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General Headshop reflections

  
  

Page: 12(3)4

 
 
pointless & uncalled for
09:17 / 28.09.06
It's about message vs. interpretation.

If you come fresh from learning only to be criticised and sent off to do some learning in order to better contribute then the kindly message of let us help you learn more about this topic becomes a lament that you just didn't learn a damn thing at all.

I'm speaking from personal experience here which is rather old and thus makes pointing to incidents difficult. However, I do recall attempting to comment on the subject of marriage only to be referred back to a text that I had already read. Admittedly this was in my more distemperate days and not only did I feel stupid but also angry. Could probably laugh about it now.

I think that it could be concluded from those of us who identify more with Group A that new or fresh forays into the HS are oft done with a fragile ego and it doesn't take much to leave us feeling not up to the task.

On a different line, does anyone sense some irony that those of us who find it difficult to match up to the demands of the HS are experiencing some difficulty defending out trepidation?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:31 / 28.09.06
Well, that may or may not be ironic, but it's certainly predictable - I mean, if you're uncomfortable talking in the Head Shop, then talking about the Head Shop is probably also going to be a bit charged.

Hmmmm.

I'm afraid I don't recall the marriage discussion, Ig, but did you feel that the person who was referring you back already knew that you had read it? Or was it just that they had assumued that you had not from your post, even though you had? Was the intent to criticise your understanding of the text, or from a sincere belief that you had not read it, and that to do so would have helped you to construct your thoughts?
 
 
Saturn's nod
09:36 / 28.09.06
On a different line, does anyone sense some irony that those of us who find it difficult to match up to the demands of the HS are experiencing some difficulty defending out trepidation?

I think it's important. I'm really glad that some of Lula's group A are persisting with this. I appreciate the learning you're helping me with: I'm someone who's not finding it too difficult to post in Headshop at the moment and I'm curious about why I experience it that way. As I see it, we have a change to change things if we are willing to undergo the discomfort of telling it like it is. From my own experience it's horrible and difficult to speak out about feeling excluded, and that feeds into my thankfulness that you and others are willing to do that at the moment. Without feedback about things being wrong, how can the system learn?

To return the the point before that again,
I'm speaking from personal experience here which is rather old and thus makes pointing to incidents difficult. However, I do recall attempting to comment on the subject of marriage only to be referred back to a text that I had already read. Admittedly this was in my more distemperate days and not only did I feel stupid but also angry. Could probably laugh about it now.

That's a great example though: here's how I'd begin to interpret it constructively. I'm getting from that comment that it's strategically helpful to your readers to name the background reading that's informing the way you're writing. Could it also be inferred that pointing out (with the exact quotes even?) what is obfuscated or confused in a particular text you've read, is valuable for your readers' understanding of what you are trying to communicate?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:49 / 28.09.06
Saturn's Nod (referring to your last-but-one post): Well, sometimes anecdote is simply unhelpful, rather than denying the experience of others'. To take an example from someone no longer with us, there was a thread on androgyny, to which Vladimir J Baptiste posted a lengthy and touching (and borderline genius) of his androgyne self-perception, which was ontopic, if a bit hermetic. However, he then started to tell us the latest on his adventures in bisexuality, in a way that essentially treated the thread as a LiveJournal - not referring to anyone else's posts. This encourage others to do the same - basically posting lengthy accounts of when and where they had kissed a boy, or wanted to, which was getting in the way of actual progressive and engaged discussion.

Which is tricky, because you want people to feel able to talk about things they might not have other areas to talk about them in, and again perhaps a lot depends on approach - basically, on being polite, on giving people an easy out - like "That's very interesting, but I think we might not be able to keep this discussion going if the thread is used for that and for personal recollection. Could you tie it into question (x)? If you would rather share your experience, then that's certainly of interst, but it might get a broader audience and more responses in the Conversation"... sort of thing?
 
 
Saturn's nod
09:51 / 28.09.06
Indeed.
 
 
pointless & uncalled for
10:17 / 28.09.06
Unfortunately I can't recall the specific details. However it was unlikely that the responder would have known my sources because I rarely, if ever, cite them.

I realise my response of kicking off a shitstorm was unproductive but that was me then. I realise now that I don't really know how to read these texts. Being counselled to read relevant and supporting material is no guarantee that I'll understand it properly, ergo the referral is redundant.

A valid question here is whether the regular denizens of the HS are willing to guide others through interpreting source material properly?
 
 
Lurid Archive
10:21 / 28.09.06
If I can speak for others...I'm pretty sure we are all willing to help others understand. But, of course, we shouldn't be treated as a unified group and so "understanding" can be a complicated concept here.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
10:34 / 28.09.06
Haus, this is a genuine question-post with lots of careful "caveats and parenthesis", because I'm a little confused about how Olulabelle and others are being treated in this thread and t'other. Justso you know, I don't think you or anyone else (for that matter) is being wilfully rude or anything, but I can't helped think that ignominious has a point when ze types:

On a different line, does anyone sense some irony that those of us who find it difficult to match up to the demands of the HS are experiencing some difficulty defending out trepidation?

I admit, I'm a bit biased, because I think Olulabelle is a considerate, empathic, and very intelligent member here; so I may be leaping in to defend when it's not necessary. So, Haus and others who know teh HeadShop faaaaaar better than I:

1) Do you think there is anything wrong with the HeadShop?

2) What do you think might need to be done to make it more (erm...) inviting?

(Please feel free to PM me, if this post is off-topic or is confusing matters; not my intention today.)
 
 
Smoothly
10:41 / 28.09.06
I don’t think reticence is just about a reluctance to appear stupid. Barbelith isn’t, by a large, a place where people are afraid to admit that they don’t understand things, as the success of the Stupid Questions and 101 threads shows. What I mean is, I don’t think it’s always about ego. A lot of the time, I don’t post there for fear of getting in the way. HS threads might not require a specialist knowledge of something, or substantial background reading, they often draw people in who do have those things. And when HS threads are zipping along, it’s often because two or three posters with some expertise in the area are discussing it. If I were to interject to say that I didn’t understand something, I wouldn’t expect it to be met with derision, but I wouldn’t expect it to be exactly welcomed, either. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t see why any forum should have to make every discussion accessible to everyone.

So I wonder if it would help if more Group A posters started Head Shop threads. That way, they will have more influence over the terms of the discussion, and by taking ownership of some threads, feel a greater degree of ownership of the forum.
(Although, thinking about it, the last HS thread I remember starting got 0 replies, which was disheartening, so that suggestion might be flawed).
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
10:51 / 28.09.06
I get what you mean. But if I don’t see why any forum should have to make every discussion accessible to everyone. is (for example) flipped on its head we get:

I don’t see why any forum should have to make every discussion inaccessible to everyone.

Neither of which I think anyone is asking for. It's not so much about not having read something, as not having read the same copy, edition, translation of universal ideas. Derrida and the likes are worth reading, but they don't hold all the Authority. Some people don't even publish books.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
10:59 / 28.09.06
Just returning to the issue of accessibility for a moment -- Lula, I didn't read what you wrote originally as being 'about you', personally. I read it as you speaking about a dynamic. I was trying to be helpful, and if you read it as patronising, I apologise. On the other hand, there is nothing patronising in the sentiment that it's good to learn more, and that 'we' all could do with that.

Nevertheless, what it seems you want is for everyone to be able to understand everything in Head Shop threads without needing to read, research, go away and think, get other sources, etc. I don't know that this ever happens in any forum. In the Film and TV forum, it's gerenally accepted practice to have watched a TV show before posting about it. Could you please respond to that, and tell me whether you think I'm onto something there? If so, why is the Head Shop different?

I also appreciate Lula's efforts to continue putting the case of 'Group A'. But I don't think it's possible to divide Barbelith down the middle as members of Group A or B. As I've tried to explain many a time, my feeling is that everyone feels insecure and unimportant in the Head Shop. This can be related to actual knowledge, but more often it's about one's mood on the day, how clearly one is thinking, hunger, health, what the thread topic 'triggers', other shit going on in one's life, the phases of the moon, the weather... It waxes and wanes. Some people only post when they're feeling confident. Others build a fake sense of confidence into their fiction suit, and perform a 'carefree' attitude. Some people courageously write into their posts that they are not at all sure of the sense of what they're saying, or whether it's relevant. When that happens, it quite often opens the way for even less 'confident' people to post. Perhaps we can all try to do that a bit more?

Lastly, there is no 'requirement' for a good Head Shop post. This is possibly where Haus and I differ; I think of it as a completely random process and i don't believe in a 'standard' everyone should aspire to. Sometimes it hits the mark, sometimes it doesn't. Every person posting to the Head Shop has been challenged at some point. Does it matter? Are we so fragile and breakable that we can't make ourselves vulnerable to any kind of disagreement, challenge or different way of thinking?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:04 / 28.09.06
PW - Relating to your first post: I think your two questions are already being discussed, and I'm afraid I don't see how they relate to the rest of your post. As such, I suggest we continue with the discussion currently ongoing. Your second post I simply don't follow, and I don't see how it plugs in to this discussion. If you're confused about anything specific, feel free to PM me.

SW - That's interesting - I mean, personally I think people would generally be happy to take a bit of time to "brief-in", but on t'other hand if you've got three subject specialists talking, then it might be tricky for somebdoy to get up to speed enough quickly to contribute beyond questions. However, I don't see a complication inherent in having that higher-level discussion while also answering questions from people who would like help in following it if not contributing to it.

Hmmm... examples. The "transwomen are not women/transmen are not men" thread, where who cares? (that's his name, rather than editorial) came in with some questions about how gender was constituted that were operating at a more structural level than the ongoing discussion. I think the thread was able to handle both at once.

Generally, I think subject specialists are usually quite keen to talk about their subject, and to do it at a number of levels. I'm always happy to talk about the basics of my specialist subjects, on those occasions that they appear (primarily what Transformers do with their winkies), because I like to be useful and because I like the idea that I can help people to get a handle of any kind on something I feel is useful.

Maybe we need a more approachable or less "interrupty" way to ask questions? The obvious one would be the PM system - one could PM people asking for support, reference or explanations of particular terms, and then if they felt it was a useful question to be covered in the thread and read by a wider audience they could with your permission reprint it in the thread with their response, or they could just reply by PM. Generally, though, I think that relevant inquiries are best handled in-thread, because they may well contain information that is interesting to a braoder readership.
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:11 / 28.09.06
Barbelith isn’t, by a large, a place where people are afraid to admit that they don’t understand things, as the success of the Stupid Questions and 101 threads shows.

Funny, because I look at those threads and come to the opposite conclusion. That is, those threads do well because they are explicit about providing a non-hostile environment in which to display ignorance and ask questions. Would there be any need for those threads if people felt free to ask questions in a "normal" thread? Maybe, since the questions are sometimes too small to require their own thread, but I'm not sure.

As I've tried to explain many a time, my feeling is that everyone feels insecure and unimportant in the Head Shop.

I don't feel like that really. I sometimes try to advance positions that will be difficult for me because I think I learn more that way, but thats possible because my comfort level is pretty high. Lots of people feel insecure, sure, but there is a qualitative difference between general insecurity in posting and one which prevents one from posting at all in the HS.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
11:12 / 28.09.06
A valid question here is whether the regular denizens of the HS are willing to guide others through interpreting source material properly?

Well, a deconstructionist (which is kind of where I'm at, theoretically) would say that there is no proper, or correct, way to interpret writing, theory, or anything. On the other hand, I'd be more than happy to give my interpretation of things and direct people to books I've found useful for figuring out X or Y argument, if I feel confident enough to do it.

On the other hand, if someone is positing an argument about a theorist that I reckon is wildly off-radar, I will generally say so. But again, there's no ground of correctness, ever. There's just... opinion! And the sources used to back it up.
 
 
Olulabelle
11:34 / 28.09.06
Nevertheless, what it seems you want is for everyone to be able to understand everything in Head Shop threads without needing to read, research, go away and think, get other sources

I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that. It's completely ridiculous.
 
 
pointless & uncalled for
11:36 / 28.09.06
Yes, a decontructionist would say that, but does that exclude non-deconstructionists from the HS? It's not about getting a specific definition or reaching a specific point in understanding. It's about acheiving definitions or understandings that are of a standard that is valid enough to be entered into the discussion.

In regards to the above, don't look at it as an attempt to draw a line of division in barbelith but look at it as pointing to two moderate ends of a spectrum.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:43 / 28.09.06
I'm going to try this again. Lula, without talking about anybody else at all, what do you think about when you think about the Head Shop. Do you respond personally in a different way to discussions in the Head Shop than to discussions elsewhere? Don't talk about the standard in the Head Shop and what it means for other people, don't talk about other people's intentions in responding to your posts and don't talk about a whole group of people and what informs that group's feelings. I want to hear about you. I am all about your feelings.


Yes, a decontructionist would say that, but does that exclude non-deconstructionists from the HS?

It just means that if one asks a deconstructionist to provide a canonical reading of a text, they won't, surely? They'll probably be happy to provide their opinion, though, which can then be added to the interpretative toolkit in the approach to the text.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:44 / 28.09.06
A valid question here is whether the regular denizens of the HS are willing to guide others through interpreting source material properly?


Personally, I'm with Disco - I don't know if interpreting source material correctly is a meaningful concept, but I'm certainly willing to share with people my understanding of source material, or more usually probably just the thinking behind my perspective on an issue, since my approach to the Head Shop tends not to be very source-based.

I think, in fact, that doing so can have productive effects on both parties - it's not a purely didactic process. People have certainly by asking me about my arguments highlighted things I had missed or steps I had skipped. It can also be handy for revealing differences in understanding which might lead to avoidable difficulties in communication - for example, back in the day Bilious Bogg and I had a discussion about history which I think both of us found quite frustrating - until we went back a level and discovered that our educations had given us two different understandings of what history was - he had studied modern history, and expected a verifiable progression of chronological events, whereas what he saw as a postmodern refusal on my part to recognise the existence of historical fact was actually a premodern conception of history as a conflicting mass of interpretations of sketchy data about preliterate societies. We would never have had the opportunity to compare those perspectives if we hadn't had the discussion.
 
 
Lurid Archive
11:51 / 28.09.06
Yes, a decontructionist would say that, but does that exclude non-deconstructionists from the HS?

No. I'm not a deconstructionist. And yes, people will help you understand something in a way which is as correct as they can manage.

I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that. It's completely ridiculous. - lula

Mister Disco is neither trying to patronise you, nor trying to misread you. He may be doing both, at least from your point of view, but not intentionally. If you respond with that in mind, in other words correcting miscomprehension as to someone who genuinely wants to understand what you are saying, you will find it'll get you somewhere. Thats a long and frustrating process if the other person doesn't see what you see, and you don't see how they aren't seeing....but it usually works, to some extent, as long as you trust in the good faith of the other person.
 
 
Smoothly
12:11 / 28.09.06
Funny, because I look at those threads and come to the opposite conclusion. That is, those threads do well because they are explicit about providing a non-hostile environment in which to display ignorance and ask questions. Would there be any need for those threads if people felt free to ask questions in a "normal" thread?

I know what you mean, Lurid, but I think those threads came about more because people didn’t want to turn every topic on a given subject into a 101 thread. There was the ‘snark-free’ provision, and it troubled me at the time that this came with an implicit suggestion that all other threads should remain ‘snarky’. But again, wasn’t the feeling that the kind of snark 101 threads offered refuge from came about as a result of people bowling into threads without knowing their Barthes from their Adorno? It was about the interruption rather than ignorance being in itself objectionable, wasn’t it?

This is much like real life, isn’t it. I’m often in a group some of whom will be talking about something that I don’t know much about. Sometimes it’s appropriate to lean in and ask questions; sometimes it’s just going to be a distraction for them. In those situations I’m more likely to ear-wig for a bit and maybe pick up on anything that piqued my interest in another conversation. I think that’s sometimes the best approach here.

As Misted Disco says, there are elements of exclusivity in every forum. Although it might be important for the community that every member should feel free to contribute to the Head Shop, that doesn’t mean that they should feel free to contribute to every thread in the HS. I wonder if we should be looking at ways to expand and diversify the forum, rather than bend what there is towards those not currently posting there. What Haus and others have said about their willingness to retread their thinking is very encouraging. Instead of PMing, perhaps starting a new thread would be a good idea. That way, the flow of the original thread is not interrupted or diverted, the new thread can be couched in terms suited to the interested poster, and it’s all there for everyone to see.

Flyboy had some success revitalising the Music forum with a heart-felt plea for new threads, and I wonder if the Head Shop would benefit from the same?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:16 / 28.09.06
Instead of PMing, perhaps starting a new thread would be a good idea.

Yeppers - that could work. Or have a "stupid Head Shop questions" thread, where people could ask about stuff without feeling guilty about interrupting, if it was something less meaty - just a "Who's Baudrillard" rather than "That quote makes me think of a related but different topic".... all possible, definitely.
 
 
Smoothly
12:22 / 28.09.06
There already is a Stupid Theory Questions thread, isn’t there. I was thinking about starting dedicated threads for the added benefits that Flyboy’s plea for people to start new threads (rather than add to the 'What Are You Listening To?' thread) had on the Music forum.
I suppose there is a danger that the HS would become diluted with lots of short threads begun from a position of relative ignorance, but it might make the forum feel more accessible. I guess it’s a balancing act.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
13:20 / 28.09.06
Yeah, Haus, but "stupid" Head Shop questions don't go down very well, do they?

Oh.. hang on... I dunno actually, I'll go and read that thread and see how everyone was treated. The threads I started in HeadShop and have been asked to contribute to are still a revelation to me, after all.
 
 
pointless & uncalled for
13:34 / 28.09.06
A valid question here is whether the regular denizens of the HS are willing to guide others through interpreting source material properly?

In response to the responses to this, I should have been more clear on this. I was implying in thread assistance which could be time consuming and interruptive to the discussion process.

The PMing for support suggestion upthread isn't that good because it limits the range of audience that can respond and/or learn from the questions (and answers). If a mechanism is to be put in place then an appendix thread for related but tangental discussion would be more helpful and accessible.
 
 
Persephone
14:11 / 28.09.06
I can only think of one example, and it was the Angel Meat thread --it was about whether vegans could eat angels? Maybe I'm weird, but I was really excited about that thread. The questions you could get into! What are vegans? What is an angel? What is meat? But it was briskly tidied away to Conversation within twenty-four hours, where it was turned into angel meat jokes.

That was dispiriting to me. I thought at the time that it pointed to the problem with the Head Shop being taken too seriously. I prefer a playful approach to theory --it's fun, but it can also be rigorous.

Personally, I would like the Head Shop not to be swept quite so clean --a little less moderator action there. But then also these threads will need some elbow & I seriously would have done this for the angel meat thread; but by the time I was out of bed, it was already in Conversation and people were making hamburgers out of angels.

I dunno, does anybody want me to say more about this?
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
14:38 / 28.09.06
Definitely. I do, P. (honestly)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:34 / 28.09.06
Any idea how far the angel burgers jokes had gone before it was moved to Conversation, Pseph? And, for that matter, how much thought had gone into the originating post? In general, a thread will stay at about the quality of its first post, so a moderator might have felt, in the absence of your contribution arriving in time, that the thread belonged in the Conversation. Having said which, how could we have addressed that? We could have moved the topic back into the Head Shop, right? Or we could have started a new thread in the Head Shop, having ascertained that the subject matter itself was not the problem. Or we could have made a concerted effort to wrench the discussion upwards, while leaving the thread in Conversation. These could all have been tried, but I fear I don't recall if any of them were...

I think perhaps we need to communicate that their are options - you can post without being a subject specialist, you can discuss things that aren't immediately related to philosophpy, cultural or gender studies, and you can do things with threads beyond move, abandon or lock.

In other news, if you'd like to talk about veganism, I heartily recommend Ex's excellent thread on food and body image, which is touching on how veganism functons in different cultures and societies.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
15:41 / 28.09.06
I think perhaps we need to communicate that their are options - you can post without being a subject specialist, you can discuss things that aren't immediately related to philosophpy, cultural or gender studies, and you can do things with threads beyond move, abandon or lock.

I agree. 100%.

Plus I'd add something about basic respect, manners, apologies, and (more importantly) forgiveness.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:44 / 28.09.06
PW, I think it might be useful if you paused before advancing abstract concepts as if they were solutions. They are not. They are abstract nouns, and in themselves neither provide a clear picture of what you want to advance as desirable forms of behaviour nor how you see these forms of behaviour applying to the Head Shop.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
15:50 / 28.09.06
Haus, you winding me up?

Should I use numbers instead?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:50 / 28.09.06
In fact, let's break it down:

Plus I'd add something about basic respect, manners, apologies, and (more importantly) forgiveness.

Ok, so you've got four things there. Respect, manners, apologies and forgiveness. Could you provide an example of a situation in which each of these concepts was satisfactorily and/or unsatisfactorily represented in the Head Shop, and the impact you thought that it had on the discussion?
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
15:56 / 28.09.06
Bingo?
 
 
HCE
15:57 / 28.09.06
1. Persephone, I would like to hear more about it too, particularly to find out what you think the Head Shop is, via hearing about what you think could have been done with that thread if it had been left in place.

2. Just to make sure it's clear, when I suggested people ask questions I wasn't going for the 'go the look it up' effect. I was trying to think of strategies that people who felt uncomfortable could use to get acclimated, by sharing some techniques that had worked well for me in the past. Sometimes you just want to participate, you want to get in there and play, but you don't have anything really juicy to offer. I try to meet my own need to play and still respect the need of other to have a productive thread by asking about things I don't understand or making a (brief! song-lyric-free!) comment about feeling that I'm learning a lot.

3. I have a very hard time keeping anecdote and "I" out of my posts. That's just the way I write. So again, trying to find harmony between my own need to talk the way I talk and the need of others to get some value out of my contributions, I try to state rather than imply the connection between my anecdote and the thread topic, and to state that I know my observations are based on a tiny, tiny, wee sample of human behavior, rather than assume that people will know I'm aware of that.

4. Can a similar compromise be reached between the group A and group B folk (and neither one feels like a fit for me)? Can group A-ers who feel anxiety try to go ahead and post anyway, as best they can, and group B-ers try to show not only what's wrong with a faulty post, but how it might be made right? Fuck-ups are going to happen. I know for a fact that at some point I'll say or do something awful. It doesn't have to be a horrible experience. Can't learn to ride a bike without getting a few scraped knees, as it were.
 
 
HCE
16:00 / 28.09.06
Paranoidwriter, You Are Doing It Again.

I would like to say something extremely rude and angry to you right now.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:01 / 28.09.06
So, for example, your current posts are not, to me, shopwing respect. Nor are they showing manners. They are, in fact, apparently calculatedly rude and offensive, and most importantly of all they do not appear to display any interest in discussing the Head Shop. As such, they are disrespectful to me, but also disrespectful to the other people who might want to participate in this thread and indeed to the institutions of Barbelith, one of which is that the Policy will not become a venue for contentless posting.

Now, a good way to rectify that - to behave respectfully to the thread and to show good manners, would be to apologise for your rudeness, and not to post again until you were equipped to address the topic under discussion - the Head Shop - with some comments specifically relevant to the discussion that has been going on so far. I could then show forgiveness by responding to those useful, relevant comments without allowing my reaction to be affected by the lack of respect and the bad manners your current posts appear to me to be displaying.
 
  

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