Wow……I like the paint job around here. It looks so…..what’s the word I’m looking for????.......FESTIVE!! And that little Canadian twist on the PM send button is cute as hell too! I like it, I like it a lot!
Miss Amie asked me if I could weigh in on this topic. I had reservations in doing so as I’m not much of an example to follow considering my totally ignorant PC way of conversing, but I never could say no to a pretty girl. At least I’m assuming she’s pretty, if what she writes has any correlation between the two……. So what the hell, I might as well throw in my nickel.
So it seams as if things have gone south around here to a point in which this “War Zone” concept is even being considered. Well, I’ve been killing time on these boards for about two years now, and to be blunt……..the place has gone way south from where it was two years ago. I’m guilty for this course change as well as many of you are too – so don’t think I’m throwing mud from my ivory tower. I’m not. I’ve got a temper and I say things off the cuff that just come natural to me. It’s just how I talk. I never was much for chit-chat or taking the time to consider how what I say will be taken by EVERYONE. It’s too damn hard and takes too much work because really, there will ALWAYS be SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, who finds conflict with ANYTHING that is said……It’s just human nature. But that’s just being lazy as was already mentioned, and so are a bunch of y’all with what you say and tone you deliver it with. But we all know that communication is what separates humans from other animals, right? Without it, we’d all be rubbing sticks together and living in caves. So it’s all our own personal accountability to take the extra time and effort involved with considering other points of view and beliefs, and do our best to not say hurtful things. We should also be accountable to take the time and try to understand how others see things. We are all different and see things differently. To understand does not mean to agree, but everyone should at least try to UNDERSTAND and not ASUME that what they say is what we THINK they are saying.
The accoutabity piece is the hard part. At work there is a hammer at a supervisor’s disposal to hold folks accountable for what they do and how they do it. It’s called a paycheck. At home it’s taking the kid’s X-box away or something else in the form of punishment. But on an internet discussion forum, holding someone accountability for their actions is quite difficult. Not only difficult, but a downright pain in the but for the moderators. I know, I was a moderator years ago on a racing forum. If you think audio/video enthusiasts are a feisty bunch, just try to disagree with racing enthusiasts. God forbid if someone has a preference for nitrous over forced injection, or if aluminum heads are better than iron heads. Speaker wires is a walk in the park in comparison. I absolutely hated being a moderator. Deleting posts, cleaning up strings, banning folks, trying to keep the piece with teenagers that ‘know it all’, blah, blah, blah….it sucked. But without moderators on those boards, it would be a free for all of hate and discontent. Lot of work for the moderators, but it was / is necessary. I think it is also necessary for these Axiom boards as well. Someone with a level head that can see all THREE sides to a conversation to smooth the waters will go a long ways in keeping the piece. Not only that, but it would eliminate the “posse” mentality around here that has always been a peeve of mine. A posse is nothing more than a mild form of a vigilante squad in my opinion. They support their personal views and way of thinking, which isn’t always middle ground or it’s skewed to their way of thinking.
Some of you have made comments to the effect of “we can police ourselves”, “we are mature”, “this is a different group”, or “just walk away”. I say BS to all that. We are not that mature and every one of you has a hot button that when pushed, you react. Sometimes I know I need to not open a thread because it’s just bound to be controversial. But do I not open it?? Heck no I don’t! There’s some sort of morbid curiosity that I just can’t stand which makes me click the button! Then I see something that just pisses me off and I feel as if I just HAVE to say my piece! And then there’s those times when an innocent looking post turns controversial and no one is the wiser when they first open the string. Then WHACK! It hits me and I have to say me piece again. I don’t think I’m alone with this ether. So to say that anyone can choose to read something or not, is not the answer in my opinion. Which brings my ramblings back to the meat of this topic. Should there be a place to discuss controversial topics with a “enter at your own risk, check your baggage at the door before leaving” type of board??
This has both pro’s and con’s. It gives some folks who enjoy talking about these controversial topics a place to do it away from the rest of us who don’t. Unfortunately, that morbid curiosity sets in and pretty soon us folks who don’t want any part of that stuff end up “ taking a little peak”, just to see what’s going on ‘in there’. Then the fighting starts and feeling get hurt. We then hold grudges and the fighting and hard feelings carrie over to the other boards. I’ve seen these “anything goes” boards and they get ugly. Very ugly. Bren made a good point too. He was right on the mark with what he said. I’m still holding a grudge against him for what he said to me months ago. I ignore him for the most part. Childish on my part I know, but it’s there and I’m being honest about it. Same with Peter and Adam. They’ve said things to me that pissed me off. I’m still mad at them. And I’m pretty certain that I’ve said things to others and that they are still pissed at me over. The one common denominator with these hurtful things and bad feelings is the controversial topics that each of us are passionate about. It can’t be helped as we are all just humans. If we didn’t have things that we are passionate about, we’d be a pretty damn boring bunch of mindless zombies.
If this was a democracy, my vote would be for this:
Keep the Water Cooler as is, but set ground rules. No discussions pertaining to the “hot topics”, period. Delete them if they come up. Some examples would be – politics, religion, sex (including sexual preferences), abortion / right for life, environmental discussions and world trade. Those are what come to mind to me right now as having extreme right / left points of view. There is rarely, if ever, middle ground with these topics and they are best left discussed with relationships that are very strong and secure.
No more forum member vigilantly squads. Install a button on the threads that anyone can click on that would “report” the thread to the moderator for review. If the viewer thinks someone writes something inappropriate or out of line, they can then report it to the moderator. The moderator could then whack it, steer it back on course or leave it be. After all, it’s up to the board owner to determine what’s appropriate or not, - not members.
Do not create an additional board for the controversial topics. I don’t like to make assumptions in general but I’m going to assume that there are forums on the net for these discussions. If you just have a burning desire to talk about China or U.S. foreign policy, do it there, not here. It has no business being here at all.
I also like the “ignore” option. Not really sure how that works, but I can see a lot of value to it. If there is a member that just irritates the hell out of you, then you could ignore them. A very interesting option to me.
OK, so I gave y’all a buck fifty………
……….later
