Hell yes! I totally see where you’re coming from! Fabulous Creature is the meanest, stupidest, and most disgusting person ever to post on the Dope. There is no person, object, or concept in the entire universe that I hate more than Fabulous Creature. I sincerely hope he has gone, and isn’t still fouling up the boards under a new name.
Pfft. Fabulous Creature indeed. He should have called himself Horrible Creature. That name would have been more apt because he is, in fact, a horrible creature.
Sorry about this rant. I just really hate Fabulous Creature.
Remember all FC’s long boring rants about how creationism should be taught in the public schools, and anyone who tries to teach the theory of evolution should not merely be fired but actually gang-raped by a pack of baboons wearing 16" razor-barbed strap-on dildos?
And the RACISM, my god! The constant white supremacist garbage! The endless lectures on the serpent seed doctrine and how black people are actually the cursed by God because Satan, Belial, and Amodeus gang-raped Eve in the garden of Eden, spawning Cain!
I’ll never understand why we didn’t band together and kill him. Her. It.
So, neutron star, when are we going to see you at a Gettysdope?
engineer_comp_geek has it right. This board has encouraged proper English and discouraged leet speak for as long as I’ve been around, and that’s one thing I think makes us different. We encourage people to use proper grammar and spelling. Several times I’ve seen someone come here, start posting using internetisms or all lower case letters and be called on his or her behaviour. When the newbie tries to justify it by saying something like “i’m too lazy to use caps” people here will point out that if he can’t be bothered to take the trouble to use proper capitalization, why should we take the trouble to read what he has to say? I’ve also seen people point out that the only way we have to judge people by what they have to say and how they say it. The smart ones have turned their posting styles around.
There’s also potential for any typo to be turned into a joke, as I know a little too well.
As for me, I figure as long as I can stay under radar here, I might succeed in making a dent in my own ignorance.
I don’t think it’s a matter of it warding off morons; I think it’s a matter of it not attracting morons to begin with.
This board, as far as I can tell, is considerably older (the users, I mean) than most forums on the internet.
In fact, I don’t really think that this board is necessarily a “more intelligent board” (though it is) as much as it just is a mature board. Older people = intelligent conversation, good writing, spelling/grammar, etc.
Silly rabbit. The SDMB Death Ray does work. It’s just that I have it and am studying it with the aim of replicating it and mounting 8746 of them on satellite-mounted attack platforms. For obvious reasons.
The only other two message boards I’ve been on fairly regularly are Three Way Action and to a much lesser degree, The Usual Suspects. Those boards, too, encourage sensibly written posts using conventional spelling and so on.
I didn’t appreciate how rare, and how easy to read, those customs are until I visited other message boards. If someone doesn’t bother to capitalise, punctuate, and spell, and relies on multiple exclamation points, acronyms and other crutches, it destroys their credibility, in my opinion. It’s very hard to take what they ‘say’ seriously.
I don’t mind smilies, used sparingly, very sparingly. I loathe long, complicated, image-laden signatures, avatars that blink and flash and distract. I’ve seen some rather silly boards where a member’s post consists of little more than “YA RULZZZZZ LOL!!!11!!!” and yet my screen is filled halfway up with all the glittery, blinky crap that adorns their particular contribution to the thread.
I do like it here—it’s the wide-ranging topics of discussion that I find particularly addicting. To get back to the opening question, the intolerance of blatant stupidity, and the culture of posting one’s thoughts in proper written form, along with the expectation that you will back up your claims with evidence—yes, that will certainly dissuade the dummies out there.
I post on two other message boards. One is TotalFark, the ‘premium’ area of Fark.com. There’s quite a high level of snark there (99% joking snark, but snark nonetheless) and if someone doesn’t bother to use real words, but uses letter instead, within seconds there are posts making fun of them… And their mom. (Like I said… Lots O’ snark)
And that part of Fark is generally the older crowd. The people who can afford $5 a month, and know that generally, if someone makes fun of your mom on the internet, they’re just playing with you.
The other board I frequent has to do with paintball, and was started by a former Doper (Doc Nickel). He attracted a mature, intelligent group to that board, and trolling is pretty much minimal, because the board members are always willing to help a misguided newb, or if the new troll comes by, they will land the smackdown on them. The forum doesn’t even have registration, yet the quality is kept up by the civility of the regulars.
That reminds me, samclem, is the houseparty at your place this year? Do we have to do the costumes again? Why only three newbies on the list this time?
A few years back I recall a young lady joined and her first message was written in chat room idiom. She was straightened out pretty quickly- a few caustic replies but also some straight forward replies pointing out that we were capable of understanding literacy. I have a vague notion it may have been Fairy Chat Mom (who did the straightening out), but my memory being what it is that is probably incorrect.
Interesting that you should mention that. I hang out at a writer’s board that has few graphics (but more than I’d like), and some new members sometimes complain that they want bigger icons, etc.
The old-timers at that site respond, “Why? What does that have to do with the subject at hand?”
Wow. It’s a sort of alternate language developed by teens on the Intenet. I think. It’s really annoying, is all I know. A lot of these other boards use it. For example
“owned” is “pwned”
And lots of other stuff. I’m sure other people can tell you more and even give you better answers.
Actually, specifically it was developed by First-Person-Shooter gamers on the Internet. Therefore, many of the terms within it are specificially geared to telling an opponent he sucks or that you’re great (suxxorz and roxxors, respectively). It’s also why it makes heavy use of abbreviation (“u” for “you”, “2” for “to”; “noob” for newbie): to make it easier to type quickly while still playing competitively in the game. It’s also why, conversely, some of the spelling or letter exchanges (using ASCII symbols for letters, such as saying r0><><0rs instead of roxxors) are actually more convoluted: what better way to prove your ability than to type something extremely complex even as you kick your opponent’s ass? Finally, its use in game quick chat is why common typos tend to be enshrined in it: “pwned” for “owned” and “teh” for “the”.
It’s an interesting dichotomy in how it gets used: on the one hand, it gets used by elite gamers (hence “leet speek”) who use it well to taunt opponents and show their gaming heritage and skills; on the other hand, it gets used by complete idiots who don’t know how to communicate regularly (hence the great World of Warcraft cry “how i mine 4 fish?”). Most players who fall in the “middle ground” actually use regular sentences.
It’s a sort of alternate language developed by teens on the Intenet. I think. It’s really annoying, is all I know. A lot of these other boards use it. For example