It’s a nice slogan and I am not above invoking it to make other members feel bad about themselves…but is it really true? Mostly the place seems to be about racism and sexism and, most of all, I am so much smarter than you that I can’t even understand why you asked a question that dumb.
The General Questions subforum is, at least in theory, about fighting ignorance. Or at least about mud wrestling with it, for the jollies.
Everywhere else on the board is where we go to let our hair, and pants, down.
Or that has always been my understanding of it, anyway.
You’re claiming this place is a hotbed of racists and sexists?
No. Just that those are two out of three things that are mostly what we talk about lately. My guess is that ignorance encompasses a broader range of topics.
GQ and maybe GD. But I don’t think really the board is the great bastion of learning that some people make it out to be. It’s really just a slogan for Cecil’s column. It’s an internet message board, and despite what some here like to think, it’s not much different than many others on the net. Nice people, but not some shining light of “special people”.
Really, no more so than any other place on the internet where people discuss “serious” topics.
Cite?
Are we still doing that? I thought ignorance already won.
This place can’t even work out what 14 k of g in a f p d is. Fucking pathetic.
Just today I read in interesting thread about the danger (or lack thereof) of electrical transformers.
While there is surely ignorance remaining here, I frequently find I’m learning something.
Yes. This.
It’s a human endeavor, fraught with all the problems of such endeavors. It’s easy to notices the steps taken backwards, but my sense is that we take more forward steps than backward.
GQ, I think, is pretty clean. Ignorance gets jumped on pretty quick there. In GD, there are a lot of issues that don’t have an objectively correct answer, so there’s going to be a lot of fighting, especially for people who DO think they have the objectively right answer.
I don’t think the other forums are all that much about fighting ignorance (except maybe Elections), so the shit that goes on there doesn’t count, IMHO.
Can’t we all just get along?
Nope. It’s too much fun kicking someone when they’re down
You never stand so tall as when you stoop to snuff out the last spark of another person’s self-esteem…
Some of the issues in GD have objectively correct answers, too, within the scope of the discussion (“Is AGW real?” “Why, yes, Virginia, there really is AGW.” :)) but it lands in GD because the issues are sufficiently complex that all kinds of bullshit oozes in between the cracks and festers there. But you’re right, and I’ve liked the way AGW has been handled in GQ when it occasionally arises: someone asks a specific question, the specific question is competently answered, and the bullshitters derailing the discussion are told to STFU.
Anyway, I’ve participated in a number of boards, and this one scores a lot higher on the general intelligence scale than others in my immediate experience. And more real scientists and other authoritative experts around.
Agreed. I did not mean to imply that ALL issues in GD were “debatable”.
That’s good to hear. I’ve participated in only a few other boards, but only briefly. This is really the only one I feel like I know pretty well.
I pop over to the Long Neck board every now and again just to see if there is anything interesting, but it doesn’t seem a whole lot different form this one-- just a lot less traffic.
I just came for the pie.
I’d be very interested in photos of the panel of moderators with their pants down…
Sometimes we have to entertain ourselves while waiting for ignorance to show up to the fight.
Does this place even purport to fight ignorance? I thought the whole “since 1973” part made it pretty clear that the slogan referred to the column in particular, not the website or the message board. And the forum that actually discusses the column is one of the least used.
This is an online message board, much like any other. It skews slightly geeky (and more than slightly old and white), it’s one of my favorites, but it’s just a message board.