Member feedback poll on Off-Topic thread participation

Coincidentally, this came up in my podcast feed.

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We Need to Argue With Each Other
Slate’s new podcast makes the case for fighting without winners.
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… host Celeste Headlee introduces Slate’s newest podcast with a question: what if we could argue with each other without hating the results?
Hugh Breakey, writer and moral philosopher, thinks it’s possible. He and Celeste discuss the case for arguing with each other on difficult topics, and giving up the idea that every argument needs a winner. It’s not just a good idea, according to Breakey — it’s a moral imperative.
https://slate.com/podcasts/hearmeout...ral-imperative

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Originally Posted by catbert

Coincidentally, this came up in my podcast feed.

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We Need to Argue With Each Other
Slate’s new podcast makes the case for fighting without winners.
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… host Celeste Headlee introduces Slate’s newest podcast with a question: what if we could argue with each other without hating the results?
Hugh Breakey, writer and moral philosopher, thinks it’s possible. He and Celeste discuss the case for arguing with each other on difficult topics, and giving up the idea that every argument needs a winner. It’s not just a good idea, according to Breakey — it’s a moral imperative.
https://slate.com/podcasts/hearmeout...ral-imperative

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This is a great talk/interview. Thank you for sharing it.

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Originally Posted by manoeuver

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Originally Posted by TSherbs

@manoeuver You're not the only one to express this. Honestly, your presence (or lack) is one of my belle-weathers for the tone of those back pages. You do what you need.

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Thanks TSherbs. You are good at having nuanced conversations, which is what I was after in there. happy to discourse with you via email whenever you like.

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Thanks, manoeuver. Check your PM box.

WORLD WE ARE LIVING IS DIVIDED BECAUSE OF THE POLITICS.
I AM COMING HERE TO HAVE A BREAK AND TALK ABOUT PENS AND INK AND IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT AND THIS IS A PLACE TO HAVE A PEACE OF MIND.
THIS FORUM IS FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO IGNORE THE SILLY POLITICS AND TALK SOMETHING CONSTRICTIVE REGARDING PENS INK AND WRITING. THIS PEN FORUM NEEDS TO MAINTAIN THAT MODERATION SOMETIMES.

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Originally Posted by Cyril

WORLD WE ARE LIVING IS DIVIDED BECAUSE OF THE POLITICS.
I AM COMING HERE TO HAVE A BREAK AND TALK ABOUT PENS AND INK AND IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT AND THIS IS A PLACE TO HAVE A PEACE OF MIND.
THIS FORUM IS FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO IGNORE THE SILLY POLITICS AND TALK SOMETHING CONSTRICTIVE REGARDING PENS INK AND WRITING. THIS PEN FORUM NEEDS TO MAINTAIN THAT MODERATION SOMETIMES.

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All I ever ask is for people to check and see if their CapsLock key is stuck.

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Originally Posted by Jon Szanto

All I ever ask is for people to check and see if their CapsLock key is stuck.

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Mine has been stuck in the same position ever since I got this keyboard - immediately to the left of the "A" key. I've confirmed this is the case on all my keyboards, though many have removable "key caps" and I suppose therefore not all are "stuck"... :P

Interesting, I don't think I've ever looked at that section. As I began to think about why I wouldn't participate an entire essay formed in my mind. But then one of my "guardrails" kicked in, and I asked my self, So what? No good answer.

I watch Twitter, almost entirely for its currency. I don't have a TV or watch TV so Internet sites --- NYT, PBS, CNN, etc. generally tell me what's going on. But before they can react, Twitter is already showing something. If there's a street demonstration, someone will be live-streaming it, and I can actually see what's happening. Otherwise, Twitter is just people talking --- "I stand with," sign this petition, loads of misinformation and disinformation. So, such a forum here would seem to be more of the same --- just people talking. Very little education value, just a lot of "I believe and if you don't, you're an idiot." I did a few years with the Unitarians, and they were great talkers, nobody talks the talk like a Unitarian! When I took charge of their "social justice" committee and actually started to DO something, the minister literally went ballistic. My preference is action. I'm sick of people who only talk, and that's most people.

Gun violence is the best example I can cite. People are dying every day, and we could stop it if we actually did what needs to be done, but we don't. It's easier to talk, more comforting to do some community hand-wringing, and then we're back to Netflix and HBO and video games and the Superbowl and all the other human distractions we use so we don't have to actually DO anything. Doing is hard, and talk is cheap.

So, that's what you get when I DON'T write my essay!!!

Frankly, I question why you would care about participation in such a group. If three people want a place to argue, good for them. Let them have at it and go about your business.

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Originally Posted by LizEF

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Originally Posted by Jon Szanto

All I ever ask is for people to check and see if their CapsLock key is stuck.

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Mine has been stuck in the same position ever since I got this keyboard - immediately to the left of the "A" key. I've confirmed this is the case on all my keyboards, though many have removable "key caps" and I suppose therefore not all are "stuck"... :P

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Hehehehe... very well played!

For a long time I paid no attention to the Politics-Reigion-etc subforum, because I was visiting FPG only to talk about pens and inks and papers and whatnot. I could talk about politics and religion elsewhere. Then some highly polarized current events came to pass, which I got pretty upset about, and simultaneously I started noticing some inflammatory, or at least inflaming, thread titles, and I got sucked into the maelstrom.

At first I thought it was going to be about an exchange of points of view. You know, rational discourse. However, it didn't take me long to decide that what we had was a place that had been taken over by a gang of bullies who seemed more interested in slapping people around than thoughtfully discussing anything. They were particularly good at piling on, I thought.

It was a toxic place, and one that brought out the worst in me as I played in the mud there. (It seemed to have a corrosive effect on others too; just sayin'.) (Subjective assessment, of course.) Then I noticed that some of that crap started leaking into the pen threads. On at least one occasion I encountered some of it and lost it, thereby adding my own share of toxins to the general environment. I decided to just disengage from the entire forum, and I stayed away for, I don't know, six months. Then I started dropping by once in a while, not often, just to hear what people were talking about on the pen and ink subforums, but no matter how provocative the names that show up under "threads most viewed" might be, them what dwell in that Politics/Religion corner of Paradise, I'd shy away from them. Wouldn't and still won't peek, and I don't intend to. I can always beat my head against a wall if I ever find myself missing the experience.

I only see P&R if I visit FPG with Tapatalk. After perusing a few threads there, I can understand some of the vitriol that leaps into topics about pens and ink and paper.

Thanks for the continued feedback. The poll results match these sentiments as well.

Interestingly, although the feelings expressed here are mostly negative about participation in these threads, the number of views of those threads is sometimes in the thousands, tens of thousands, 20s of thousands. Maybe it's bots looking at them, I don't know. But a lot of drive-by eyes seem to peer in at the discusions (such as they are). Maybe it's the morbid curiosity of looking at wreckage.

Those posts tend to address hot-button topics that many, maybe most people feel strongly about one way or the other.
I for one wouldn't mind if that subforum went away.

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Originally Posted by calamus

I for one wouldn't mind if that subforum went away.

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I rather wish it were properly moderated (as opposed to expunging it). I find many of the topics interesting (some of which I have started myself, so I guess that goes without saying).

You sound like a volunteer!

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Originally Posted by TSherbs

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Originally Posted by calamus

I for one wouldn't mind if that subforum went away.

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I rather wish it were properly moderated (as opposed to expunging it). I find many of the topics interesting (some of which I have started myself, so I guess that goes without saying).

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Originally Posted by calamus

Those posts tend to address hot-button topics that many, maybe most people feel strongly about one way or the other.
I for one wouldn't mind if that subforum went away.

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One is always free to ignore the subforum, and the issues.

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Originally Posted by TSherbs

I rather wish it were properly moderated (as opposed to expunging it). I find many of the topics interesting (some of which I have started myself, so I guess that goes without saying).

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You could always practice self-moderation.

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Originally Posted by Brilliant Bill

You sound like a volunteer!

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Originally Posted by TSherbs

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Originally Posted by calamus

I for one wouldn't mind if that subforum went away.

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I rather wish it were properly moderated (as opposed to expunging it). I find many of the topics interesting (some of which I have started myself, so I guess that goes without saying).

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naw

in too deep

I'd have a few other members in mind if the owner were to ask for nominations, tho. You'd be one of them, Bill.

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Originally Posted by TSherbs

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Originally Posted by Brilliant Bill

You sound like a volunteer!

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Originally Posted by TSherbs

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Originally Posted by calamus

I for one wouldn't mind if that subforum went away.

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I rather wish it were properly moderated (as opposed to expunging it). I find many of the topics interesting (some of which I have started myself, so I guess that goes without saying).

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naw

in too deep

I'd have a few other members in mind if the owner were to ask for nominations, tho. You'd be one of them, Bill.

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within a year or so it's likely AI could handle the task with rules created by/agreed to by forum participants. Doubt this forlorn place will see such an update though.

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Originally Posted by manoeuver

within a year or so it's likely AI could handle the task with rules created by/agreed to by forum participants. Doubt this forlorn place will see such an update though.

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Now there's an idea. Wait....this would require "agreement" among forum members? ... Nevermind :fencing: