I think it’s a real stretch to call slamming someone or making a joke in a funeral thread “thread shitting”.
I think that thread shitting can typically be considered thread shitting from the shittee’s and shitter’s point of view. I’ve posted in threads and then thought later, ‘oh, that was sort of a shit’ but that doesn’t apply to what some consider disrespect in a funeral thread.
You can’t determine whether a thread has been shat in based on the opinions of the most ‘death sensitive’ among us.
Well, how about the death of a show? Look at the Black Donnellys cancellation thread as an example. Were the posters who came in to mock the show engaging in this amorphous funeral thread-shitting behavior you’re concerned about?
If we can start funeral threads by declaring acceptable guidelines in the OP that will be supported by the moderators, then logic dictates that we can set equally enforceable guidelines in any Cafe thread.
I’m against the whole concept, but I admit many others might like the idea. No doubt the Studio 60 thread participants would have loved to be able to issue an enforceable moritorium on the relentless show-bashing posts. Same with the Lost thread participants being able to prevent the “I’m not watching any more after this episode, and here’s why…” contributions.
In the end, it seems to me that the entire point of the Cafe is to have open dialogue/debate about the merits of whatever entertainment is under discussion. Dictating in the OP that only one side of the conversation is allowed would seem beneath the standards of this forum.
But hey, it’s your forum. Knock yourself out with whatever arbitrary rules you want to add to your existing responsibilities.
I favor “(6) Other” as in “If you say something stupid, tasteless, or rude in a thread, other posters will point this out. Be prepared to defend your opinions as necessary.” I don’t see any need for moderator action. Anyone who can’t handle the stress of somebody on a message board saying mean things about Kurt Vonnegut doesn’t have much of a future here - even if you pack funeral threads in a pile of styrofoam peanuts, they’re just going to get equally upset by something else they read in an “unprotected” thread.
This would sure help.
I usually skip the R.I.P. celebrity threads. Often they’re nothing more than an announcement that so-and-so has died – not quite post padding but almost.
My vote is for #5 - “Do not make a distinction between types of threads. If someone wants to be critical in a thread devoted to mourning the loss of a creative talent, that’s fine. It’s not thread-shitting to make negative comments about the deceased.”
Nobody (usually) personally knows the deceased celebrity, so the mourning is not really a personal one. It is as valid to make negative comments about the death of someone no one knows as it is to make positive ones. The mourning is about the loss of future novels or songs to people who like the artist; it’s just as appropriate for people who didn’t like him to say yay, no more crap from that guy.
#5, for the same reasons as featherlou. Why should being dead exempt you from criticism?
And please, none of these “guidelines”. If I can get warned/banned for violating a “guideline” then there is no useful distinction between a “guideline” and a “rule”.
It may be a thankless business to speak ill of the dead, but that is not being a jerk. A dead genius is still a genius; a dead hack is still a hack.
Regards,
Shodan
That makes eminent good sense to me. As to the OP, I’d vote “No.”
I say there’s no need. The person starting the thread can determine the nature of the thread. If they specify open comments then people can make any statements they want. If they specify a more “paying our respects” tone than people wanting to have a broader discussion can start a seperate thread.
No, I say. Some artists deserve criticism, dead or alive. The “I mourn the fact that there will be no more performances from this actor” is too often hypocritical — sometimes an actor will have been retired for 10-20 years. You didn’t miss the actor yesterday. Why do you miss him today?
The simplest thing might be to take (or make up) the most egregious example you can and give it as an example of Being A Jerk in one of the stickies in the About This Message Board forum. A sample might be if James Joyce had just died, and someone started a serious mourning thread, and I came in and aggressively offered my opinion that James Joyce was a gimmicky hack who should have been shot before he ever began writing and that anyone who claims to like him must be a pretentious asshole who reads primarily for the purpose of showing off what an intellectual s/he is. Fact is, that’s not all that far removed from my actual opinion, but it’s not something that I would ever consider appropriate to a mourning thread, because that would be Being A Jerk. Saying that I consider James Joyce to be highly overrated in that same thread, especially if followed up by some reasonably warm and fuzzy recognition that many others disagree and truly mourned his passing would not.
Neither guideline nor rule, but a mention of this as a way of Being A Jerk seems to me a reasonable way to deal with this.
It doesn’t. However, like a wake, funeral threads are not for the dead person, they’re for the living. If a person opens a thread mourning the loss of an artist they consider talented, your criticism is only heard by that poster, not the dead guy.
If your goal is to make the poster feel bad about being a fan of the artist’s work, you’re going about it the right way. If your goal is to make the artist feel bad about being a hack, you’re too late.
We can make a distinction between threads intended to discuss an artist’s legacy and threads mourning a loss. If the OP and other posters are simply mourning the loss, I think it’s bad form to criticise.
I don’t see how this is any different from criticizing a living artist’s work. If it upsets you to hear people slam someone whose work you think is great, you need to develop a thicker hide.
You say funeral threads are for the living. True enough - so is every other thread in CS. Are you prepared to allow only sunshine and violets in this forum?
And frankly, the argument that “you can’t criticize Thomas Kinkade now that he is dead, because I am so upset over the loss” strikes me as being a drama queen. If you aren’t a relative, I don’t see why you get to claim exemption.
If somebody posts that their sister or their friend died, then certainly it is being a jerk to post “who cares? She was probably an asshole anyway.” But just because you own all their albums or have every Elvis memorial plate ever created doesn’t mean you get to tell other people what to say.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not sure who’s making that argument. Instead, what’s being proposed is that, in a specific type of thread, the funeral thread, criticism of an artist’s work would be out of place. There’d be nothing in the way of someone else starting another thread, at the same time, devoted to criticizing the artist.
That said, from the responses given so far, it seems that that the suggested rule isn’t a popular one. That’s okay; sometimes the chips just fall that way. We certainly appreciate everyone who chimed in with their thoughts and for keeping the discussion civil.
So, it looks like we’ll just keep doing what we have been doing. Criticism of an artist and/or his/her works in a funeral thread will be allowed so long as it doesn’t cross the line of being a jerk. And, of course, that will have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. If you feel a post crosses that line, please report it and we’ll look into it.