Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.
Actually Troy it was not the pamphlet I was referring to. It was the conversation regarding sexual penetration of an opening in one’s abdomen which caught my ire. Nothing tasteful there, I assure you.
Of course not, rules of conduct are necessary and expected. I am simply saying that as a relatively new member here, that it’s damn hard to determine the location of many of these lines. You see, the lack of certain concrete rules in the FAQ mean that there are many * invisible * lines.
See the problem here? I tripped an invisible laser beam with my post and set off an alarm. Fine. But why not just make the laser beam visible to all?
SkyBum, just a suggestion, but you may want to use the “report this post to a moderator” on the original GQ thread you linked to enquire if it crosses the “even too gross and disgusting for us” rule recently instituted. And no, there’s no specific meaning of “too gross for us” because it’s another “we’ll know it when we see it” type of thing. Hell, plenty of Cecil’s column’s are pretty disgusting on the face of it - that’s part of the reason, I suppose, that so much of this is a judgment call by the mods and difficult to codify into clear-cut rules. A lot of it is just decided on a case-by-case basis.
See Ed Zotti’s post here for the “too gross for us” rule. I don’t know if this has been added to the official FAQ yet, as it’s pretty new. I believe it was discussed pretty extensively in a pit thread, but I can’t find it right now.
Thanks porcupine, I appreciate your input.
No it’s not that it’s too gross. Although it did gross me out. I just mentioned it because of an earlier post in this thread which stated something to the effect that we had to be careful regarding nudity here because there are minors on the board. Fair enough. Although I have yet to see a single instance here of a subject matter that was “called onto the carpet” so to speak, for being innapropriate for the consumption of minors. I am sure you all can think of several threads like this. I guess we are looking at a double standard of some sort here. Sort of a say it but dont see it?
You know, I am really a tolerant person. I cannot imagine any post that could offend me to the point where I would complain to a mod about it. I mean that. I’m just not wired in that way. I see people here get so up in arms all the time over some remark that could be percieved as offensive. The way I choose to look at it is this: It is my choice as to whether or not to be offended by some thing. I simply choose not to be offended. It is the same choice I make every time and I choose it time and time again. If some person is a bigot. Fine. They have views that do not agree with mine. End of story. Nobody gets pissed off. I refuse to allow their comments to get under my skin. It is these people who CHOOSE to be offended that I don’t get. They act as if they don’t have a choice in the matter. So and so said this, now I HAVE to react like this. I just don’t get it.
I was talking to my mom the other day and she told me about a neighbor who swears a lot and she was so offended that a person would talk in front of her this way. I believe Goddamn was the word in question. I said to her, look mom they are just words, they are not offensive until you have made a choice to be offended by them. I choose not to be offended by such words, she chooses to be offended. I can tell you this, I have it easier in life because of my chioce than she does because of her choice. The bottom line is this: Neither of our approaches is going to change the neighbor. Do any of you get what I am saying? It’s hard for me to put into words but I hope some of you can see my point of view…it’s a really powerful place to be in **because you can stand solidly and not have to react everytime somone makes a comment or remark that does not agreee with your point of view. **
Stated more simply, you just shrug it off with a mental note that “oh I see, so and so is a bigot and an asshole” and go on with your day. Or you can choose to be offended and have a big scene or confrontation and let something ruin your entire day or week or life. As I see it, its all about the choices we make.
Anyhow, as fas as I am concerned, post anything you like, if I don’t like reading it I’ll skip it. Say anything you like, if I don’t agree with it I will ignore it. But I will not be offended because I’ve already made the choice that there is nothing that you can say or do that will offend me. Is this “live and let live”? I don’t know what is is but it is certainly working out well for me (YMMV).
If my ramblings here fail to make any sense I appologize, this is something that I have wanted to try to put into words for a long time and this is my first attempt.
You’re right, SkyBum. Since this discussion was about off-board linking, that’s what I looked for in the thread you linked to. My mistake, my apologies.