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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
I am writing this while trying to see through eyes that are blurred by tears. I just got word from someone whose posts have been extremely enlightening, and whom I admire a great deal, that he has decided to leave the board, due entirely to the undertone of ugliness that has been running through it of late. It had crossed my mind to make this plea anyway, and this message cemented my decision.
Please, please, could the posts containing bitterness and ugliness stop? I have quite enough of that going on in my real life right now, and to see it here, where I have always found so much joy, is...dismaying, to say the least.
I do know that life is not all sweetness and light: I was a Child Protective Services worker for 15 years. But this board has been such a refuge for me and for some others;
I fervently hope that it will continue to be that. I really don't want to come here with dread, wondering if I'm going to find yet another instance of somebody being awful to somebody else. Thank you.
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Joined: Jul 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
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Well, I don't yet know the identity of this person, but I regret that we would lose any person or wisdom due to what I see as something minor.
Jackie, it's obvious that I'm not as perceptive as you are in discerning attitudes or emotions, but I haven't noticed any major problems. All that's really happened that I can see as a cause for dissent is the rather vocal and opinionated dissagreements on what constitutes an interesting thread. This didn't seem particularly unusual to me, though, because we've had many in depth discussions about how to fix perceived problems, from YARTing to the amount of posts we have. Thomas Jefferson said that "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing" and that can be likened to many or our discussions like this. Someone brings up a problem, we discuss it, we voice our varied opinions and eventually we dismiss it as futile to settle, but we feel a little better in that it was discussed and we're aware that our behavior needs a little tweaking.
Some ambiguous or a little too harsh opinions may have been voiced recently, but I seriously doubt that anyone here has a true animosity toward anyone else such that he/she would want to defame another person. Dare I suggest that some of this might be due to the decision to lighten up on the use of emoticons that previously gave a clearer picture of when a person was merely jesting? Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding, but bitterness and ugliness, I doubt it, or at least I don't see it as that.
I'm sad to see someone leave us because of a problem in communication, but communication is really all we have here, isn't it?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Brandon is the person who has left, and he just sent me the following correction:
"...please understand that the ill feelings of late are not the primary reason for me leaving, though it did add to the flame. Imagine, if you will, that each post that enlightens and invigorates the mind contains a lumen. The recent posting on Time was certainly a 50,000 lumen thread. And it is threads like those that have kept me in AWADtalk so long.
Unfortunately, I'm using more lumens lately to keep my monitor going than I'm getting from AWADtalk. The ratio of lumens is being far outnumbered by posts of darker colors. Yes, some of those posts have been ugly, but the inside nature of many of the jokes and the irrelevance (to language, at least) of so many posts make the lumens I do find not worth the time I must invest scrolling through posts. In a typical day, I think, we'll have 100 or 200 posts to go through. I only find 10 or so enlightening. I do find the other 190 entertaining, but when forced to make a decision, I'll entertain my baby boy instead.
Again, this is all public information if you'd like to share with others. And thanks for doing so.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
I'm using more lumens lately to keep my monitor going than I'm getting from AWADtalk. The ratio of lumens is being far outnumbered by posts of darker colors.
Heavens! Are we becoming -- heaven forefend -- *parochial?
It seems likely that - over time - people will grow and change and so find new interests and there is a whole world of information on the Net some of which is even accurate!
So folks will come and go ... I am reminded of lovely Shoshonna from Israel who had to leave us as the tourist season began and her work increased ... I am glad she is busy but sorry not to have her with us . And there are many others like her.
Guess the Pooh-Bahs will just have to bear up and be anchors for this Great Experiment by Anu (bless him) and try to steer a steady course as folks come aBoard and then debark.
So, dear Brandon, wherever your voyage takes you :
Bon Voyage!
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
The board has become a community. Communities may have a common interest - language in our case - but they also have other concerns which get aired from time to time, or often all the time. Since so many of us spent a lot of our spare time here, the chances of all posts being purely language related are virtually nil. Here, I think I am fully supported by any even superficial analysis of the posts. I was concerned when I saw Jackie's statement that there was an "undertone of ugliness" on the Board. I have seen people peeved, I have been berated by peeved people, but I have never seen anything which was not, au fond, meant well within its own context. I cannot accept that there is a core of "ugliness" in this forum, because I have seen no evidence to support the allegation. Having said that, there are nearly 3,000 posts in Q&A which I am reserving for when I have more time, hopefully very soon. They could be ugly, but only if Faldage and AnnaS have fiddled with them behind my back. Brandon, good luck in whatever you do. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
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I very much hope that I have not been guilty of creating any of the "ugliness" that Brandon cited. I have been guilty of ribaldry, but not, it seemed to me, disproportionately more than my fellow culprits. If the ugliness referred to means potentially hurtful remarks, I have seen only a few unintentional ones, and when I did I spoke up about it, to the point of being teased about it. Faldage and I had a few bits of verbal rough and tumble, but none of it was meant to hurt, and in his PMs to me, he joked about it. So I don't know what ugliness Brandon was referring to. We all would welcome more erudition, but from whom can we recruit it?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Dearest Dr. Bill--
It was I, not Brandon, who alleged the "ugliness". A little of that came from the rants about going off-topic, but only a little. We have had similar rants before, and worked through them.
It's been kind of interesting, since I made that post: I've heard from about the same number of men and women, and all of the women say they have also been concerned, and all of the men said, "What on earth are you talking about?"!
Though one of the guys suggested that the think black bar across the top could be having a subliminal influence on us.
Now--I freely admit total subjectivity in using the word
ugliness, and perhaps I'm a little hypersensitive right now anyway, but: there have been posts that mention things that to me are crude and in very bad taste; I guess the one about those military men that let that guy go out of the plane, while knowing that he was going to die just pushed me over the edge. I know that a lot worse things have happened, but to read about something that awful, here--here, my place of refuge, joy, and laughter--
just...just...oh, I don't want the joy ruined, I don't...
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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I have been guilty of ribaldry, but not, it seemed to me, disproportionately more than my fellow culprits
*ahem*
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I might liken us to a group of people who met at a series of wine tastings given by some restaurant. Initially the topic of conversation amongst the people at the wine tastings would most likely be exclusively about wine, but as the people got to know each other after several meetings more and more other common interests would begin to become topics of conversation. Everyone would be there for the wine and some people would have interests not shared by the entire body of the community, but I feel it would be unrealistic to expect that the topics of discussion would have to be limited entirely to wine, particularly if the wine tastings were the only place that these people met.
Certainly we have opportunities to meet one on one outside the confines of this board. This one in particular met another one on this board with whom he has had many very satisfying meetings, but we should not deny the possibility of group meetings of friends from this board. The PM system would have to be completely revamped to allow this and too many of us do not consider the Chat Room solution to be in any way workable. We can try to keep Subject Lines up to date, but even that is not entirely satisfactory for those of us with severely limited bandwidth. Waiting for a long thread to load can be deadly. All we have is the board itself. Maybe what we need is to convince Anu to let us have explicitly non-linguistic forums. We could have politics, religion, sports, drama, entertainment, books, whatever.
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