdlike" thread on Conversation's lawn, but I'm surprised you suggest that what most gardeners would do with a turd is polish it or pull it to bits.

13:28 / 30.03.06

You're right, I have made a total hash of the metaphor - it was never going to work. Start again - look at the stump fucker thread, it may have been shit from the get-go, but intelligent witty posters with a spirit of fun made something of it, much more than can be made by punting it off to several pages of Policy. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I try to stick my own head a long way up my arse my balls start to ache. A lot.

miss wonderstarr

13:44 / 30.03.06

Oh that's OK. It was my metaphor originally. I'm sure "stumps" could be worked into the garden image somehow, but let's not push the limits.

16:47 / 30.03.06

I have a problem with the metaphor myself, because it's similar to a metaphor I've previously used for the board as a whole, but with a different set of connotations.

I don't think of the board as a garden, but as an ecosystem. The Conversation is a wetland. The "inland" fora are useful for building on, doing various kinds of farming, and even gardening. But I think they fall apart without a wetland.

What a wetland does in an ecosystem is act as a kind of source of fertility and a filter for toxins at the same time -- in the case of the Conversation, this is Off-topica, where things that don't fit elsewhere go. It's where new ideas come from -- they're often useless, sometimes icky, but occasionally an orchid or cypress sapling pops up. Sometimes these are even transplanted into gardens.

But for the most part, it's a swamp. I like it being a swamp.

miss wonderstarr

17:37 / 30.03.06

but occasionally an orchid or cypress sapling pops up. Sometimes these are even transplanted into gardens.

But this suggests that other fora are where only the best Conversation threads dream of going when they grow up and mature, when they're promoted.

17:42 / 30.03.06

what if someone plants a seed that seems unlikely to grow into anything most people in the garden will find attractive

Well, "seems unlikely", "most people" and "attractive" are rather nebulous grounds upon which to start "weeding". Several posters have expressed, in the wake of the Stump Fuckin' farrago, that they'd consider large parts of Conversation less-than-attractive. I'm one of them. Thing is, I think that, individually, we'd find different parts attractive. Eye of the beholder and all that. Ugliness, crassness, etc. would appear to be highly subjective - and rather crap - reasons to begin deleting posts and threads.

19:30 / 30.03.06

Yes. I'm deeply unkeen on this push to make moderators anything other than the 'janitors' they were initially described to me as.

I generally don't, or try not to, read threads with phrases such as 'Another Introduction' or '...posted by Saltation' in them, because I don't think they will prove to be a terribly interesting or enjoyable waste of my time. Experience has taught me this. I could list a great number of other dislikes I have up to, and including, threads where everyone does a rhyme on a word (inc. 'Stump Fuckin'', but I've garnered a certain appreciation of it for other reasons latterly.)

I do think Conversation can be tidier; we can, conceivably, have single threads for flash games, online quizzes, birthdays, introductions, etc., etc. (I know thread merges are not viable, but people can be told, duplicate threads closed and responses reposted) and I am a fan of the style of moderating that allows a thread a run round the Convo, such as that recent Matrix Warrior one, before plonking them in their more spiritual homes. But I really don't want moderators policing to the extent of deciding if a thread ought to go in the bin or otherwise (and it will ultimately be moderators who do so,) unless there are very clear cut reasons (the usual: misogyny, racism, holocaust denial..) as to why it should not exist.

19:59 / 30.03.06

These threads don't break any rules I know of, or explicitly hurt or hate and specific group of people.

Generally, you're a wonder, Wonderstarr (to quote Dead Megatroll, ubique), and I feel that you've answered your own question in your threadhead post. Threads and posts that don't break any rules I know of, nor explicitly hurt nor hate an specific group of people should be dealt with like any other thread.

If you disagree with what someone says, you say so. If lots of people say similar stuff, the person who has kicked off the disagreement thinks again about what they've posted and ups their game. Or stubbornly refuses to. Barbelith is as capable of groupthink and scapegoating as any other group. It is also a mighty fine beast that mostly gets it right, dogfights and all.

Either way, it's all part of Life's Rich Pageant and I think we should keep the systemic weedkiller for the poisonous plants that are, by common consent, irredeemably racist or sexist, etc.

21:29 / 30.03.06

My perspective on the Conversation is its main function is to allow the personal conversation and off-topic conversation that shouldn't appear in other parts of the board. It's the chatroom and socialising space of the site, just as the Policy is the meta- part of the site, where we talk about issues like this one.

The idea of the Conversation as being a dumping ground for bad threads isn't quite accurate - it's a place where off-topic, personal and conversational threads go. It's easy to get the two confused, I think, as if a highly conversational and off-topic thread is posted in the Head Shop, it is de facto a bad thread for that environment, and it's good that it's pulled out and deposited elsewhere.

All of which is to say that the reason a thread / post should be in the Conversation has nothing to do with quality of post. In fact - while it's in everyone's best interests to encourage people to post high-quality stuff, and I hope we all try to do so - we definitely don't penalise people for writing bad stuff in any official way. The space for people to have a big fight over it is there and a perfectly legitimate response, but unless the bad posting is abusive, harrassing, libellous, spam or a well-established troll there's no place for moderatorial intervention. Bad posting is allowed on Barbelith, just discouraged.

21:43 / 30.03.06

Thanks for that, Tom.

Happy Dave Has Left

15:43 / 24.04.06

This is just an aside, but to continue the garden analogy, why not have a 'Compost Heap'? I post on a few other boards, one of which is a military one (disclosure, I'm an ex-Territorial). To the uninitiated, squaddie humour can be utterly horrific, and the mods of this board have taken the approach of creating a 'NAAFI' forum (for those who don't know, the NAAFI is the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute - essentially the on-site pub in every military base for UK forces) where anything goes. This forum is clearly marked as potentially noxious, allowing people who want to discuss something that might offend others out of sight - people who want to see it see it, people who are pretty sure they'd be mortally offended are able to steer clear. It keeps the standard of discourse fairly high in other areas, provides a place for threads that devolve into name-calling or anything else to be put, and it keeps the troll population down (they all go in there because they know they can fight with other trolls).

I think that Barbelith doesn't face anything like the volume of potentially insulting or offensive content that a military board does, but I think that it might be something to consider - I know that working things out through debate (i.e. locking or deletion of threads) can make for fascinating gedanken experiments, but having a 'Compost Heap' for the uglier weeds might make things a bit easier.

Just a thought.

16:09 / 24.04.06

Would that not just encourage people to post more shit?

Happy Dave Has Left

16:39 / 24.04.06

Well, perhaps, if you take it as implicit approval of posting shit threads. But then, if you don't want to look at the shit, don't go into the Compost Heap.

As I said, it's just an idea, and I don't think it necessarily encourages 'bad' posting behaviours, merely provides a defined place for them, removing the need for constant debate about suitability.

16:54 / 24.04.06

i think its been suggested before.

there is a big difference bewteen the NAAFI board of your experience and a compost heap here, however. you have already mentioned that there is a large 'meatspace' culture to support the conent of the NAAFI, along with drinking establishments that share the name(and, it seems, attitude?).
we dont have that.
the other issue is that of size.
unless this board was an anomaly, it will have more members than barbelith. more members means more shite, more shit emeans a fuller forum.
without a full forum, folks will get bored of it.
if they get bored, they'll either post stuff to fill the space(so more shit), or they will forget to use that forum for the inetended purpose(so tracking shit into the house).

while i see the point of the concept, i feel it is unsuitable for a board like barbelith.

i can imagine it would become a den of hatespeech under the guise of "but i'm being ricky gervais!" and the like.
seperate point, but possibly more valid.

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