Stay on topic

[alias_sqbr]

In any place on the internet where multiple people get together to talk (forums, communities, or even the comments to a blog post) there are going to be rules of communication. As I discussed in my Freedom of speech doesn't mean what you think it does post, the owners and maintainers of these spaces have a right to expect you to follow those rules

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

For some strange reason, the AVCOn forum has two off-topic sections. One's called "Off Topic" and the other one's "General Discussion", which is described as "a place to discuss anything not related to AVCon".

Heh, yeah that sounds really user friendly :)

Whenever people whinge about censorship etc. on the site, the owner posts a link to a page saying that the First Ammendment of the US Constitution only means that the government can't lock you up for saying they suck, and anyway the site's run and hosted from the UK so the First Ammendment doesn't apply anyway.

But that's a violation of their second amendment right to shake their tiny arms fists!

[hipikat]

If this topic interests you in general, you should totally be twittering :)

The twittersphere is still young enough that you can actually see the etiquette emerging. The distributed nature of connections and the fact that some local networks of people will follow one set of rules - while connected via the same global network to other local networks following other rules - makes it fascinating in a novel way.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, I have more than enough mis-matched netiquette experiences to study on lj *mutters*

(Also, I do NOT need another time sink, and blogging is better suited to a rambly soul such as myself)

[auntpol]

This totally reminds me of something I saw happen on longhair. Someone posted asking if anyone knew if marijuana use would slow the rate of hair growth (which I think is quite on topic for the comm). But one member left a very snarky sarcastic comment which was like "ohnoes, I love smoking pot but will it liek stop my hair growing??!!eleventy-one". Someone confronted her about it and she said that she didn't want the glorification of drug use on her friends page

[alias_sqbr]

Ha, yeah I guess that's the flipside to the coin: just because you are in the target demographic of a community and so have certain things in common with the other members, don't expect them to have anything in common with you in other areas.

Wow, those are some in-depth rules! They do bullet points and clarifications even more than I do, I like it :)

[stableglynn]

All good points, except you do realise that some people have the same reaction to the feminist group as the more sane of us would have to an I-love-nazis group? So they would feel perfectly justified in posting an anti feminist rant under your last point.

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, but in a sense they are "justified": the problem is the underlying belief that feminists=nazis, not (necessarily) the actions they take from there.

However, most of the people I've met who post stuff like that fit into two camps:
1) Trolls pretending they are interested in reasonable debate, and acting all aggrieved that feminists etc are so "narrow minded"
2) People genuinely interested in trying to understand the feminist or whatever point of view but lack the insight to realise they're asking in the wrong place in the wrong way

Thus my post can be used in two ways: To point out the flaw in group (1)'s argument, and to explain to group (2) where they're going wrong.

I have myself been in group (2) on a number of occasions, which in part inspired me to write this to get it straight in my head.

In which I tease...

[stableglynn]

Fair enough. Did you post to an I-love-nazis group and wonder where your post entitled "Hitler was a mass murderer and why you're as likely to be genetically close to an African as another Aryan." went wrong?

;D

Re: In which I tease...

[alias_sqbr]

OMG how did you guess??

:)