This board seems to be pretty civilized for two reasons (neither necessarily being the quality of those posting, though that isn’t bad either).
There are codes of conduct that mods actually enforce. If you personally attack someone in Great Debates you’ll get called on it. If someone asks a question in General Questions and you start ranting about politics you’ll get warned.
The board provides an outlet for most of the behavior that is prohibited elsewhere. Using my previous examples, if you want to call a poster an idiot for spreading misinformation in Great Debates, start a Pit thread. Your political rant may not be appropriate for General Questions but it is fine in Great Debates.
It’s like having a government that doesn’t allow any violence at the mall, but you can go next door to the gladiatorial arena to bludgeon someone to death so you can release the aggression without pestering folks at Orange Julius. It’s Death Race 2000 in action on a message board.
Sorry I meant to say in my reply above but forgot, yes the SDMB really is much better than the vast majority of boards out there, its the only one I use for that reason, so my OP isn’t really meant to compare it that way, although I wasn’t clear about that.
Not really; it can be quite a snarkfest if the OP is seen as asking a “stupid question”. Many of us, including Colibri, have also lost patience with people who insist on posting blatantly incorrect information, and who won’t back down. Don’t get me wrong-- it’s mostly very positive, but not always.
and that! now i realiz(s)e Count Blucher was making a funny, but quite often during a serious discussion someone will pop in to nitpick a spelling or word choice, and it has nothing to do with said discussion. it’s either someone just showing that they’re smarter than everyone else, or trying to use the error to show that the poster is not smart enough to understand what’s being discussed. attitude!
You’re “too lazy” to capitalize, yet you take the time to keep careful track of who it annoys?
Do what you want of course, if you want to make it your “thing”, but in my opinion it does tend to detract from the clarity of your otherwise coherent writing. It’s like run-on walls of text, it makes it difficult to read.
Though interestingly ‘realize’ is the original spelling and not the other way around, I would have thought that was the newer American version but apparently thats not the case.
Yes to this. So weird getting into a forum where I contributed some profound, erudite post a few hours ago and see the thread still in the top 5 or so.
“Animosity” generally arises when someone 1) posts a meme on one of these subjects that has been refuted to death previously, and 2) persists in it after his/her misapprehensions have been corrected in a civil manner using appropriate evidence.
As for These Kids Nowadays and/or Cranky Veteran Posters being quicker on the trigger and more vituperative currently, I recall numerous board wars on various topics in the past that went on and on, whereas now, moderation would likely tone them down and or close the thread more quickly. Personally, I am less prone these days to participate in endless exchanges, as opposed to dropping my [del]turds[/del] pearls of wisdom and then moving on.
