Concern over Cafe Society trends.

[Enderw24]

What is the ultimate purpose of the Cafe Society? Is it to discuss books, movies, art, and tv with others? Is it to whet our appetite on the large world of creativity around us?

Or is it a shortcut for homework assignments?

There are two types of threads I have seen with increased regularity on the CS forum. The first one doesn't bother me that much, but it still is concerning. It's the "What is the name of X short story I read?" It's not that much of a problem because I can see a number of legitimate reasons why you would want to know. But the number of people wanting to know about that one particular story just for the sake of knowing...well, it takes up space and its bumping better threads down to the bottom.
All I'm saying is that if you're posting it just to be posting, I think it would be better served if you saved it for MPSIMS.

The second trend is far more aggrivating. "SPOIL THIS FOR ME!" I can see only two reasons you'd want to do that. 1) This is a homework assignment and you're too lazy to do it yourself. 2) This is a freetime activity and you're too lazy to do it yourself. I truly don't know which is worse, but either way the threads are annoying.

[Sofa King]

And then there's the painfully obviousl ones like, "Please explain the significance of the Pearl in the story, The Pearl." Followed by the caveat,

"This is to settle a bet with a friend. I'd particularly appreciate it if your responses were kept in five-paragraph format with correct grammar and spelling."

That's when I want to start talking about aliens.

[Sterra]

I thought the place for spoiling homework assignments was GD.

[lissener]

Originally posted by Enderw24
. . . There are two types of threads I have seen with increased regularity on the CS forum. The first one doesn't bother me that much, but it still is concerning. . . .

Grrrrrrr: concerning is not an adjective; this use is completely improper. And, working in a clinic, I've had ample opportunity to become sick of it (Your child's temperature is concerning.

Use "troubling," or "disturbing," or "cause for concern," etc. But please don't use concerning in this way.

Thank you.

[Esprix]

Perhaps he meant "disconcerting?"

Esprix

[red_dragon60]

peturbing?

I use cafe society for help with short stories from time to time, but I don't really see problems with that as I am doing them on my own and never plan to turn them in. Sometimes having someone else throw ideas at you is exactly what is needed.

[Enderw24]

I find your attitude towards my word choice concerning, lissener.
I looked it up in two online dictionaries and "concerning" is, along with a verb and a noun, an adjective as well. Actually, I don't see why it wouldn't be as it serves the same function in a sentence as toubling or disturbing. It is something to be troubled by or to be disturbed by.

Anyway, back on topic.
It's not just limited to books. People want to have movies spoiled too. "I don't want to waste an entire two hours of my life, so would someone please tell me the plot twist here, here, and here?"

If you're that interested, go see the movie. If not, don't.

[Quasimodem]

....that some of the posts there are probably taking up space , but since its inception I have liked "hanging" there, because it is an interesting place to learn new stuff.

I cite as an example the thread regarding the song Tomorrow Belongs To Me. A Doper who saw a stage production of Cabaret asked if this was an original Nazi Party tune or if it was penned after WWII.

Turns out it was written for the play, and I didn't know that. Every time I listened to it on the soundtrack, it made me wanna "Sig-Heil" may way down my street.

Just kiddin'

But that's just one example of many threads in CF that are worthwhile, so I'm glad it is a part of SDMB.

Quasi

[Gozu Tashoya]

Originally posted by Enderw24
Anyway, back on topic.
It's not just limited to books. People want to have movies spoiled too. "I don't want to waste an entire two hours of my life, so would someone please tell me the plot twist here, here, and here?"

If you're that interested, go see the movie. If not, don't. [/b]

I'm not so sure that I agree with this sentiment. Medium notwithstanding, it's really no different from asking a friend or group of friends "how was movie name?" Sure it takes up electronic resources to do it our way, but it also gives us a larger pool of opinions to listen to.

I think that outweighs the cost of the bandwidth, personally.

[Enderw24]

There's a difference between asking whether someone would recommend the movie to you and asking that same person to spoil the movie just so you don't need to bother with seeing it.
I mean, either the show/book/play is a piece of crap or the show/book/play is great. If it's a piece of crap, why would you care what mundane plot twist happens to these fictional characters? If it's great, there are probably other reasons to see it anyway, but you've just ruined a major one because of your need for instant gratification.

Maybe it's just me.

[Biggirl]

About a book I read over 10 years ago. I couldn't remember the name or the author. I only remembered a few plot elements and the fact that I really enjoyed reading it.

The thread turned into an interesting discussion of steampunk with a few other titles that I will be reading soon.

The "spoiler" threads can also be very diverting. I doubt that I'll ever see Caligula, but damn, was that thread interesting.

[pepperlandgirl]

Shoot, I'll probably see Caligula because of that thread.

[lissener]

Originally posted by Enderw24
I find your attitude towards my word choice concerning, lissener.

. . . I looked it up in two online dictionaries and "concerning" is, along with a verb and a noun, an adjective as well. . . .

But an adjective with what definition?

continued
. . . Actually, I don't see why it wouldn't be as it serves the same function in a sentence as toubling or disturbing. It is something to be troubled by or to be disturbed by. . . .

Actually, you just explained very clearly why there's no reason to use a word that means one thing and pretend it means another: there are already several words filling that slot. Why pervert another perfectly good word?*

Did you bother to see how it was used as an adjective? Or just see that it is and leave it at that? American Heritage defines the adjectival form as follows:

• concerning adj : referring or directing attention to; "as to what we have discussed..."; "in relation to your inquiry..."; "income vis-a-vis expenditures" [syn: as to, in relation to, regarding, vis-a-vis, with reference to, in regard to, with regard to, with respect to]

Your mistaken usage is nowhere to be found.

Webster's gives no adjectival definition at all.

Where are these dictionaries that agree with your use?



*My theory is that "concerning" as used by Enderw24 is another product of the "mistakes were made" era: the "Not Me" decade. As far as I can tell, this usage began in the medical world, when doctors and nurses began to grow uncomfortable claiming responsibility for their opinions. Thus, instead of saying, "Your child's temperature concerns me," they learned to say, "Your child's temperature is concerning."

[SpoilerVirgin]

I haven't posted one of the "Spoil This, Please" threads yet, but I can understand the reason behind them. I rarely go to the movies, and when I do it's usually a historical drama. However, the rest of the world, and in particular the Straight Dope, often uses movie plot twists as cultural references. Think of everything that you wouldn't get if you didn't know what "The Sixth Sense" was about or the twists to "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Crying Game".

One example: other than the line about fava beans and a nice Chianti, I really know little about "The Silence of the Lambs". Over the years, I have become increasingly frustrated by references and comparisons to the movie that make absolutely no sense to me because I don't know what they're talking about. I have no intention of ever seeing the movie, which I'm sure is too gruesome and scary for me, but I'd love to know enough to understand when people bring up "the silence of the lambs" in other contexts.

As a SpoilerVirgin I believe that all spoiler threads should be labeled as such, and I would never want to have a book or movie that I intended to read spoiled. But sometimes I feel the need to know about a book or movie even if I have no intention of ever reading it. The recent Angela's Ashes thread was great because I had been warned not to read the book, and yet I still wanted to have an understanding of the story.

That said, I agree with you about homework assignment threads. They should all be treated like this recent Threadspotting example.

[Ukulele Ike]

Originally posted by SpoilerVirgin
other than the line about fava beans and a nice Chianti, I really know little about "The Silence of the Lambs."

In the novel, it was "a big Beaune." The scriptwriters changed it because they figured movie audiences didn't know anything about wine.

That or Anthony Hopkins had the homonym problem and didn't wanna say "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a BIG BONE."

[half-life]

So let me get this straight. You don't like some of the 90850 threads on the board aren't talking to you. And you want that to stop. And you create a thead that only a handful of the 18716 registered members even bother to open.

You know, my first inclination is to say, "Try to get a little perspective". But since this is the pit, I'll just say, "Crybaby!"

[Otto]

Well, shoot, I've opened a "what book is this" thread AND I've requested spoilers, so I guess I'm a double-bastard.

I opened the former because I couldn't recall the name of a book series I read about 20 years ago. After I found out the name of the series, I changed the thread into a "what did you think of this series" thread. Shoot me.

I requested spoilers for the last ten minutes of the "Smallville" premiere because it ran ten minutes over the hour and I didn't get it on tape. Shoot me again.

I don't recall ever being assigned homework on a TV show or movie, until I took film criticism classes in college. So somehow I doubt that those types of spoiler threads are going to be too terribly useful to anyone for homework. And if someone actually does open a spoiler thread to get the answer to a lit class homework assignment, they deserve what they get in response. They won't be able to do the assignment with any real chance of getting a decent grade anyway.

Questions: Are you able to look at more than the first page of threads? Do you have the option when opening up the boards to "see new threads"?

If the answer to both of the above questions is "yes," then quit fucking griping.

[Enderw24]

Well isn't this special?
Half-life, are we in second grade here? You have an infinite amount of time in which to respond to me, to create a witty retort or a stunning argument to put me in my place and the best you can come up with is "crybaby"? I'm ever so impressed. Truly.

Lissener, one of the places I found it was http://www.dictionary.com
And the argument you made about why we should use concerning when there are already two other words makes no sense. The beauty of the English language isn't just its evolution (which explains the common acceptance of its usage) but also the wide variety of word choices we have. To limit our options merely because "two is good enough" limits the language for no reason other than you find it annoying.

[lissener]

Originally posted by Enderw24
Lissener, one of the places I found it was http://www.dictionary.com[/b]

And that's where I pulled the above definition from, which, again, does not include any definition that even remotely resembles the way you use it here

continued
And the argument you made about why we should use concerning when there are already two other words makes no sense. The beauty of the English language isn't just its evolution (which explains the common acceptance of its usage) but also the wide variety of word choices we have. To limit our options merely because "two is good enough" limits the language for no reason other than you find it annoying.

As should be obvious from the many alternatives I (and subsequent others) have offered, I have no problem with the possibility of having several different word choices; this can aid greatly in the precision of language. But to take a word that already means one thing, and out of ignorance and obfuscatory sesquipedalianism, use it incorrectly, can only degrade precision.

You can't just take a word and DECREE that it now means something utterly different, no matter the good faith with which you used it the first place. Common ill-usages infer to mean imply, comprise to mean compose, or epitome to mean pinnacle, have effectively subtracted these words from the language; I tend to avoid them because some people might misunderstand them. Which means of course that I have to choose alternative words, which are not always as precise. Thus the precision of English has been degraded.

Obnoxious and persnickety as it makes me seem, I'll probably continue my attempts to shore up these perfectly good words against the erosion of ignorance until I've scared all my friends away.

[Misery Loves Co.]

Oh alright - :: puts on eyepatch, fastens bird to shoulder, and jumps aboard::

Enderw24, I took a look on Merriam-Webster online and Dictionary.com, performed a search on the word "concerning", and did not find reference to adjective. Perhaps you could explain a little more closely how you did your search?.

However

lissener, dislikes the statement:

"The first one doesn't bother me that much, but it still is concerning..."

contending that "concerning" is being used as an adjective. How about this, instead:

The full statement is: "The first one doesn't bother me much, but it still concerns me."

Using the passive form: ". . .It still is concerning to me" or "it still is concerning me"

Drop "to Me", as implied: ". . .it still is concerning".

There.


Now regarding the fucking OP-

I'm also concerned by CS , but more because I was hoping for an area of enlightened debate on the arts than the IMHO meets MPSIMS with a media spin...

[Misery Loves Co.]

Originally posted by MLC
Using the passive form: ". . .It still is concerning to me" or "it still is concerning me"

Oops - drop the first one ("Concerning to me") because that is using it as an adjective. Rest still stands.

-MLC, feeling the raw power and fury of Gaudere's law

[pepperlandgirl]

I'm also concerned by CS , but more because I was hoping for an area of enlightened debate on the arts than the IMHO meets MPSIMS with a media spin...

CS was created while I was away, so I wasn't around for itsinception. But when a poster told me over the phone about it, my first reaction was "Isn't that IMHO is for?!"
I still think every thread in CS can easily fit in IMHO or MPSIMS.

[Biggirl]

Weeellll. . .

Every thread in IMHO could fit quite nicely in MPSIMS. And every thread in CS could also fit quite nicely in MPSIMS. A whole boatload of Pit threads could fit nicely into MPSIMS, even with the swear words.


I like having all my media needs met in one handy dandy forum. I wish people would stop posting media and entertainment questions in IMHO and MPSIMS. But that's me. And I have it on good authority that I'm weird. Or that I'm concerning weird. Or whatever.

[red_dragon60]

Wait, you guys are still arguing over the use of "concerning"? Stop picking about semantics or open a GD thread.

[Biggirl]

Not me! I was only making a _{very weak} joke.

[to catch a painted pony]

Crybaby works for me too. (Why spend time "crafting" an answer, when the original complainer is just a common crybaby? And a wordy, tiresome one at that.)

[Enderw24]

well I'll bite...

to catch a painted pony, I'd like to hear an explanation of your post. I'm quite curious as to why you have formed the opinion that you have.

[Gozu Tashoya]

Great, now he's a wordy, tiresome, common crybaby that bites!

[Niobium Knight]

i posted a thread about using dog shit as fertiliser yesterday and it disappeared!

[Ukulele Ike]

It was moved to MPSIMS. If I had been feeling kindly towards you it would have been moved to General Questions, but the fact that you started a thread about using dog shit as fertilizer in Cafe Society held me in silent amaze. You had been SAVING DOG SHIT FOR MONTHS?

Please read the forum descriptions. And wipe your feet.

[lenin]

I agree with the idea that all the good Cafe Society threads are nothing more than media-basic IMHOs/MPSIMS. And there are those annoying "Help me with my homework" threads. I wasn't around when Cafe Society went up, what was the original reason for it?

[Jophiel]

I would guess CS exists solely to take weight off of MPSIMS and IMHO, to be honest. No grand noble scheme for culturing the world, but rather someone noticed that enough questions were about literature, cinema, drama, television (how come there's a fancy word for books, movies and plays and not for TV?), music and that sort of thing that they figured making them all into a single forum would decrease the MPSIMS/IMHO load. I like the forum myself; back in the MPSIMS only days, I used to skim a bunch of threads I wasn't interested in about people's goldfish or how they got promoted or "tell me I'm a good person" (*) to get to the ones I was interested in. IMHO solved much of that by putting many of the more intellectual MPSIMS style threads in one place and CS distills it even further. These days, MPSIMS is the last forum I open (of the ones I read) and only if I have the time to spend on it.

(*) I'm not saying these threads shouldn't exist or aren't worthy, blah, blah, blah just that I'm not interested in reading them. The other forums give me a nice way of avoiding them in favor of things in my taste which makes everyone happy.

[sleeptrainer]

Originally posted by Enderw24
well I'll bite...

to catch a painted pony, I'd like to hear an explanation of your post. I'm quite curious as to why you have formed the opinion that you have.

It isn't obvious? You post a childish pout in the pit about how everyone should use the Cafe Society the way YOU think it was intended, not the way they think it was intended. Very self centered, I must say.
Then, when someone says you "need perspective", you demand of him/her "You have an infinite amount of time in which to respond to me, to create a witty retort or a stunning argument "

No. Nobody has infinite time for a crybaby. You wouldn't get a witty retort. Crybabies get the simplified comment.
"The Cafe Society isn't here to please YOU, so get off the backs of people who are there talking to each other, without your approval, thank you very much!"

I hope that was simple enough for you to get it this time.

[Enderw24]

well at least we're back on topic.

I find this humorous, to say the least. I mean, if I had known I was going to be called a crybaby I'd have actually attempted to do something deserving of the name. Maybe "people who post in Cafe Society can suck my third nipple."
No, wait. That's anger. I need crybaby.
OK, how about "I just took a huge dump and it smelled better than these CS threads."
Hmmm...no. That has more of a superior feel to it than crybabishness. Plus it compliments my eating habits which a crybaby would never do.
"Cafe Society? More like Cafe Suckciety."
Damnit, that one's just stupid. But it's really the closest I can get to crybaby so take it or leave it.

Why did I create this thread? Because I had a legitimate complaint and I wanted to see who shared it with me. Obviously not many. Alas.

sleeptrainer said:
"You post a childish pout in the pit about how everyone should use the Cafe Society the way YOU think it was intended, not the way they think it was intended. Very self centered, I must say."

Well, except for the "childish pout" part, I wholeheartedly concur! People should use that forum the way I think it was intended. I've never held myself out to be the Altruistic Man of the Year.
I mean, I'm not sitting at home at night smashing baby pigs with a sledgehammer over the fact that the world isn't going the way I invisioned it. But if I didn't hold my opinion to be more important than a random passerbys, there would just be no point in living. I might as well curl up in a corner, huddled in the fetal position, muttering "everyone's right, but I'm wrong, everyone's good, but I'm bad, mommy doesn't love me no more."

[Dinsdale]

So if we accept the premise that CS is either superfluous, second rate, misused and abused, what does that say about its moderator?

[Dinsdale]

besides the fact the he undoubtedly previews and would never post "either ... and ...)

[Ukulele Ike]

I'm sorry, Dinsdale, but I can not stand idly by and do nothing while you cast these terrible aspersions on Eutychus55.

I've got a good mind to ring your doorbell and run.

[Trion]

Originally posted by sleeptrainer
It isn't obvious? You post a childish pout in the pit about how everyone should use the Cafe Society the way YOU think it was intended, not the way they think it was intended. Very self centered, I must say.

What's the matter sleeptrainer. Is Enderw24 not using the BBQ Pit the way YOU think it was intended?