A Personal Schema for Meta, by cupidsbow

[cupidsbow]

A Personal Schema for Meta, or Why You Say Po-tay-toe, and Sometimes I Hear Po-tah-to

an essay by cupidsbowI had no idea until today that I had a personal schema for meta, let alone that it's quite sophisticated and complex

Comments

[lauredhel]

I had a different hotbutton pressed with that one - the ridiculous frea-speacher idea that if you make your personal feelings publically readable in your own space, that space is no longer yours and you have no right to challenge or react negatively to (let alone delete, which wasn't addressed) comments on your own blog.

Erm, no. Your space, your rules, and you can be as capricious, tendentious, or arbitrary as you bloody well like. (Not that I actually think you were being any of those things!)

This isn't the same situation, but I mused a little a while back on the general concept of people appropriating personal and painful stories to promote a political agenda opposite to that of the author, here. In case you're interested. It was an ethical musing, not a rights-based one.

[cupidsbow]

I read that! I thought it was very interesting, and I agree that it's an unethical practice.

The free-speech issue did press my buttons too, but by that point I was was already angry, and had poked her with a stick. So I think I must take some responsibility for her reacting defensively.

I tend to expect such a broad range of responses to my public posts, both negative and positive, that it's really, really rare for me to get angry at anything. That's why I found it so interesting in this case that I did, and thinking about it helped me learn something new about myself. So I'm calling it a win.

[lauredhel]

In that case - yay!

[ide_cyan]

Is it the tone of her comment that made you angry, or the mode of it? Or the content?

I can't presently think of a tone through which invalidating someone's emotions might come off agreeably. But neither can I think of a tone that would in itself invalidate someone's emotions. (Even sarcasm has to have an object.)

here via metafandom @ delicious

[doro_chan]

So do you guys have complex schemas like this, in which you have a set of assumptions guiding how you post and the responses you expect? What does your schema look like? And is this even a useful way to go about things, or is there something better, something less likely to lead to 'tonal mismatches'?I have a problem regarding meta as well, but it has less to do with tone and more with my style of arguing, which a lot of people obviously don't get, but I have no idea why. I generally understand what people try to say quite well, even online, and even if they don't manage to get their point across to many other people because of 'tonal mismatches'. I had no problem identifying your post as being about a personal impression of yours regarding a fic and your try to rationalize it. I didn't read the argument you're referring to, though

Re: here via metafandom @ delicious

[ide_cyan]

I argued that because of the way they argued (declaring incest as wrong and disgusting and that it ruins the spirit of the source material for them) Wincest fans wouldn't want to post their opinions in a forum which made it clear from the beginning that their opinon is invalid, if not in general, at least to the individuals they would be talking to.

That's politics. Or, well, sociological factors influencing interactions between people; so, politics.

The example doro_chan gives is of a public forum where -- I presume -- the people who start discussions threads aren't, ultimately, in control of those threads (excepting moderators, perhaps), and where there is a group situation and a force of numbers which is different from the situation encountered on a thread started in someone's LiveJournal. On personal journals the boundary between public and private isn't quite the same, and the journal's owner has a stronger basis for controlling the debate than a thread starter on a public forum. But the force of numbers can still take effect: if it's a

Re: here via metafandom @ delicious

[doro_chan]

But the force of numbers can still take effect: if it's a popular journal, it the entry is highlighted for attention in a popular venue, then any sort of commenter can theoretically come in, and create friction with the post's author.

Definitely. It happened on my journal as well, when metafandom linked to a post of mine about a topic that was popular at the time. So I think it's also a matter of whether the post is flocked or not. Some people might perceive a flocked post as open to anything they want to say, while they wouldn't post their opinions in the comments of a flocked post.

Re: here via metafandom @ delicious

[ide_cyan]

Friends-locking post limits its pool of possible audience members to people who already have some previous form of relationship with the author.

[ide_cyan]

I think I tend to start out trying to be right, but I don't necessarily have an expectation that I should receive a response according to a schema based on the mode of my discourse. (The semiotic success of a posted text varies according to the commensality of its auxiliary performance codes?)

How much does the expectation of a codified response rely on the expectation of the audience one will have? Does an expectation like the latter increase by the degree of audience interaction someone tends to get?

I'm not particularly popular. I don't have a particularly pristine reputation online. A part of that may be due to the fact that "matching tones" doesn't necessarily seem like the better goal to me. Which sometimes sucks royally, because it's personally damaging, because sometimes other people put a premium on matching tones, or misread my intent according to their perception of my "tone", but there are things that cannot be accomplished by that goal, and points of view that are unattainable within that framework

[cupidsbow]

You know, you're right. I have mislabelled. I was thinking about it from the perspective you allude to, of the way in which the word "tone" is used as a supression technique, especially in discussions of race or gender

[crysothemis]

This analysis is interesting, and as I see it, the underlying issue is common ground -- what's assumed to be known between the two (or more) parties having the conversation

[cupidsbow]

I love metafandom, but sometimes it means people talking completely cross-purposes, because someone comes in assuming a different common ground

Yeah. That's what I think too. Because I'm usually expecting pretty much every kind of response to my meta, I rarely get peeved. Surprised yes, and quite often I roll my eyes hard enough to sprain something ::g:: but not angry.

I think that's why I was so startled this time, and I'd rather not go through this again if it can be avoided. The more I think on it, though, the more I think you're right: there's just no way to shorthand enough of the background for the random pass-through traffic, and that means there's always going to be that gap between intent and meaning. This is a problem that's built-in to social networking because it encourages familiarity between total strangers. Hardly a new revelation to me, but I'm newly interested in how or whether I want to negotiate it.

Do you have a strategy -- I mean other than my usual, "expect anything" approach?

::perves on your roots ;)::

[crysothemis]

Unfortunately, I don't think I do have a strategy. I mean, you labeled your post very clearly as a rant. It was clearly a personal reaction. As someone who has read a fair bit of your meta, it seemed obvious what sort of meta it was, even without the clarification and categorization you laid out in this post

Via metafandom

[countess_baltar]

I think that's why I was so startled this time, and I'd rather not go through this again if it can be avoided. The more I think on it, though, the more I think you're right: there's just no way to shorthand enough of the background for the random pass-through traffic, and that means there's always going to be that gap between intent and meaning. This is a problem that's built-in to social networking because it encourages familiarity between total strangers. Hardly a new revelation to me, but I'm newly interested in how or whether I want to negotiate it.Hmmm...how to respond to a post that is linked to a "community"...but originates in a "personal space

[cupidsbow]

Thank you. That means a lot to me. <3