I don’t want to hijack the other thread about a relationship forum so I’m asking here.
I know I don’t want flirting, TMI, or sex threads banned. I want them properly labelled and people to exercise restraint in other threads but I certainly would not call for their banning.
Is there anyone who seriously would advocate banning them?
I don’t want them banned whatsoever. I don’t think they’re so important as to deserve their own forum, but I can’t think of a good reason to ban them all outright. I remember when Tuba asked us to raise the tone of the board; to me, this means holding back on a TMI subject if the intent is just to out-gross someone else.
I tihnk that’s one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. “Raising the tone” means we can’t talk about our lives for fear we’d “offend” somebody or “gross somebody out”? And woh are we raising the tone for? Is there going to be a senate hearing on the Straight Dope? A Presidential inspection? Are we trying to impress all the other nerds/freaks/geeks on the Internet? Do we need to attract more new members to the Board? Do we all need to carefully guard ourselves to ensure that somebody who can exercise no self-control stays away from the threads that “offend” them? HOw is it my responsibility to keep people from reading things they don’t want to read?
Well, I met my husband in a flirting thread, so I gotta say no. They aren’t hurting anyone (except maybe the hamsters). Everyone knows the drill…if you don’t wanna read it, don’t open it.
Of course not. One of the many things that endeared The Straight Dope to me many years ago was that Cecil Adams would fearlessly tackle any subject. And among the many things that make the Straight Dope Message Board what it is are its breadth and variety and its members’ humanity. “Fighting Ignorance” means fighting ignorance of all kinds, and there are few areas where humans need better understanding of each other than than when it comes to sex and relationships.
Pepper, that wasn’t the question ;). I take it that you’re against the concept of banning too?
I mean for all that I am a self-confessed prude who goes out of her way to avoid reading TMI and sex threads, I don’t want to see them banned either. Label 'em, don’t hijack other threads for a circle jerk and everything’s fine for all parties.
Room on your bench for me?
I suppose that, at one time, I felt substantially the same way you probably do about flirting threads, Primaflora. As I mentioned in the other thread, when I first was on the Board, those kinds of threads were appearing at about the rate of one every two days. And they were much more shameless, IMHO, than nowadays…things like “Post your Doper crush HERE” and the like. I was pretty sick of people being all gooey about other people they didn’t know and had never met. The more so, when my marriage was falling apart and I was feeling about like the loneliest person on earth.
These days, though, I’ve really changed my mind. It’s not even the fact that I’ve tried entering the dating pool once more. It’s because I’m starting to see their value. I’m a very shy person IRL. I couldn’t dream of flirting with someone I’m attracted to in the real world–I just can’t do it, a fear curtain descends on me and I think of the potential bad rather than the potential good consequences. But here, I can try to flirt. And sometimes I see that it’s not all bad. Now, I am probably no more successful here than I am in the real world. There’s a Doper I’ve had a crush on for about three years, and who I’ve flirted with shamelessly off and on, who probably doesn’t even know it. There’s a Doper who I flirted with very recently with whom…well, let’s just say things didn’t work out. But it’s OK. Things go on and we all return to the Board, free to flirt again. And by the very act of trying, I grow a little as a person.
Plus the positive benefits are, well, so much more evident here. Look at all the Dopers who have gotten together, gotten married. Most of them didn’t just decide to write each other after one answered the other’s question in GQ in a particularly interesting way!
Last of all, I suppose flirting, as well as sex and “TMI” topics, are a fact of life. There are a lot of single, unattached posters here. You couldn’t get 100 single people in a room without some flirting going on. Mix a few cases of brewski and you’d see the sex and TMI topics flowing as well. Why should a message board, with the inhibition-inhibiting effects of anonymity in play, be any different?
For better or worse, it’s a part of the Board. I’d be sad to see it legislated away.
Another self-confessed prude (more or less) and no particular fan of flirting threads chiming in to say no, it’s not necessary to ban the flirting/TMI/sex threads. Labeling them properly would be quite sufficient.
Ok – I’m seeing a theme here which is what I expected to see. Nobody’s saying let’s unrealistically cut down on other people’s enjoyment of the boards, it’s more a matter of common courtesy.
And Duke, I’ve never understood why you haven’t featured in crush lists.
I have no use for them but I see no reason to ban them. I just don’t read them. I don’t feel too put out if I open a thread and it ends up being one which doesn’t interest me. I just hit the back button and move on.
Haj
Add me into the silly to ban, but don’t need their own forum camp. It’s a side of the boards I do participate in, but for some reason the idea of a “flirt forum” doesn’t sit well with me. Mainly, I suppose because it’s not the reason I come to the SDMB?
I started the thread Primaflora referred to in the OP, and this was precisely what I was thinking. Of course, you’ve explained it much better here than I have anywhere. 
I have to agree - there is no reason to ban them. One of my threads re the end of my relationship was hijacked - but willingly on my part as I know the people involved were trying to cheer me up and give me a laugh - and they succeeded. There are good people here - some like to talk football and stamp collecting - I don’t read those threads because they don’t interest me, but it doesn’t make either me or them less of a person and less worthy of an opinion.
Banning those kind of threads smacks of censorship to me. Why stop there… just because I don’t like sport threads, should they be banned also?
Flirting and TMI threads are a function of a group of males and females interacting as a large group - they reflect society in action. Banning them is one of the worst kinds of censorship, IMO.
I’m going to make a very unpopular statement, it’s been brewing for a while. I posted in the other thread about how I think we deserve our own forum for these type messages, so that’s where I stand on that.
You know what I would like to see banned? Sympathy threads.
You know, the ones that say “My [friend, relative, pet] just [died, lost a limb, etc.] and I’m so sad”.
What follows those op’s is always an endless, two or three page string of people saying some variation on “hang in there, we know what you’re going thru, everything will be ok”, over and over and over again. Does this really help anyone? What is the point. If there were something we could actually do, raise money, send help, vote for something, etc. (and there have been those cases where we’ve done that) then fine, we’ll do it and it’ll be great. But what purpose does posting the same sentiment 1000 times serve? Nobody would dare post anything else in one of those threads, so you know when you open it what they’re all gonna say. Those threads don’t fight any ignorance or serve any useful purpose.
That’s just my opinion.
i know that a lot of people don’t like flirting through the internet and also threads about relationships and sex and i respect that. however, that doesn’t mean that people that enjoy that shouldn’t do it. i don’t think is anything wrong with that.
so, those of you that you don’t like it there is no need to be offensive to the others, it is very simple to avoid reading the threads that are about those subjects. 
Why, Primaflora, that’s such a nice thing to say. I mean, that almost sounds like…flirting. 
About flirting threads being “tagged.” I suppose it might be a good idea, but I don’t see it happening in practice, for three reasons. Firstly, while we’ve been through the whole “TMI” tagging, that at least serves the purpose of allowing offensive-to-mildly-offensive threads to be posted at all. I gather that at one point it was either tag them or ban them all together. Judging from the comments in this thread and elsewhere, there’s little threat of the flirting threads being banned. Secondly, many of the “flirting threads” don’t start out as such, but turn that way over the course of the thread. Thirdly, if we start tagging flirting threads with [F] (!), who’s to say we won’t having to tag lots of other kinds of threads–sex [s], rant [r], -gry threads [LOSER JERK]…
Metalhead, as someone who’s started a sympathy thread, I disagree. Having people express their concern for you is extremely helpful in a time of loss, even if it’s just to say “I’m sorry.” The thread is for the benefit of the OP, not for the uninvolved reader.
Thanks again, Primaflora. Sigh…maybe one day I’ll forget about What’s-her-name and So-and-so…
Hell no!
I’m still waiting for someone to flirt with me, and if TMI threads were banned, we wouldn’t have such classics as the the continuing zit topic.
//\etalhea|), you do know that a lot of people here know each other off the boards, don’t you? I recently started a “sympathy thread” about some personal crap I was going through, and it did help to know people were sending good thoughts my way. Some of the people were posters I know very well IRL, some were people who are acquantiances, some were people I only know from the boards, and some were people I didn’t know that well at all, but all of the good wishes were appreciated.
As for the topic of this thread, no, I don’t think the flirt/TMI/sex threads should be banned (I’ve been known to start some myself), and I don’t think anyone has seriously suggested that. I also don’t think they should have their own forum, for the reason stated in the other thread (actually, for the reasons Twisty stated). I stated in the Pit thread that if a flirt goes beyond about two exchanges, I think it should go to email or IM, but obviously others disagree. Oh, well. I can live with it, and stop reading the threads that degenerate from actual discussion into flirt-fests orgies.
Metalhead
Yes it does.