Right, now what's this business with 'Oh please, ..someone else mentioned that once before' or 'That's a YART!' going on here of late. If the vast majority of people adding to the thread have not related their opinions on a particular topic then surely they are warranted to do so (an indication that the topic has been touched upon with a link will suffice). After all we all are just reiterating the information of others and/or other opinions on it anyway. Nothing much discussed here is entirely untried, nothing is strikingly new or novel. Doesn't mean it's necessarily rehashed; when topics are rediscussed they often take new unexpected twists.
Since silence is supposed to be an ambivalent response these days (see other posts fluttering around making a virtue of it), I thought I'd respond and tell you that
Since silence is supposed to be an ambivalent response these days (see other posts fluttering around making a virtue of it), I thought I'd respond and tell you that
I agree, and I've got another reason why I will sometimes restate a subject. Perhaps some others run into the problem as well. My computer gets seriously bogged down on any subject that runs more than 30 posts. A subject that's up into the 50's is downright painful. I don't even try anything over 60 posts, unless I'm desperate. Threaded or flat, it can be difficult to find or continue something YARTish.
So until the message program or this computer improves.....
Dear belligerentyouth: I agree with you that bringing up an old thread should not be strongly objected to. The old timers can ignore it, and the newcomers may enjoy it. We can have so many threads going at once that it deprives nobody. And the newcomers may well have interesting new slants on an old thread. And again,DOWN with acronyms.They are a disagreeable way of teasing the newcomers.
I agree... except in the case of my last YART call where there are only three topics under that category, none of which have more than 15 posts (currently), and the discussion is closer to a "mirror" than a "rehashing" (they are right next to each other), and I'm not inclined to start making "YAMT" calls... but it would be fun . - belligerentmusick
Dear Faldage: ronward started a new genre, the shaggy motto. Remember, aut numquam testes, aut perspice. He had slyly substituted "testes" for the original Latin word. Let's not deprive him of his shortlived triumph. Let's see if we can find some other amusing versions.
musick, your back on topic, must've stumbled upon the topic/title instead of spewing stream of consciousness onto the page. Maybe looking cool upon the thread topic (save a glaze or a mention) is seen as smart. Those choosing to reprimand others for repeating topics might display a little more caution in using a thread as their own personal whimsical-thoughts disposal area.
Oh dear Belly, you're serious about this. And here I thought you were encouraging us (egging us on, spurring us forwards) to be flippant and frivolous, feckless (the opposite of fecker?) and fancy-free. Ah well... let's be serious then.
You cannot legislate for love (my own made-up cliche). In addition, respect can be commanded, but not demanded (this was one of my mother's favourites). This place may represent the tragedy of the commons (from philosophy, political theory and game theory).
In short (imagine me, here, standing like Corporal Trim in front of the fireplace, leg out at just the angle required to create the perfect balance between forcefulness, to attract the audience's attention, and grace, so as not to be impolite, recounting the story of Dr Slop's downfall to Uncle Toby and Walter Shandy), this is a free space. We do (I sincerely believe) respect the community spirit or culture that obtains here. And yes, some of us have our hobby-horses. Religion makes me see red. YARTs do it for others. Intolerance for others, and acronyms for a fourth group. What I like about this place, however, is that in general we do not take these things personally, or make them personal. We do usually take them seriously, though.
I have also noticed that, unlike the alleged choruses of approval or disapproval implied by silence, that a long surreal digression on an initially serious thread topic can often mean that the posters wish to acknowledge the existence of the thread, but cannot express a serious opinion for fear of causing offence - the jesting is a way of distracting attention, of defusing the bomb, of deflating tension.
Or maybe I'm just talking through a cocked hat.
What do you think? (Come one, come all - all opinions available here. Ladeeez and gennulmen, I offer you my opinions. I know that designer opinions cost money - well, take a sniff of these! Can you tell the difference? No! Do they look any different? No! They are identical but I got them off a job lot - fell off the back of a truck, y'see. And I'm not taking those fancy two thousand percent margins that your posh shops are. So I'm offering you these opinions at, what's that you say? 30 quid? No. No, indeed ladeez and gennulmen - its' not 30 quid, it's not twenty quid. Ten? Lower. Five? You can't believe it can you? It's not even a quid, my friends. Yes gather round. I'm selling these opinions, not for a quid apiece, not even two for a pahnd, not even five for. Yeee-e-e-e-sss. Ladeez and gennulmen, I'm giving you these opinions for FREE. Yup. Thass right - step up young gennulmen, collect these free opinions. It's Mothering Sunday soon - why not wrap up a nice "Condescension" for your mam. Or how would your young lady - I can see you've got your eyes on each other, you can't fool me - like a little bi' of "Ethical trading values" to set off that lavvly brooch she's wearing? And what about you, young sir - every man this season is wearing an original "Endemic racism" opinion - sure you don't want one...? {GBS shakes his head, scratches out all he's written so far, and starts off with a different character - still cockney, but perhaps he'll call her Eliza...hmmmm.... could be funny...})
Whoa - I always wondered what Shanks did for a living. Costermongrel!
It is interesting how no serious discussion of religion has begun on the Board since I joined, and it's one of the blessings which I am always grateful for. Politics is also only lightly touched upon (except for the occasional heavier footfall) and even then it's generally treated with humour and understanding of peoples' differences and respect for their divergent opinions.
And I think we'd all agree that those are the subjects which are most likely to set off acrimonious debate of the kind that ends in tears and virtual auto-da-fes in the Forum.
Let's not let our own pet peeves about other people's actions on the Board (including starting YARTs, mirror threads and excessive use of colour) become the object of being on the Board. I think I've said before that I've followed other fora which descend into general slagging matches. Let's NOT become one of those, eh?
Shanksy, I might have misunderstood you, but it seems your saying 'All our posts of admonishment are in jest'. If this is so, does it mean that any who misunderstand that 'humour', and in future worry before posting about whether a topic is fresh enough, are essentially in the wrong place? Maybe then the motto here could be: Laugh or get out.
> ..it can often mean that the posters wish to acknowledge the existence of the thread ..
This indeed holds some truth. It is, nevertheless disconcerting for a new member to post a request/question/note, and after 20-30 posts to have only a bunch of 'insider' jokes and personalised banter to decipher. Taking this into account, members shouldn't be so surprised that a meager few of the ca. 2300 actually make posts.
I'm not sure if I mean that admonishments are in jest. Yours, for instance, didn't seem to be that way. What I meant was, I think, that I hope we do not take admonishments personally, nor mean them that way (on the rare occasions that we make them). Being serious is fine - and sometimes necessary - but one can be serious without being grave, or touchy.
As for the other issue, you may be right - perhaps the insider jokes are intimidating to some. Perhaps on most threads most responses are less than germane. But what would you have us do? To 'control' our postings, even if only through acts of self-control, would also seem to undermine the spirit of this board. Notice that, apart from the flatulential yells of YART from time to time , newcomers aren't rebuked for posting (no matter how obvious the question may seem), are usually welcomed for joining in, and usually also find at least one or two serious responses to their queries. I'd suggest this is already a great deal better than almost any other internet forum I've seen. To try to make it even more newbie-friendly, as it were, would, IMO, be twisting the tourniquet of etiquette too tight - we have, I suspect, lost some marvellous contributors to objections of this sort before, and I would be loath to see it happen again.
I certainly do not want to force some silly etiquette upon those here, but ask that those already comfortable practise the slightest bit of caution in e.g. indicating a YART. I don't think many would be desperately offended if the caution isn't taken but it may prevent a dampener being put on otherwise fun subjects.
Aside: Shanks, you're not one of the 'reckless posters' anyway. I think you just like to debate. If I'd held the opposite stance, would you have defended the contra? You're a real moderator though. Perhaps you should be a diplomat!
Aside: Shanks, you're not one of the 'reckless posters' anyway.
Dang. And poot. And here I was trying to uphold my reputation for being a 'lethal weapon'...
I think you just like to debate.
Ya got me. Shot through the heart for being a natural contrarian!!
If I'd held the opposite stance, would you have defended the contra?
Eeep. You're not my mother by any chance are you? How do you know me so well?
You're a real moderator though. Perhaps you should be a diplomat!
I was. They called me Dr Strangelove!
But seriously. On the YART issue - a possible solution for you. Take the pee out of any post that says YART. I might even go so far, to be polite, to call it excessive ylatulence in public, and start an off-topic game. Do to them Yartists-formerly-know-as-prince what they do to you. Get your retaliation in first and fear not the Chinese missile treat - it will not rot your teeth.
cheer
the sunshine (tact? Who you calling tactful? You lookin' at me? You lookin' at me?) warrior
You pretty much said it all, shanksy! T'other thing that occurs is that when someone calls a yart alert, it may often be simply to say "hey, look, there's some other stuff already on this area of chat that may be relevant" - it's not automatically dismissive of any other discussion. After all, otherwise we all risk turning into absent-minded bloody goldfish by the time we've hung out here for two trips round the bowl
B-youth, you wrote that you...ask that those already comfortable practise the slightest bit of caution in e.g. indicating a YART.
A reasonable request, and one that has already been done. You should see some of the ways in which we old-timers did it to each other. What's done now is quite mild, by comparison. Maverick made an excellent point. Often, there is simply some information that we'd like to point out. Shanks made excellent points, too, about how we try to show new people they are welcome, and about us old-timers. Surely you have old friends with whom you share private jokes. Well, so do we. We enjoy it. Like shanks (sort of) said, I think it would be expecting too much, for us NOT to do it, so...please try to: give us a break; consider that a yart alert may not spring from negativity, and if you feel that one does--get over it! Or wite the person. Damn it.
Like shanks (sort of) said, I think it would be expecting too much, for us NOT to do it
In fact, I suspect my attitude is more one of - it would be too much to expect us to do it, and still be the same people/board.
This notion then (shades of Joyce, or was it Proust?) set me thinking about the nature of identity - thence to my favourite philosophical play, Beckett's Krapp's Last tape which, if I remember rightly (student days, alas, how long ago they now seem, although some of my hell-raising friends from that period are now meeting in Bombay and reliving the experience of the inter-lecture dash to Apoorva bar, the quick beer, and the race back to the lecture theatre...) was based upon the conceit of Krapp listening to tapes he had made earlier in his life, recounting his feelings and attitudes, and the fact that the earlier tapes seem to have been made by a different person altogether.
The question of identity, and its stability over time, is a much vexed one in philosophy, with different thinkers coming up with different notions. A smattering:
1. There ain't no such thing. Personal identity is an illusion. See the Buddha.
2. Identity is memory. As long as you can remember who you were, or being that person, you're the same person. Locke et al.
3. Identity is absolute. You are given a 'soul' and it's the same thing throughout. See any decent Christian apologist.
4. Identity is genes. Similar to the Christian view - you are given this one thing, prior to birth, and nought else is allowed. Popular amongst racists and fascists, funnilly enough.
5. Tabula rasa. You are the experiences you have had. Locke again, but more popular amongst modern social scientists who cannot stand the notion of a position of 'privilege'.
For me (circuitously leading back to the notional topic of my post, if not of this thread), the Buddha (with a touch of Locke) seems to have it about right - we seem to be an ever-shifting congeries of qualia with the possibility of tracing some causal connections between one set and a preceding one, but no guarantee of being able to do so; the point being that this might be a perfect analogy for this Board as well: AWADtalk is both an entity and a collection of independent entities, its identity depending not just upon the formal url or title or statement of intent but also upon the interaction between the various elements, their comings and goings, their shifting areas of influence, and the self-referential nature of their activities - all of which means that AWADtalk today is not what it was yesterday, nor exactly what it was a year ago when it began, and yet it seems to retain a hint, an element, a soupcon (pardon the lack of cedilla) of integrity as regards its identity that is, to regulars, something to be cherished and will ever form the basis of the dynamic tension between elements that desire variation within a particular set of constraints that appear, to them, to define the identity of this board, and those who are desirous of changing the constraints themselves.
And who is to say which group is right?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
ps. 228 words in that sentence - but was it coherent? Hmmm.... [stroking beard emoticon]
wwh - I don't know why but Americans often seem to misname me Ron Ward. It was I (Rod Ward) that adopted the motto, but I truly found it listed for the Ward family while browsing through Fairbairn's Book of Crests, as one does. So I claim no credit, other than for the bad translation.
Dear rodward: Please forgive my senile moment in which I misspelled your name. I had another just now, and had to go back and correct it, having made the same mistake twice. I am reminded of the British newspaper that in an article just prior to WWI referred to the "Clown Prince of Germany". And the next day printed an apology which read: "You may be assured that when we wrote "The Clown Prince of Germany" we meant the "Clown Prince of Germany".
Dear wwh: Thanks for the gracious apology. Of course I get slightly peeved when someone misnames me, but actually I am interested in why this should happen so often over a long period, as far as I remember only with Americans, and always to Ron, not Roy or Rob, Tod, Red, or any other appellation.
'Of course I get slightly peeved when someone misnames me'
given the experience you've cited, might i suggest that it was your *parents* that misnamed you? i mean, why blame a multitude when you could narrow it down to one or two culprits?
<---closest i could come to a tongue-in-cheek emoticon
I get slightly peeved when someone misnames me, but actually I am interested in why this should happen so often over a long period, as far as I remember only with Americans, and always to Ron, not Roy or Rob, Tod, Red, or any other appellation.
I speculate that it is because "Ron" is a common name in the US, while all the others - Rod, Roy, Rob, Tod and Red - are relatively unusual. I have known many Rons in my life, but only one Rod and two Robs, and no Roys, Tod(d)s or Reds.
"Ron" is a common name in the US, while all the others - Rod, Roy, Rob, Tod and Red - are relatively unusual.
Interesting because I've always thought of Tod/Todd as a typical US'n name. There are lots of people from different parts of the English-speaking world who seem to think my name is Roger rather than Robert.
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. - belligerentmusick
, newcomers aren't rebuked for posting (no matter how obvious the question may seem), are usually welcomed for joining in, and usually also find at least one or two serious responses to their queries. I'd suggest this is already a great deal better than almost any other internet forum I've seen. To try to make it even more newbie-friendly, as it were, would, IMO, be twisting the tourniquet of etiquette too tight - we have, I suspect, lost some marvellous contributors to objections of this sort before, and I would be loath to see it happen again.
