Communication on this forum

[boomerang]

ETA: Apparently my mere presence on this forum in any form is just too overwhelming for the poor dears, so I'll make it easier on all of you and leave entirely. Maybe I'll come back in three years and you'll still be complaining about how horrible I was back in 2013.

In your extended time off do some soul searching in an attempt to understand why you come across as a condescending, know-it-all, holier-than-thou, control freak, prick. Your written word is infused with that attitude. If your personal life runs about the same, it may be time to quit blaming it on everyone else.

This meltdown has been in the works for the past week or two. You've been crying out for attention and not unexpectedly, the attention you've gotten is negative. It sounds as though it has come to a head. Please do leave. You aren't ever going to find happiness here only discontent. Leave for yourself.

This is a virtual world. It's not real. Forums do not lend themselves to the level of discourse you desire because the nuances that are present in face to face communication do not translate well. It can be tough to discern sarcasm from sincerity. It can be tough to understand that a single word written in a sentence is inserted for a little humor. The twinkle in the eye, the half smile cannot be adequately communicated by the overwhelming majority of us. Also, progressives live in a very literal world. Every word when communicating with progressives must be chosen with extreme care. Frankly, it's fucking exhausting. It does not lend itself to the "fun" aspect of participating in an online forum.

 

[davmat787]

What I find interesting is that while many have a list of demons from the other side, if we were to have instead met for beers and face to face communication, it would be much more civil.

If this is true, why is that? Internet anonymity? The fact that much of communication is also facial expression, inflection, .etc which does not work in a written word internet forum.

I also think both sides should do a better job of policing their own. Until your own house is clean, don't throw stones at the other side.

 

[SlickSnake]

This is a very illuminating thread for many reasons, and I'm surprised it turned out this way, frankly.

For some more perspective, let me give you a little background about the stubborn and obnoxious mindset of the people who populated this forum way back, from the very beginning.

I originally came here when this forum was relatively new (way back before my present join date) with a hardware problem with a new video card that just came out. The video card quite simply burned out my new MOBO after installing it. I traded the MOBO and video card out, and the same thing happened again. When I posted the problem here, I was immediately pegged as a moron who didn't know WTF I was talking about by quite a few of the old timers and mods, and I completely gave up trying to talk reasonably to them, and I left and stopped posting here for many many years.

So after all this unnecessary and ridiculous bashing here by the holier than thou tech idiots for about a week, I went over to Tom's hardware forums, where I cut and pasted the exact same original post I used here. At Tom's, the forum tech response was completely the opposite of the one I got here. Because Tom would never allow his posters and mods to attack someone over a simple tech post who was trying to get help. In fact, Tom himself immediately took an interest in the problem and duplicated my results several times and burned out a MOBO exactly like I had.

So the question is, why was Anand completely MIA then and letting his posters and mods at the time run roughshod over his tech posters rather than taking a more active interest in the forums that he was supposedly running and supervising?

Are some of the same mods here now that were there then? I have no idea, but I presume so, but the forum damage to the posters was done, over and over again, one innocent poster at a time, until they had run off literally thousands of new posters just for daring to post and ask a tech question here and being completely ridiculed over it.

And now you have the forums and many of the same crazed posters as they are, today, which is a direct result of all the immature stupidity that happened when these forums were started over a decade ago.

 

[woolfe9998]

Conservatives would post in the Discussion Club if they felt there was a benefit to doing so. We don't owe Charles anything. We don't owe liberals anything.



The beginning interest in the then-called Debate Club was from liberals who believed the structure would strengthen the persuasiveness of their views against conservatives. And it was followed up with many threads turning into a mockery of conservatives for not responding to their overtone-filled posts in their club.

I don't care if a select few liberals get gratification through their club. I know who I am, I know how I treat people around me in real life.

Let me get this straight. You perceive DC as a liberal sandbox and you don't want to come play in our sandbox? That seems like a pretty fair summary of what you said above. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The only reason there are more liberals there than conservatives is, well duh, because many conservatives have decided to not post there. If anyone made it into a liberal sandbox, it was you guys.

I think what happened here is that the original idea for it came from CK who is a lefty and many of you just pegged it as a "liberal" forum and ignored it from the outset. Not a very good reason to ignore it, particularly as CK has nothing to do with it anymore.

If the mods were really disfavoring conservatives over there, that would be a legit reason to avoid the forum. However, I don't see very strong evidence of that, given that Craig is the only one to have ever received a ban for postings in that forum.

- wolf

 

[boomerang]

What I find interesting is that while many have a list of demons from the other side, if we were to have instead met for beers and face to face communication, it would be much more civil.

If this is true, why is that? Internet anonymity? The fact that much of communication is also facial expression, inflection, .etc which does not work in a written word internet forum.

I also think both sides should do a better job of policing their own. Until your own house is clean, don't throw stones at the other side.

It might be civil and it might not. In every political test I am pretty much dead center. I know I'm considered a conservative here and I understand why. But I consider myself a libertarian. I give that background because I know that Conservatives and Liberals can get along. We can have a discussion, agree to disagree and see the merit in the opposing argument.

But here's where the problem comes about. Insert the Progressive into the mix. They are the take no prisoners, my way or the highway, I know everything and you're a stupid motherfucker for not agreeing with me group. There is no discussion to be had with them. You agree or you get belittled, berated, chastised and usually are called some names too.

As far as policing our own, well, it's a noble notion. I've already read SlickSnake's post above and my opinion will be centered around what you've said about policing but in context of SlickSnake's post. This is dangerous territory and words must be chosen carefully. This forum has reaped what it's sown. I worked for an enormous corporation for 30 years. The culture of a corporation, any company actually, comes down from the top and permeates the entire organization. If you want it to change, you have to start at the top.

Policing is happening. An individual who is very high up the ladder recently asked for some help from everyone. In his sig, which had been in place for a long time, was some language fairly viciously berating a large group of like-minded people here. He was called out on it and he changed it. So, maybe patience is the order of the day.

Just to be clear, I am well aware that I am as guilty of trespasses here as many others.

 

[boomerang]

Let me get this straight. You perceive DC as a liberal sandbox and you don't want to come play in our sandbox? That seems like a pretty fair summary of what you said above. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The only reason there are more liberals there than conservatives is, well duh, because many conservatives have decided to not post there. If anyone made it into a liberal sandbox, it was you guys.

I think what happened here is that the original idea for it came from CK who is a lefty and many of you just pegged it as a "liberal" forum and ignored it from the outset. Not a very good reason to ignore it, particularly as CK has nothing to do with it anymore.

If the mods were really disfavoring conservatives over there, that would be a legit reason to avoid the forum. However, I don't see very strong evidence of that, given that Craig is the only one to have ever received a ban for postings in that forum.

- wolf

I could spout out a whole lot of rhetoric to try and back up cubby's position but I think I can say it best by laying it bare.

Charles was about the absolute worst choice to co-mod that forum that could ever have been made. He evidently lobbied for the position and he was granted it. So be it. Charles has shown his true colors in his posts here for the past week or two. He has complete and utter contempt for anyone that does not think like him. He hates the conservative viewpoint. Hates it with a passion that burns very deep. I knew it shortly after he arrived here and I called him out on it repeatedly. We butted heads numerous times.

His attitude came through in too great a percentage of his posts in DC. It was pretty much blatantly obvious. To resurrect DC, a lot of damage control needs to be done.

 

[Retro Rob]

Let me get this straight. You perceive DC as a liberal sandbox and you don't want to come play in our sandbox? That seems like a pretty fair summary of what you said above. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The only reason there are more liberals there than conservatives is, well duh, because many conservatives have decided to not post there. If anyone made it into a liberal sandbox, it was you guys.

I think what happened here is that the original idea for it came from CK who is a lefty and many of you just pegged it as a "liberal" forum and ignored it from the outset. Not a very good reason to ignore it, particularly as CK has nothing to do with it anymore.

If the mods were really disfavoring conservatives over there, that would be a legit reason to avoid the forum. However, I don't see very strong evidence of that, given that Craig is the only one to have ever received a ban for postings in that forum.

- wolf

I can agree to some degree, but I do like the DC and didn't see Charles as the problem -- just the lack of conservative participation.

However, I think he being a mod (at the time), he always seemed to carry a condescending tone toward those who disagreed with him... and I don't think it would have mattered if he wasn't a mod.

I also agree that people prejudged him and the forum.

 

[cubby1223]

Let me get this straight. You perceive DC as a liberal sandbox and you don't want to come play in our sandbox? That seems like a pretty fair summary of what you said above. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I never saw a reason to join the type of discussions going on there.

The only reason there are more liberals there than conservatives is, well duh, because many conservatives have decided to not post there. If anyone made it into a liberal sandbox, it was you guys.

I think what happened here is that the original idea for it came from CK who is a lefty and many of you just pegged it as a "liberal" forum and ignored it from the outset. Not a very good reason to ignore it, particularly as CK has nothing to do with it anymore.

Charles came up with the idea, and I do commend him for it, it takes guts to try something new to improve a situation.

But if you go back to the time when this new sub-forum was being created, he went on a tear through P&N insulting people he pegged as conservative trolls, and the same pattern has resurfaced the last couple days. There are others who go around making insults a primary piece of their presence here, but this was something even more fierce.

And I also took great offense to a couple of the religion bashing threads that were in DC early on. Personally I am not a religious person though I do have a lot of respect for people who use religion to create a happier life for themselves and the people around them.

If the mods were really disfavoring conservatives over there, that would be a legit reason to avoid the forum. However, I don't see very strong evidence of that, given that Craig is the only one to have ever received a ban for postings in that forum.

- wolf

I have a story covering that too

Craig234's posts irritated me a lot, and one thread he was going on with post after post arguing that every person who serves in the military is an evil murderer, and everyone who has a job that directly or even indirectly aids the military is also an evil murderer. I created a reply to him with the express purpose of getting myself banned from DC and I succeeded! I no longer have access to even view the forum.


I became interested in politics only after the financial meltdown during the crafting of the stimulus legislation. After a few years of staying current on all the political talk I began to realize that politics is damaging to individuals, to myself, hence I've vastly scaled back my involvement in keeping up with the political world. I am not interested in being a part of that toxic political world. If DC has changed since then, like I mentioned, I do not have access to view it.


After I got myself banned from DC I completely left it at that, left the forum to progress on its own. I had not mentioned the sub-forum in any post until this thread.

 

[Retro Rob]

I never saw a reason to join the type of discussions going on there.



Charles came up with the idea, and I do commend him for it, it takes guts to try something new to improve a situation.

But if you go back to the time when this new sub-forum was being created, he went on a tear through P&N insulting people he pegged as conservative trolls, and the same pattern has resurfaced the last couple days. There are others who go around making insults a primary piece of their presence here, but this was something even more fierce.

And I also took great offense to a couple of the religion bashing threads that were in DC early on. Personally I am not a religious person though I do have a lot of respect for people who use religion to create a happier life for themselves and the people around them.



I have a story covering that too

Craig234's posts irritated me a lot, and one thread he was going on with post after post arguing that every person who serves in the military is an evil murderer, and everyone who has a job that directly or even indirectly aids the military is also an evil murderer. I created a reply to him with the express purpose of getting myself banned from DC and I succeeded! I no longer have access to even view the forum.


I became interested in politics only after the financial meltdown during the crafting of the stimulus legislation. After a few years of staying current on all the political talk I began to realize that politics is damaging to individuals, to myself, hence I've vastly scaled back my involvement in keeping up with the political world. I am not interested in being a part of that toxic political world. If DC has changed since then, like I mentioned, I do not have access to view it.


After I got myself banned from DC I completely left it at that, left the forum to progress on its own. I had not mentioned the sub-forum in any post until this thread.

I don't think he feels appreciated for the work he obviously put in making the DC worth posting in, but you can't get mad and then go on a "you're unable to have rational debate" type rampages when you don't get the respect you think you deserve.

 

[waggy]

Why do I need to "take feedback more seriously" when not only is the feedback total bullshit, I haven't been in a position of responsibility there for months?

I quit in large part so that the whiners wouldn't have me to whine about, and they're still doing it. What does it take, you want to cut off a testicle or something?

Why don't one of you heroes volunteer to be a moderator there and see how wonderful you can make it. I think Incorruptible would do an awesome job, personally.

ETA: Apparently my mere presence on this forum in any form is just too overwhelming for the poor dears, so I'll make it easier on all of you and leave entirely. Maybe I'll come back in three years and you'll still be complaining about how horrible I was back in 2013.

and this ladies and gents is why it failed..

The issue between us is that you think the problem with the DC is the users, I think it's the structure. You think conservatives are afraid or not bright enough to post there, I think they see a basically hostile environment where dissenting opinions aren't well received. The difference is that in your point of view the failure is the users, in mine it's the management.

/this

a few post by CK cemented that. i had no desire to go back.


I loved the idea of DC. i will talk about something and have had my mind changed on a few stances i have had. When DC first started i did post there more then PN. but when 90% of the post were by 1-2 people and the topic swere dominated by them it really made no sense to stay.

 

[Sinsear]

ETA: Apparently my mere presence on this forum in any form is just too overwhelming for the poor dears, so I'll make it easier on all of you and leave entirely. Maybe I'll come back in three years and you'll still be complaining about how horrible I was back in 2013.

Lol, getting all butt hurt over the internet. Get a life.

 

[Greenman]

I think DC is salvagable if they get the right moderation in there. But it will take a special person(s) to undo what's been done.

I completely agree.

 

[Greenman]

There is no "structure". It's a forum. It works exactly the same way as this one, except the trolling and other obnoxious behavior is not allowed, and people are expected to debate in a logical manner.

It hasn't thrived because most people either can't do that, or don't want to. It's really that simple.



It's not dissenting opinions that aren't well-received, it's opinions that are factually incorrect, not well argued, and/or not well supported by evidence. It just so happens that 90+% of what conservatives post in P&N fall into those categories.

I don't know if I'm allowed to name names here, so I won't. But anyone can scan through P&N and see the usual suspects, over and over again. All they are interested in is repeating talking points and flaming the other "team". They aren't all right-wingers, but most of them are. That's why these people don't post in the DC, not the victimology nonsense that you and a handful of others have been repeating over and over for months.

One of the reasons I resigned was to remove this bullshit excuse that my oh-so-unfair moderation was making it hard for the tender sensibilities of the right-wingers around here. There's only one moderator there now, and he's a long-time admin who is a conservative. But the right-wingers still don't post there. And that's because the vast majority of what they have to say is either unconstructive or can't withstand rational scrutiny. There ARE some people on the right who post there, generally those who are actually capable of writing a readable paragraph without drooling on their keyboards. Most stay here because they don't want to discuss, they want to propagandize and scream, and much of the time can't even understand what they are reading.

Well there's your answer then, the DC can't work because conservatives are stupid. Perhaps when you explained what a fair and balanced section the DC is you simply didn't say it slow enough for them to understand?

 

[Greenman]

Why do I need to "take feedback more seriously" when not only is the feedback total bullshit, I haven't been in a position of responsibility there for months?

I quit in large part so that the whiners wouldn't have me to whine about, and they're still doing it. What does it take, you want to cut off a testicle or something?

Why don't one of you heroes volunteer to be a moderator there and see how wonderful you can make it. I think Incorruptible would do an awesome job, personally.

ETA: Apparently my mere presence on this forum in any form is just too overwhelming for the poor dears, so I'll make it easier on all of you and leave entirely. Maybe I'll come back in three years and you'll still be complaining about how horrible I was back in 2013.

And it ends with a rage quit. Good luck CK, learn a little humility and life will be a lot easier.

 

[CrackRabbit]

I never saw a reason to join the type of discussions going on there.



Charles came up with the idea, and I do commend him for it, it takes guts to try something new to improve a situation.

But if you go back to the time when this new sub-forum was being created, he went on a tear through P&N insulting people he pegged as conservative trolls, and the same pattern has resurfaced the last couple days. There are others who go around making insults a primary piece of their presence here, but this was something even more fierce.

The real problem is that really are conservative (and a few Progressive, though they don't post nearly as much anymore) trolls that are a pollutant to P&N.
You get rid of the really obvious trolls and the forum improves 10x right away and it becomes a place where the discussion may be barbed but can take place.
Right now there is little point to bothering because the trolls have taken over.

 

[shortylickens]

Why do I need to "take feedback more seriously" when not only is the feedback total bullshit, I haven't been in a position of responsibility there for months?

I quit in large part so that the whiners wouldn't have me to whine about, and they're still doing it. What does it take, you want to cut off a testicle or something?

Why don't one of you heroes volunteer to be a moderator there and see how wonderful you can make it. I think Incorruptible would do an awesome job, personally.

ETA: Apparently my mere presence on this forum in any form is just too overwhelming for the poor dears, so I'll make it easier on all of you and leave entirely. Maybe I'll come back in three years and you'll still be complaining about how horrible I was back in 2013.

Dude, you stormed in and tried to take control of a place and population you clearly didnt understand. Thats your fault, not ours.

If we were truly civilized do you honestly think we'd have so many issues in P&N?
And what does making a new forum fix? If you cant run one correctly why would a new one be any different? That part doesn't even make sense.

You should moderate the hell out of your blog or website or whatever. You have absolute control over there and can nix people you don't like on a whim.

Its not like here where we have due process and clearly defined boundaries and the mods are objective & impartial.

 

[Greenman]

Its not like here where we have due process and clearly defined boundaries and the mods are objective & impartial.

You on the pipe again Shorty?

 

[BlueWolf47]

Absolutely not. But you didn't agree to the Highly Technical suggestion, you were agreeing with what Dr. Pizza said in his first sentence. Nowhere in your reply did you make even the slightest reference to the Highly Technical forum. (I know you're going to say otherwise you rascal you!)

But, notwithstanding that, will your abundance of Climate Change posts be in the Highly Technical forum from now on? I'm hoping for a yes. I think P&N will benefit greatly from it. No more will any of us in here have to endure a "climate change conspiracy circle jerk based on pseudoscience". We'll all be better off.

P.S. You do know there actually is a Highly Technical forum, right?

Its not my fault you dont understand the statement, I completely agree.

 

[shira]

Yes because being a liberal is the most logical thing to do and disagreeing means you're stupid!

I see this all the time on here.

FWIW I have no idea whatever drama happened to you and you are fine by me. Just dislike the liberal logical high horse.

You misconstrued the point being made entirely. The claim wasn't that being liberal is logical, and if you disagree you're therefore lame. No, the claim was that if you look a the quality of the posts, you'll see that the great bulk of the irrational, illogical, "truthy" posts are coming from the right. I agree. I mean, I see lots of bad posts from liberals, but the hands-down champions for quantity and abysmal quality are posters on the far right.

 

[woolfe9998]

I could spout out a whole lot of rhetoric to try and back up cubby's position but I think I can say it best by laying it bare.

Charles was about the absolute worst choice to co-mod that forum that could ever have been made. He evidently lobbied for the position and he was granted it. So be it. Charles has shown his true colors in his posts here for the past week or two. He has complete and utter contempt for anyone that does not think like him. He hates the conservative viewpoint. Hates it with a passion that burns very deep. I knew it shortly after he arrived here and I called him out on it repeatedly. We butted heads numerous times.

His attitude came through in too great a percentage of his posts in DC. It was pretty much blatantly obvious. To resurrect DC, a lot of damage control needs to be done.

We don't have to agree about CK for the following point to have merit: none of what you said above is a reason to avoid DC long after CK stepped down as mod. Heck, he hardly even posts there any more. What "damage control" needs to be done? If you can't point to anything but CK and CK is gone then it's unclear what you think needs fixing.

 

[woolfe9998]

I never saw a reason to join the type of discussions going on there.



Charles came up with the idea, and I do commend him for it, it takes guts to try something new to improve a situation.

But if you go back to the time when this new sub-forum was being created, he went on a tear through P&N insulting people he pegged as conservative trolls, and the same pattern has resurfaced the last couple days. There are others who go around making insults a primary piece of their presence here, but this was something even more fierce.

And I also took great offense to a couple of the religion bashing threads that were in DC early on. Personally I am not a religious person though I do have a lot of respect for people who use religion to create a happier life for themselves and the people around them.



I have a story covering that too

Craig234's posts irritated me a lot, and one thread he was going on with post after post arguing that every person who serves in the military is an evil murderer, and everyone who has a job that directly or even indirectly aids the military is also an evil murderer. I created a reply to him with the express purpose of getting myself banned from DC and I succeeded! I no longer have access to even view the forum.


I became interested in politics only after the financial meltdown during the crafting of the stimulus legislation. After a few years of staying current on all the political talk I began to realize that politics is damaging to individuals, to myself, hence I've vastly scaled back my involvement in keeping up with the political world. I am not interested in being a part of that toxic political world. If DC has changed since then, like I mentioned, I do not have access to view it.


After I got myself banned from DC I completely left it at that, left the forum to progress on its own. I had not mentioned the sub-forum in any post until this thread.

Well being banned from it is a pretty good reason to avoid it!

BTW Craig has been ignoring me for three years now, ever since I sent him a PM saying that I thought he had some valid political points but he should tone down his rhetoric if he wanted to be persuasive. That was it. Three years later, he's still ignoring me.

I don't blame you for reacting that way to Craig. I usually agree with him on domestic issues but his views on foreign policy frequently nauseate me.

 

[Angry Irishman]

This post sure took a turn that was not expected.

 

[Soundmanred]

I think anyone banned in any other subforum has to post here multiple times a day for a week before they are let back in.
Only then will they realize how good the other forums are compared to P&N.

 

[Richard N]

No, the mistake was having a separate place where the undesirables were not welcome, as opposed to simply banning them from the forum.

It's easy to sit on the sidelines and jeer those trying to make things better, as evidenced by yourself and a few others who have been griping about the DC incessantly ever since the start -- if not before that.

Any effort to do anything about the low quality of discussion and the constant irrationality and abusive behavior is derided as "hubris". What you call "hubris" I call "trying to make a place where people don't have to deal with abusive people incapable or uninterested in reasoning".

But again, apparently most of this forum actually likes mindless propagandizing, threads with people who can't even respond to an argument logically, and lots of flaming and nonsense. So fine, you've got your "non-hubris" forum. Here it is. Wallow in it.

This is an "Elite" member? Elitist prick is more like it. Charlie could go back to his own forum, but it is as big a failure as DC. Whatever tho, see you around Chuckles :biggrin:

 

[dank69]

This is an "Elite" member? Elitist prick is more like it. Charlie could go back to his own forum, but it is as big a failure as DC. Whatever tho, see you around Chuckles :biggrin:

wwybywb?