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Let me explain

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miss wonderstarr

17:44 / 31.03.06

They're not reason to lock/delete, and they're not reason for Sauron to be apologising. I think he was throwaway and a tad ill-advised, but he hasn't actually done anything wrong.

I agree, and I agree more now I realise Sauron's intentions, which went over my head because I know nothing about this... "comedy show".

Ideally I think what would have happened is that people would have questioned it in-thread, Sauron would have explained the point, and I at least would have said, you know, I think you might have posted this in another forum with a title and summary that makes it clear what you're on about.

Jawsus-son Starship

17:44 / 31.03.06

OK, well as a non-mod member of the community, I'd suggest it was better suited to Film and TV, under that sort of title. I think it would have gotten better traffic that way, and probably led to a better discussion actually.

I really hate the tone of this post - it's so authoritarian as to be rediculous. Who are you to tell Sauron where and what to post? So far, the only real posts I've seen from you (in my limited time on the board) have been ones complaining about the tone of other threads, and I really feel that you've added nothing to help create this great sweeping intellectual debate you're dreaming of.

I'm gonna get so much flack for this, but I just feel so frustrated by this whole issue.

miss wonderstarr

17:47 / 31.03.06

I'd suggest ... I think ... probably

Jeez, is this your idea of "authoritarian"? Someone tiptoeing around in fluffy jackboots, tapping someone on the shoulder and whispering "you know, this might work better if you did it a bit different... sorry!"

I agree that I've been mostly posting on Policy recently. If you want to know why, it's because I was saving this week's "Seven Soldiers" comics for today. I will try to do better over on the Comics forum in the near future.

I really don't see myself as an authoritarian highminded heavyhanded tyrant on here, though.

17:48 / 31.03.06

Math, getting personal with Wonderstarr's not helpful.

17:49 / 31.03.06

Math, chill. When you think someone's being mean, try to read it in another tone. Maybe they're not being mean. If in doubt, just ask! And I think Miss W is only suggesting an alternative... the mods ain't gods!

miss wonderstarr

17:50 / 31.03.06

I'm not a mod! Just some bod.

17:50 / 31.03.06

how odd.

18:06 / 31.03.06

Someone tiptoeing around in fluffy jackboots,

Now there's an image I can get behind.

18:34 / 31.03.06

Can we please stop it with the silly scare quotes? The Mighty Boosh is a comedy show. It's not a "comedy show".

Miss Wonderstarr, Sauron didn't necessarily want to have a conversation discussing the programme in F,TV&T, he was posting in conversation. I understand that you personally have concerns with the level of posting in conversation and would prefer a higher level of debate, but that does not apply to everyone who posts on this board.

Sauron's aware of the swearing thing and agreed not to do it in future and I think there is no need for hir to be apologising here for the quality of a thread posted in a forum designed for chat and informal discussion.

miss wonderstarr

18:36 / 31.03.06

Can we please stop it with the silly scare quotes? The mighty Boosh is a comedy show. It's not a "comedy show".

No, that was me doing a self-mocking posh, distant voice because I've never watched it... you know, like a judge saying "what is this... 'The Beatles' you speak of?"

Sorry that it didn't come across.

18:50 / 31.03.06

Oh, OK, sorry.

paranoidwriter waves hello

18:58 / 31.03.06

Threadrot: just to explain my "Careful now..." comment / link; it was a reference to Father Ted. i.e. "Careful now.... Down with that sort of thing." I wasn't bitching about the PC thread either, just highlighting the inherent problem with that term (which I learnt the hard way).

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

21:29 / 31.03.06

ROT

I like PWs post above this one.

I feel we should start footnoting our posts*
(I have no idea how to code superscript in html)

*A footnote is a note of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document. The note comments on and may cite a reference for part of the main body of text. A footnote is normally flagged by a superscript number following that portion of the text the note is in reference to.

END ROT

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:10 / 01.04.06

(in my limited time on the board)

This may be key, Math. It might be worth having a look at your ratio to reading and posting, and maybe trying to tweak it more in favour of the former for a bit, as an experiment.

All Acting Regiment

02:51 / 01.04.06

I suggest we all click on this link and watch this episode of the Mighty Boosh

Jawsus-son Starship

05:24 / 01.04.06

I'd suggest ... I think ... probably

Jeez, is this your idea of "authoritarian"?

You're right, authoritarian was the wrong word. I believe the actual phrase is passive agressive. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm singling you out specifically, but it is you I have run into most over the last couple of days, and it is you who I view as being the one who is out right saying that if something doesn't fit into your view of what a Barbelith thread should look like, then it should be got rid of. Or thrown onto the compost heap. Or whatever.

Over the course of the last few days you have been very vocal as to your beliefs about how we should shape Barbelith, as have I. However, I don't think, or haven't intended, to tell someone how they should or should not behave (except, maybe Haus, which was more of a calm down then telling him to shut up) on the boards, while I think you have been doing so. This is why I was annoyed and this is why I snapped at you, which was not needed, and as such I am sorry. But (always with the buts in his sorrys) I do think that you have been acting in a way which has annoyed me some what, and whether this was intended (the way you acted, not intending to annoy me, I'm egotistical but not that much) or not, I felt it needed to be brought up.

Haus - I do read all the threads I post to - does it seem like I don't?

miss wonderstarr

06:20 / 01.04.06

As I said in my PM to you, Math

(i) I certainly don't feel I have been saying threads that don't fit what I'd like to see should be locked, deleted, thrown on the compost or whatever. The most I've said, I think, is that more aimless and daft threads could go in an anything-goes "meadow" (overflow from a more structured and sensible Conversation) but that was only a notion; it won't be taken up, I didn't expect it to be, and it probably had a lot of flaws as an idea anyway.

(ii) I expect someone can clarify whether "passive-aggressive" accurately describes my behaviour any better than "authoritarian".

ONLY NICE THINGS

06:41 / 01.04.06

Hmmm. Kind of. It feels not so much that you don't read them as that you don't think about how best to respond in the excitement of being able to respond. So, you're telling us what's wrong with Barbelith in general and with us in particular, which you may feel is a public service, but your delivery is making it progressively less likely that you will be listened to.

For example - so far this thread has involved you agreeing that something was "political correctness gone mad", accusing people of "anlysing to death" something that you feel should be analysed far less and thus in a non-fatal manner, cried authoritarian and then called somebody "passive aggressive", without apparently understanding what it means - most recently done here. Elswhere, you have called people "high and mighty", told them that their thoughts are "soooooo not needed", used "offence" to suggest that people are being unnecessarily delicate flowers (see the discussion of the term "offence" in Mr Six's encopresis thread, below), used the "I suppose that makes me an x" gambit, whacked a mention of Nazis into a discussion with nothing to do with Nazis for dramatic effect, made the same assertion repeatedly without responding to the discussion of the assertion in between ... These are old, familiar friends, but there is no actual need to cycle through the greatest hits of bad communication before we can settle down and talk.

As I have said before, right now you're delivering a bit of a masterclass in how to post badly in the Policy, and it might be worth giving calming down and thinking more carefully about how to communicate what you are thinking a go instead.

08:43 / 01.04.06

I'd still like swearing to be better considered, and I'm glad Sauron's acknowledged that.

Perhaps you'd better start a separate thread. As far as I'm aware, "swearing" has never, in itself, been considered an issue worthy of moderation or, generally speaking, apology. If you're suggesting that we ought now to negatively register "fuck" and "fucking", I'd like to see you make a reasoned case for this.

Jawsus-son Starship

10:23 / 01.04.06

It feels not so much that you don't read them as that you don't think about how best to respond in the excitement of being able to respond.

yeah, that's very true.

I guess I like the idea of being able to express my opinion on here, and do so without engaging brain.

I'm sure I had a point, but now I don't know if it is really worth expressing, as it is so clearly going against the grain of what everyone wants to hear. And I have been up on this high horse for two days now, so my thighs hurt and I need a drink.

So ignore my rants from the previous few day - I need to find a way to challenge what I disagree with that is less problematic in getting my point across.

12:07 / 01.04.06

Perhaps you'd better start a separate thread. As far as I'm aware, "swearing" has never, in itself, been considered an issue worthy of moderation or, generally speaking, apology. If you're suggesting that we ought now to negatively register "fuck" and "fucking", I'd like to see you make a reasoned case for this.

Quite. I was a bit puzzled by this; I suppose there are swears that are problematic, such as 'b*tch', but I don't recall 'fuck(ing)' being anything other than, well, lauded. Perhaps using swears in a debate situation creates a tone of unnecessarily increased animosity?

12:49 / 01.04.06

Haus, please don't bring up the 'PCGM!!!!!!!!' point, I have changed this. I think Math was disagreeing with the persecution of the thread rather than agreeing with the sentiment of that phrase.

I am really surprised by some of the comments on this post.

I am really surprised people on a board like this can get so het up over some ill thought out words.

I am really surprised that even after I have explained the reference and apologised, people are still spitting out bile.

This feels like a right royal storm in a tea cup.

Jawsus-son Starship

13:09 / 01.04.06

Strong Truth.

16:12 / 01.04.06

I think we all know your position on this well enough by now, Math.

I owe an apology to Sauron. I'd read the thread as nothing more than a desperate attempt at shock tactics to further his own notoriety, troll-style, which is why I got a bit pissed off about it. The fact that it then managed to elicit exactly the kind of feeding-the-beast reaction I thought it'd been seeking didn't really help.

It still seems to be at least partly a thread designed to attract a specific reaction, by Sauron's own admission, but perhaps not in that way - or to the extent - that I originally believed, so sorry for that.

16:49 / 01.04.06

In his first post Sauron apologised fcr what seems, after all, to have only been an error of taste.

So, three pages later...

It's entertaining and so on, but for God's sake...

20:41 / 01.04.06

Okay. The correct response to most of problems listed in this thread would simply be to go, "What would be the grown-up thing to do right now?", potentially combined with a little bit of thinking, "What do I want the end result of this discussion to be?"

I would recommend that Sauron accept the fact that people reacted (or over-reacted) the way that they did, apologise for advertantly (or inadvertantly) being the cause of that reaction, forget about justifying the situation and step back from the scene of the accident. It genuinely doesn't matter after a while who's right or wrong, what matters is that we shut down an unnecessarily difficult situation and move on.

I'd ask everyone else to try and find ways to help him do this rather than hinder it. At the moment you're all just winding each other up. You want a good rule of thumb for avoiding unnecessary arguments: avoid cornering people or humiliating people, even (especially) when you're right. Give them a way out from the situation where they can save some face and everyone gets on better.

Similarly, to Math - please think about what you're trying to get out of this conversations? Is it useful to tell everyone that they're over-reacting? What's the end result of that likely to be? I'm not going to argue with the substance of what you're saying - but if you want to have this discussion, then find the core issue here and start a sober, calm, useful thread about it. It's not as immediately satisfying, I'll agree, but in the long-term it's a much better option.

Discussions like this just end up escalating with people getting gradually more aggressive and then at the end of it things get so difficult that people end up being ejected. I've seen that pattern on Barbelith a few times over the last few years and there's simply no need. Please let's avoid that, eh?

20:42 / 01.04.06

And to Sauron - obviously I know that you've done most of the above already. Please don't take this as me reopening something that's nearly finished.

20:43 / 01.04.06

I think it's pretty much petered out (or gone to PM) now, Tom.

09:40 / 03.04.06

Agreed. Finished as far as I'm concerned.

13:11 / 03.04.06

Having missed the whole debacle up until this thread I just want to compliment Sauron. Well apologised.

14:54 / 03.04.06

Humph. Okay. We'll I feel like a bit of an idiot now. Still, never mind. Carry on!

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:58 / 03.04.06

Righty ho!

I am really surprised that even after I have explained the reference and apologised, people are still spitting out bile.

I'm a little surprised by this, also. Can you show me where people were still spitting out bile, Sauron, shortly before 15:49, Barbelith time, 1 April 2006? Is it in the moderatore requests thread?

15:27 / 03.04.06

It genuinely doesn't matter after a while who's right or wrong, what matters is that we shut down an unnecessarily difficult situation and move on.

quoted without comment

except for: this is why you've got a bad rep innit?

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:31 / 03.04.06

Compared to who?

paranoidwriter waves hello

15:33 / 03.04.06

OK, everyone. Put your wagging fingers down and step away from the thread...

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