I once popped in to a ‘say something nice about the person above you’ thread, and the person below me said something to the effect of “I have no idea who this person above me is.”
Now, I’m aware I don’t fly high on the radar here - like fisha, I’d describe most of my posts as more-or-less ‘throwaways’ - but effectively telling someone that not only are they not even a blip on your radar, but also not even worth the effort of clicking on their name to see what they may have contributed.… well, suffice to say, I’ve not poked my head in to one of those threads since. My self-esteem is reasonably solid, but it’s certainly not bullet-proof!
On the other hand, like Bosstone, I’m always secretly pleased when someone quotes something I’ve said, even to disagree with me - provided it’s a logical disagreement, and not just a ‘you suck, BWP’. (Fortunately, so far, it’s all been logical disagreements!)
I’m also quietly happy not to have appeared in the ‘Posters you hate’ thread. I take my wins where I can find them.
It doesnt annoy me personally when you get threads of the "I really really like so and so"sort of thing.
But I always take with a pinch of salt compliments (Though I get extremly few of them you bastards)
I could be a total, but incredibly good looking,liar.
Or I could be telling the total truth about myself but a spotty, unhygenic,smelly person with a bizarrely high pitched voice and bad breath.
What makes me reach for the bucket is when Dopers who have met IRL post on the boards tell each other how wonderful each other is.
If you clicked that well you’d be E-Mailing that stuff not posting it.
It reminds me of young children trying to give everyone the impression that they are amazingly popular.
And anyway you all HATE me and my life is ruined and I’m never going to post again…
A couple of threads I try to avoid are the “popularity polls” and the “poop-u-larity pits”. I enjoy so many posters so my list would be very very long and I would feel bad for leaving someone out. As for the poop-pits, I try not to join in on the “witch hunt” (unless, indeed, it is a troll) - it reminds me soooo much of high school cliques and how everyone metaphorically stones the person to (or near) death.
It isn’t quite the same because in high school it’s often done for ridiculous reasons (like someone wears braces or doesn’t play sports). Here it’s because of people’s behaviour or the views they express, both of which individuals are responsible for. Being picked on because you’re expressing abhorrent view points isn’t the same as being picked on for wearing glasses. Furthermore it takes more than simply being pretty and athletic to make someone popular here. The ones regularly listed in the accolade threads are frequent posters and have shown intelligence/wit/compassion/that they’re genuinely nice people. I don’t see why it’s such a bad thing to recognise someone for that.
The foundation of this board has always been based in General Questions due to its nature but popularity polls cannot go there. That is where most of the core talent lies for the scope of the board and there is lots of it there but those Dopers don’t usually get recognized because they don’t participate in these types of things. It is like a pool of administrative assistants at Harvard get together to do a popularity poll and they conclude that the coolest people on their campus are the secretaries that did something cute in the inter-office gift exchange. That is great if some people get secondary benefits out of this site (I do too) but the SDMB is an extension of a newspaper column with a very specific purpose.
Stranger on a Train gets mentioned because he has world-class talent and explanation abilities but there are many others like Napier, Blake, Crafter Man, Colibri, and Una Persson who actually contribute a lot of brilliant content that are dead-on within the actual charter of the board. It is late on Christmas Day so I don’t want to be too pissy but it seems way too people realize that. The world could use more people like them and fewer people that simply like to generate mindless banter among an incestuous group. The rest of life provides enough of that for many of us.
I wasnt referring to the “popularity polls” and “poop-polls” reminding me of highschool. I was referring to the way some people draw attention to particular posters in the negative - and for what reason? To find others that have the same opinion so you can try to beat that person down for their inability to express themselves they way that you deem as being worthy of your attention? And I have seen some posters be called out on something that I define as being ‘ridiclous’, so yes, sometimes it is a flashback to highschool behaviour that some of us never evolve from.
I find approaching/delivering constructive criticism in a non-defensive way much more accepting/acceptable. It’s the adult-thing to do (vs some of the extreme belittlement in some recent pit threads that I have seen - imo, noone deserves to be treated like that).
As I indicated previously, I enjoy so many posters for various reasons and, imo, they are well deserving of recognition. I simply referred them as “popularity polls” since many other posters referred to them as such. IMO, I think these threads would work much better if there were more specific information involved - such as what thread/post these particular posters have contributed and why you think they deserve recognition (I know this happens but not near enough).
Having just started such a thread, I obviously have no problem with them. I started that particular one in response to the Pit thread about posters you just can’t stand, which I didn’t read and don’t intend to. I didn’t mean to encourage a circle-jerk, or make anyone feel bad about himself or herself. I did mean to foster a bit mroe affection and civility on the board, which I think a healthier–or at least more pleasant – environ than a thread whose only purpose is to hurl insults and hurt feelings.
The reasoning behind the “posters you can’t stand” thread seems dicey to me. Why do you WANT to start fights? They start easily enough on their own.
DISCLAIMER-I have no beef with you personally, Skald, and find you amusing most of the time.
However, coming from my self-effacing MN roots, I find it in bad taste starting a thread where you know you yourself will get all sorts of pats on the back.
It’s tacky.
I can understand why you would have no problem with them, seeing that I think you are mentioned in every. fricking. one. for at least the two years I have been here. Probably deservedly so. Maybe.
Now, Nzinga, that might be sour grapes. Or it could just be the observation that these threads are indeed circle jerks.
Anyone want to search who starts the majority of theses threads? Is it accolades from the unwashed masses, or are they started by one of the more equal than the others sect? Honest question, no snark. I’ve never paid enough attention to know offhand.
They’re generally the same people in each of these threads. I know because I found them by doing a search of people on the list. If you’re trying to foster affection and civility, it’s only among the few people who get named just about every month or couple months.
As for the hate thread, I read the entire thread and enjoyed it a lot. It said more about the people posting who they hated than the person that they named. And I found a few more people who I’d like to watch for more often. It was fascinating.
I had no such thing in mind when I opened the thread. I wanted to counter the the “Dopers who piss you off” thread without pitting the person who opened that thread.
Also, a search for the persons who starts such threads seems to me to be fruitless, as different persons may have different opinions on what threads qualify. Take Heffalump’s list:
I’d say two of those are quite unlike the other three. The (third) greatest doper thread is a JOKE thread. Posters were encouraged to “praise” themselves, not others, in as mocking a fashion as possible. I mean, it included claims of inventing bacon salt, possession of multiple pensises, and other silliness.
“In praise of Dopers…” is ia deliberate attempt to subvert what fisha is complaining about.
Look, if someone began a thread entitled “Posters Who Are At All Times Appropriately Serious and Don’t Beat Running Jokes Into the Ground to the Point that People Are Inclined to Say 'Damn it! Expand Your Themes, Man! We Don’t Care That You’re Happily Married/Pretend to be Evil/Writing a Novel/Hate Peter Jackson/Love Literature,” I would obviously not be mentioned, except as the epitome of what not to do. And that would be fine. It would be silly of me to complain.
Well, FWIW, fisha, since this thread I’ve personally classified you under ‘posters who mostly fly under the radar, but are actually very interesting when they get going’.
Since I agree with you that the popularity threads are basically giant circle jerks, I won’t be popping in to one to mention your name, but I thought you might like to know.
It seems to me that a lot of American culture is portrayed as people desperate to be a part of the cool crowd, or to be rich and famous.
And when and where I was growing up, I never really saw much of that. It probably went on at a small level, but I managed to overlook it. I was happy being who I was, and the only real contests were things like exam and test results to see if I was in the top five or whatever. And after a while that started to not matter to me either.
So the popularity contest type threads, in which I never participate, rarely read, and have never been included in anybody’s lists, just seem like more of that. If it’s part of your upbringing, I can see why you might enjoy participating, and it does give the illusion sometimes of bringing some momentary boosts to a few egos, but for me it doesn’t really achieve much, and are a disappointing reflection on a part of society that I disagree with.
They don’t affect me either way. I rarely read them and I think I’ve only posted once in one of them. It would have mattered to me once had I ever been mentioned but I was recently surprised to realize that I hadn’t visited the Dope in almost a month. I don’t like the place any less; I guess it’s just not as big a piece of my internet experience as it used to be.
