Rhetoric and the art of Collaborative Discussion

[American Dream]

I absolutely agree and if I should expand my list beyond the person I currently have on there, please respect my decision.

there is a solution, it is the ignore feature...use it

if you do not know how add me to your foe list ....simple as that

I suggest it be used more often

[0_0]

I'm not gonna put anyone on ignore or add them to my foe list! I think that line of reasoning is a big part of the problem, not on this board per se but in general: people just putting everything they don't agree with/don't wanna hear about on ignore. And it's somewhat ironic as a response in a topic about rhetoric and the art of collaborative discussion imo.

[seemslikeadream]

your choice....I can't control what you do.....if you want to just keep on complaining be my guest or you could start a thread about what you want to talk about and see how that goes ...have you ever done that? What's the problem?

The ignore feature is there for a reason just a suggestion to end your endless suffering of having to scroll past posts and relieve your anxiety of someone not interested in discussing anything with you

[0_0]

The ignore function is just there cos it's a (very minor) technological invention, that doesn't mean it has a viable reason for being used imo. And let me explicitly state that i generally appreciate you as a poster to this board slad and that i don't have any personal problems with you at all. So i won't put you on my foe list, even tho there are some issues i strongly disagree with you about. The problem is, and i mean this in a general way, so regardless of whoever is doing it in a particular case, that when people copypaste lots of stuff in a thread:

1. i have to scroll like crazy every page when i wanna check the thread to see if anything is posted that might interest me
2. the page takes a long time to load and sometimes won't even load properly, especially when there are lots of embedded videos
3. i have to look at a lot of ugly faces in every page
4. older topics look like a jumbled mess with half the images not working, videos that since have been removed, etc

the problem is made even worse by every piece of long copypasta then being quoted over and over again by others with maybe one sentence of comment added; so just like the ignore function, the quote and image functions are just there cos it's easy to do technologically but it doesn't mean we have to use them. I remember when this board started there were no avatars, no pictures, no videos and the quality of the discussions wasn't any lesser for it imo. Also maybe, as with so many technological innovations, the danger is there that it is just making us lazy: instead of coming up with a thoughtful reply in our own words we link to a video and think oh well that's almost just as good if not better! I see several people saying we should behave more like adults, well ok then: picturebooks are for kids, aren't they?

[seemslikeadream]

for someone that is so concerned about what is or is not posted here one would think you would change that by your own actions ....start an OP talk about what you want to talk about and stop complaining about what others chose to post which takes up most of your time and energy here.....you have the power to do that be the change you want and stop insisting others do it for you

there is an endless OP slots available........use them.....please

I am sorry you have to scroll, again your choice ....I guess it's your RI lot in life

[Belligerent Savant]

That said, I would prefer it if there was more discussion and better discussion in GD. As moderator, I feel compelled to help facilitate that. Here is my proposal for changing the guidelines on copypasta:

1. Limiting the number of consecutive copypasta posts by a member on a GD thread they start to five.

2. Once that member posts a sixth consecutive, either 82_28 or myself would move the thread from GD to Data Dump.

3. There would be no punitive measures unless the poster is spamming a thread they didn't start to try to get it thrown in the Data Dump.

Please let me know what you think. My hope is that we can come to a democratic consensus and move forward productively and that this will be a positive change for all. Obviously, that means this rule would apply to everyone across the board.

As for this:

I'm nowhere near as prolific here as some others (for a variety of reasons), but am chiming in with a hearty endorsement of the above proposal, exactly as laid out (indeed, limiting consecutive copypasta posts to five is generous, in my view). I believe this will help foster/encourage better board/interactive etiquette and minimize some of the recurring sore points here (I can expound further but will leave it at that).

I am not so big on discussion here these days. When I came here ten years ago, it was a different story. While I am a dude, I am extremely alienated by the fight club/bro culture that wants to dominate here. I also am repelled by that part of conspiracy culture which elevates the "useful idiots" of the Fascist International (did you already guess that?).

I stay away from discussion because I find the use of conspiracy claims to leverage bigotry or other such reactionary agenda to be reprehensible and disgusting. I don't particularly want to fight as that just seems to lead to pissing contests that generate little to no positive results.

I simply do not see what you (claim to) see -- at least not to the point of pervasiveness that you're implying. A "fight club/bro culture that wants to dominate"? Phantasms. Of course, there are a variety of viewpoints that can be expressed here at any given timeframe. That's the nature of a discussion board, is it not? Or is the aim to push particular agendas/mindsets on the perceived "undecided" (imagined or otherwise)?

We disagree, and that's just fine; under the above proposal, you can continue as you do in the Data Dump -- your sympathizers will follow you there (as will SLAD's sympathizers, along with any thread by any member with more than 5 consecutive copypasta contributions).

Cheers to all.

[seemslikeadream]

there is a problem with the new rule and will cause way more issues than it will solve

as will SLAD's sympathizers

I prefer to call them my friends if you don't mind ....thanks for the slight though

[Belligerent Savant]

.
I disagree, but perhaps you can highlight exactly what the 'problem' is, as you see it?
Also: we won't know until we allow it to live and breathe for a bit, right?
Let's place it on a 3 or 6 month trial period, perhaps, and see how it plays out (as a suggestion).

I'd imagine the mods will tweak as (or if) needed at the conclusion of said trial.

[seemslikeadream]

my "sympathizers" as you disgustingly name call them are members here.

yea go for it see what happens

just because you repeatedly say something does not make it true

___________________


there needs to be a time limit on those "consecutive" posts ...there is no reason why my Nuclear thread or Palestine thread or Who Poisoned Alexander Litvinenko? Radioactive thallium link thread, The first global cyber war has begun thread as examples should be moved just because I am the only one keeping up with the news in them...I do not believe there was EVER a problem with those threads in the past why should that change now just because a couple people have a problem with my trump/russia threads

is the rule in place if I am posting in an OP that is posted by someone else?

[brainpanhandler]

....

Out on the far end of this particular scale are a flurry of relatively recent scientific studies that purport to prove that it’s impossible to convince anybody of anything. One that I find particularly enticing took a group of people who’d voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election and showed them a video in which an earnest talking head explained to them at length why they should have voted for Hillary Clinton instead. By and large, the Trump voters thus catechized responded by doubling down on their support for Trump. The media that reported this study, and the Clinton supporters who discussed it in earnest tones while it cycled through its fifteen minutes of fame, insisted that this proved that “those people” were immune to reason.

Au contraire, it proved that “those people”—and a great many other people as well—are immune to incompetent rhetoric when it’s rehashed for the umpteenth time. By the time the election was over, after all, everyone in the United States who didn’t spend 2016 hiding under a rock knew all the arguments in favor of and against each of the candidates...

No they didn't. What's more, quite obviously, Trump voters were/are less capable/willing to seek out the facts that support their conclusions and question their own ideological biases as they do so.

...

No matter how devoutly the various warring sides wish that the other side would simply go away, that’s not going to happen; we can go trudging blindly ahead toward the kinds of cataclysm that similar wishes made all too real during the twentieth century, or we can learn from our history, and recognize that those who won’t live together will probably end up dying together.

...

While it may be true that "the other side" will not simply go away, as in literally take a long walk on a short pier, there are ways to silence and marginalize "the other side" and otherwise make them simply go away in various degrees.

In no particular order:

1) Control the media and access to it
2) build gated communities
3) build bantustans/ghettos
4) school to prison pipeline/prison industrial complex
5) disenfranchise voters
6) Cutting access to medical care kills people... ie, they go away
7) Build corrals for free speech/demonstrations
Build enormous border walls
9) Purposely allow undesirables to be poisoned with neurotoxins
10) limit access to higher education

I guess I could go on, all the way down to the level of the ignore function on this board. Maybe we can avoid the worst horrors of the twentieth century, like gas chambers, but the myriad ways we can make "the other" go away are real right now. We don't have to go trudging anywhere.

[Elvis]

If and when I post anti-fascist polemic, it's not for the hardcore followers of fascoid/third positionist doctrine- it's mostly for the undecided, as well as the edification/use of myself and others who see things similarly.

AD, thanks, this explains a lot. I have to ask, how many RI members are "undecided" about fascism and racism? Very few if any, I would wager. So what you're essentially doing, on a typical day, is occupying about one third of the board reacting to a readership that really isn't here, or who at most comprise of a small handful.

I hope you can see why many people see that as selfish, annoying and unnecessary.

As to who "wants to dominate here," it's an odd thing for you to say because it's plainly obvious who wants to dominate the board. (I've never seen Fight Club so not sure what that means.)

And the dumptruck approach introduces a lot of chaff and ultimately dilutes the message.

Also, we can't put threads on "ignore," so consequently your misdirected polemics consistently hog and clog the thread listings.



General note: Like many members, I use "View active topics" to see all new posts and threads, regardless of subforum—it's much easier than separately clicking into all the various forums and subforums—so moving a thread to the Data Dump doesn't help much in that regard. Better would be for AD to simply curtail his carpet-bombing style with greater selectivity.

interruption for the sake of diversion, debate

So on a discussion forum, debate is bad bahavior?

[peartreed]

If the new mods impose a limit on copied articles pasted to threads, I’ll likely look for a different forum and board to find the ongoing news coverage of subjects and stories and discussions that I follow here. I have a compulsive interest in news.

I’ve been frustrated that tv and radio news both limit coverage depth due to time, and newspapers and magazines are constrained by production delays to be timely and current. The internet offers immediate and ongoing exposure of breaking news and its follow-up discussion, but only certain sites and interactive boards like this one consolidate coverage by topics of interest into threads of in-depth content.

And this board is valuable to me largely because people like SLAD and AD maintain an effort to collect and provide a variety of topic threads and posts that maintain current coverage of themes and topics of real, vital interest to me, like Trump’s dangerous, everyday ineptitude and fascism’s evil infiltration into everyday events.

What others find as intrusive and extensive “copypasta” interrupting discussion, I find to be a very convenient, consolidated and current collection of relevant, in-depth, ongoing news from a variety of sources I’d otherwise likely not connect to. The topical discussion those posts instigate here is often of a higher quality too.

I don’t understand why those less interested, indifferent, or resentful of that volume, don’t simply bypass it, ignore it or start their own threads of topics more appealing.

If the few dissenters persuade the mods to impose an arbitrary limit on copied articles in such postings frequency or volume, content censorship or any time restrictions on copied content continuity of coverage as it develops in the news, then I’m going to find a more open and permissive place to pursue my interests.

Reverting the format of the forum back to its origins without pictures or technical editing tricks would be another regressive step into a restrictive past practice. I joined up here with my fellow countryman Jeff Wells to keep up with the times, but the negativity of the naysayers and second-guessers and, in some cases, RI reformers got to him too.

I love the debate and interplay of opinions and insights on topic, but I detest the personalized arguments and bullying and mean rhetoric.

[norton ash]

I'm similar to Peartreed in approach. I appreciate members who post profusely; I can scroll, pick and choose, ignore... or stop and read or hit the links provided. If it's on the same topic repeatedly, that's fine. If it's from a sketchy source, I find that RI polices itself fairly well. I'm not bothered by much here at RI. Maybe it's more of a pain in the ass if you're keeping up with RI via smartphone... but I'm an old desktop dinosaur. And wishy-washy on taking strong sides.

[Belligerent Savant]

.
The threads in question would simply be MOVED to another area of the forum, not removed, for chrissakes.

I fail to see how this would generate such fuss (other than impacting ego or agendas, neither of which are in the spirit of a message board, are they?). As Elvis astutely pointed out above, simply utilizing the "view active topics" option would remove any burden on your part to locate the thread(s) of interest.

[Elvis]

I detest the personalized arguments and bullying and mean rhetoric.

That is precisely what I most detest.