At least twice in the past ten days we’ve had posters complaining that one news item or another did not happen to show up as a GD topic soon enough for them. The most recent example can be found here.
My questions:
Since when did this message board become the venue of record for all official commentary on current events?
What purpose does it serve if a debate thread is started for no other reason than handwringing about the latest atrocity in one place or another? What is the debate?
What is the value to this board if such a thread devolves to the same three or four posters on one side of an issue sniping at the same three or four posters on the other side?
I say, such threads are of little value to anyone.
I humbly suggest the following:
If you are cruising the board and find that no one has started a thread on some subject you strongly feel needs commentary, start one. If you are not willing to do so, don’t whinge about the lack of concern of others.
If your proposed thread is likely to be nothing more than moaning about Man’s Inhumanity to Man, or a cascade of baseless speculation about who might have done what to whom, consider that you may be serving up tinned worms for lunch.
“36 hours ago some horrible bomb blasts took place in Karbala and Baghdad which killed 186 people and probably maimed another 800 or so people. Dreadful stuff. And yet I see very little comment upon it here on the SDMB.”
Being as the linked thread was an outgrowth of a Pit thread that the OP luanched first, talking about how nobody seems to care about the poor Iraqis, yeah, I think it fits. What I’m objecting to is the attitude that people here are somehow obligated to post commentary on news events within some arbitrarily-defined period, lest we be accused of callousness or hypocrisy.
