Oh, come off it. No one is saying you cannot correct another poster. No one. What we are saying is that when you do, there’s NO need for you to be an prick about it.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
But you didn’t make a factual correction at all. You just said, “you’re wrong.” That’s not correcting someone, and you said it in a way that was insulting. The cure for ignorance is information, and if you don’t offer any, people who call you on it you are not defending ignorance. It’s okay to be sharp with someone, but the idea is to offer something in addition to that. Otherwisem there is no point but the insult, and CS is not the forum for trading insults.
You know, we could provide this to you, but I think it’s pretty clear that you’re not ready to learn yet, so why bother?
Daniel
Clothahump? Is that you?
For a supposed poet you have real reading comprehension problems.
No personal insults in Cafe Society.
That’s the rule. It’s not hard. Talk about willful ignorance!
Bolding mine. “However unkindly”? Dude, that “unkindliness” is the whole point of the (rather mild) smackdown you received. Unwarranted rudeness such as you displayed is not allowed in CS. We’re supposed to be polite and respectful in that forum. If you object to something someone says and feel you must act like you have a stick up your ass instead of just offering a correction or link, there are other fora you might find preferable. Hey, like this one.
Christ, why is this so fucking hard for you to understand? Tone matters.
I didn’t have to strain too hard. Do you really think I’m the only one here who interprets “you’re not ready to learn” in the manner in which you said it as “you’re being willfully ignorant”?
For the record, no, you are not. I did, as well.
But but but… the tone for the whole response isn’t inherent in one sentence. Find me one sentence which conveys the entire tone of the whole piece or STFU. I want a holographic hermetic representation of the overall effect of all my words as evinced by a handfull of them in isolation, or I’ll whine more. Ten dollar words will be okay, but twelve dollar words are right out. I do accept checks.
As no one else has pointed this out, “we” are not very unclear about what Dex said. “You” maybe very unclear, but I the rest of “us” are very clear about what he said. What is more, “we” agree with him. If you are still having trouble with basic comprehension we could try and persuade Dex to rewrite his post in iambic pentameter for you.
Oh, snap!
I love seeing Daniel get sarcastic.
Seriously, PRR, if I wanted insults I’d go to the Pit. There are rules here at the SDMB, and one of them is no insults in CS, which I and many other people happen to value really highly. (Both the rule and the forum). Matter of fact, I just posted a thread about boxing. One of the things I said was I think it’s a silly sport, but I’d like to be shown the light.
People like you could have come in and said, “There is so much more but you’re not ready to learn obviously.” But no, plenty of people weighed in and I’ve learned a great deal of interesting things. I’ve looked up the history of boxing. I plan to read some books, and even watch some movies about it. I will learn more this way.
If someone had slapped me down right away, I might have thought “not only is boxing silly, but its fans are also assholes. Forget this.”
And one more thing. I was pretty shocked at the admin meltdown in ATMB, even though I haven’t posted in any of the threads about it. But upon reading this thread I wonder if they’re not correct. You got a perfectly legitimate smackdown. You’ve been shown to have broken the rules. And yet you still continue to protest. Maybe they do have a reason.
This thread reminds me of the MST3K short “Home Economics.”
Narrator: Dad made some comment about he sure had earned his diploma.
Crow: Dad just doesn’t get it.
PRR: as someone who has frequent (OK, constant) difficulty controlling my snark in CS–as, therefore, someone who’s given it a great deal of thought–I will tell you that your post struck me as a bit red-flaggy even before CKDH entered the thread.
The rule of thumb I try to keep in mind is that you may release a little tongue of flame if it is aimed directly at the art or artist under discussion, but not if it is directed at your fellow participants in the discussion. You may frequently find yourself to be the smartest person in the room, PRR, but–cold light of day moment coming up here–that will not always be true,. Especially here. Thus, if you want your views to be treated with respect by your betters, when you find yourself among your betters, then you’d better remember this when you find yourself convinced that you’re dealing with your lessers. Think of it as noblesse oblige, if that helps.
In any case, you seem to be suggesting that sarcasm and superciliousness would improve Cafe Society as a place to discuss matters of the Arts. Although there are moments when I, too, find myself unable to withstand the temptation to improve my personal momentary experience in CS by snapping back at someone who has annoyed me, even I would not suggest that such behavior is an improvement to the overall experience that is CS.
Keep in mind too that when, as in this thread, you stray from the safe zone of discussing a Doper’s ideas to discussing the motivation or agenda that you hypothesize to be behind those ideas, you are straying into a danger zone. You should do this advisedly, and only in the spirit of inquiry and mutual understanding. Not in the pompous and insulting tone of the posts that CKDH rightfully remarked upon.
I’m on a different time zone from the States, so I’m just seeing this. I probably don’t need to comment; lots of people have said it for me.
The rule in Cafe Society is that we discuss the work of art/entertainment, we do not discuss the shortcomings of other posters. Note the difference between:
a. “Your statement is factually incorrect, Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre, not Jane Austen.” (acceptable)
b. “You must have flunked English lit, doofus, 'cause it was Charlotte Bronte, not Jane Austen who wrote Jane Eyre..” (unacceptable)
Correcting factual errors is fine. Discussing different tastes is fine. Criticizing another poster for her taste is NOT fine. Psycholanlyzing another poster, or making deductions about his lack of education is NOT fine.
pseudotriton, you’re asking for a specific word(s) that were unacceptable. It’s not that simple: it’s not like you can’t say “piece of shit” in Cafe Society. You certainly can. You can say that a certain poem is a piece of shit, but you can’t say that another poster is a piece of shit. It’s all context.
On the Official vs Unofficial – sometimes, I think that a mild comment from a moderator is sufficient to break up a fist-fight (say.) I don’t bother to record that as an Official Offense, because I don’t think it’s going to be a repeated problem. And also because I think both parties were contributing. The other Mods probably think I’m too much of a wuss on this. Basically, when we see patterns or repetitions of unacceptable behavior, we take stronger action than we do for the occasional fuck-up that everyone makes.
Yes, I read the thread in question. I think you misread the tone of my statement – I recognized that there was some room for confusion about whether or not you were Warned, so I checked for you. We keep records of such things. You weren’t Warned.
Shit, simul-post with Dex. I’m going to bed.
With Dex? Kinky…
Perhaps prr thinks he’s royalty.
This quote came to mind.
Heck. I didn’t even think anyone still believed that Charlotte Bronte actually wrote Jane Austen.