Site Topics - Part II

Originally Posted by Thomas

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come again?
Meh, it may not have been malicious on your part, but your promotion of all things dumb around here helped make this the kind of place where adult posters are less inclined to stick around. That stuff's abundantly available elsewhere. No need to bring it here.

Originally Posted by dah328

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Meh, it may not have been malicious on your part, but your promotion of all things dumb around here helped make this the kind of place where adult posters are less inclined to stick around. That stuff's abundantly available elsewhere. No need to bring it here.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by dah328

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Meh, it may not have been malicious on your part, but your promotion of all things dumb around here helped make this the kind of place where adult posters are less inclined to stick around. That stuff's abundantly available elsewhere. No need to bring it here.

If you do a post search you'll see that Manton made it very clear that he appreciated Thomas' gentle humor and was himself a devotee of the Dumb Thread. This may be your gripe, but I don't think it was Manton's.

I hardly think you can hold Thomas responsible for all the idiots that abound on SF.

Originally Posted by appolyon

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I hardly think you can hold Thomas responsible for all the idiots that abound on SF.

+1. I, for one, could never be as dumb as Thomas. No matter how hard I try.

Originally Posted by dah328

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Meh, it may not have been malicious on your part, but your promotion of all things dumb around here helped make this the kind of place where adult posters are less inclined to stick around. That stuff's abundantly available elsewhere. No need to bring it here.
I think it's kind of unfair to put it on Thomas. Posters like Vanity (and current posters along similar lines) are probably a more appropriate scapegoat for this.

Originally Posted by dah328

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Meh, it may not have been malicious on your part, but your promotion of all things dumb around here helped make this the kind of place where adult posters are less inclined to stick around. That stuff's abundantly available elsewhere. No need to bring it here.

Most of the DT regulars, Thomas included, are pretty good about keeping the dumb in DT. The problem with DT spreading beyond its borders is tied to a smaller group of DT posters who don't seem to realize that DT behavior isn't appropriate in other parts of the forum. I agree that the proliferation of idiocy has been bad for the forum, but I think it's unfair to blame certain posters based solely on the fact that they're strongly associated with DT.

Manton or anyone else is capable of clicking the ignore button and tailoring SF to suit their fancy.* Though depending on how much of a control freak you are you may end up alone in your SF bunker, the last american patriot.

* Puns only intended for those people who already have me on ignore anyway.

Originally Posted by JustinW

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If you do a post search you'll see that Manton made it very clear that he appreciated Thomas' gentle humor and was himself a devotee of the Dumb Thread. This may be your gripe, but I don't think it was Manton's.
This is true and Thomas is not of the same ilk as many of the others, but you can't promote DT and not expect it to attract the others and spill over into other areas. I was more inclined to highlight Thomas' comment because he's among the few that had any value outside of DT. Most of them are complete wastes of bandwidth.

Originally Posted by dah328

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This is true and Thomas is not of the same ilk as many of the others, but you can't promote DT and not expect it to attract the others and spill over into other areas. I was more inclined to highlight Thomas' comment because he's among the few that had any value outside of DT. Most of them are complete wastes of bandwidth.

Fair point.

Originally Posted by MrG

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Most of the DT regulars, Thomas included, are pretty good about keeping the dumb in DT. The problem with DT spreading beyond its borders is tied to a smaller group of DT posters who don't seem to realize that DT behavior isn't appropriate in other parts of the forum. I agree that the proliferation of idiocy has been bad for the forum, but I think it's unfair to blame certain posters based solely on the fact that they're strongly associated with DT.
Yeah, I think I partially agree with you based on my previous post. I disagree on the whole compartmentalization of DT behavior, though. It always ends up spreading.

Originally Posted by MrG

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Most of the DT regulars, Thomas included, are pretty good about keeping the dumb in DT. The problem with DT spreading beyond its borders is tied to a smaller group of DT posters who don't seem to realize that DT behavior isn't appropriate in other parts of the forum. I agree that the proliferation of idiocy has been bad for the forum, but I think it's unfair to blame certain posters based solely on the fact that they're strongly associated with DT.
i don't think the problem can be blamed solely on DT. for the most part, DT is dumb but amiable. I think the trouble starts when DT cross-pollinates with other, less friendly sections.

Originally Posted by dah328

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Yeah, I think I partially agree with you based on my previous post. I disagree on the whole compartmentalization of DT behavior, though. It always ends up spreading.

Reading your second post, it does look like we agree fundamentally. I suppose I may be giving people too much credit. I don't have any trouble going "OK, I'm not posting in DT right now, so I probably shouldn't act like an idiot." I guess I don't understand why others can't do the same thing.

Perhaps it goes back the the heavy-handed moderation conversation from a few pages back. The idiocy proliferation could be controlled by strict moderation, but then you run the risk of over-moderating and killing the forum. We have a lot of lattitude here, but that comes at the price of some people abusing that lattitude.

Regardless, it sucks that it can't be compartmentalized effectively, because, even as someone who loves DT, I hate the fact that it so readily spreads to where it doesn't belong.

Originally Posted by foodguy

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i don't think the problem can be blamed solely on DT. for the most part, DT is dumb but amiable. I think the trouble starts when DT cross-pollinates with other, less friendly sections.

For sure. I've said in the past that I think CE has a similar problem to DT. The behavior that's only acceptable there tends to spill over into other subfora, and it's not a good thing. The snark, pettiness, and so on that defines CE is OK (or can be ignored) when it's confined to CE, but it gets really ugly when it spreads to other parts of the site.

Perhaps the solution is to take a heavy handed moderation approach to DT? If it is not genuinely funny, but only dumb for dumb's sake, timeouts should be issued.

It would raise the bar on dumb and curb the overspill into other forums.

Yes, I still read (for now). Hard habit to break. Sue me.

I must defend Thomas. I don't consider him in any way responsible for my decision nor anything but an asset to the site. Aside from the fact that he taught me how to sharpen my knives (thanks, Thomas!), I have found him to be wholly good-natured and often very, very funnny. He is one of the people who makes the site a community, and one of the ones I miss.

Nor, as many assume, am I fed up with Dumb Threads. The truth is, I hardly ever go (went) in there. I don't really read it. The only time I do read it, or post in it, is when I see an amusing thread at the top of the page so that it shows up on the main (all forums) page. I have started a very small number of my own threads there, most judged to be failures, and mostly don't find that part of the site all that interesting.

There are some things that bug me about the direction of the site overall. I don't care for all the scat humor. I don't care for all the crass sex talk and soft Appreciation (or worse). I don't care for the junior high locker room atmosphere that seems to get stronger by the day. I don't care for the stupid boasting. And I don't care for the shoot-first meanness common in the CE and getting more common elsewhere.

But all that was bearable (to me), if barely at times. What I found unbearable was when all those trends combined in a really ugly manner that was indistinguishable from bullying and stalking. What also hacked me off was the fact that, somehow, a bump to a Buy-Sell thread gets you insta-IP-perma-banned but this other garbage gets you a parking ticket. And finally, the widespread sentiment--reiterated above by redcaimen--that the ignore function solves all. That there's nothing wrong with the underlying behavior. The problem resides with the little sissy who objects.

This forum seems to be completely succumbing to the spirit of "Serious business!!", which really is just a license to behave as crassly and cruelly as possible. Everything is fair game and if you object, you are the one who has a problem.

Fun is fun and I like to have fun but so much of what goes on here is worse than what 13-year-olds at their worst do and say, and all of us are a lot older than that.

To those who point out that I am a jerk, fine. All I can say is that I tried hard never to start fights in the CE or anywhere else. I suppose I failed occasionally. I got into a lot of fights to be sure but if you look at the record honestly, I think you will see how the vast majority of them started and why.