Focussing on the thread title, it seems clear to me that its wording was calculated to draw, let’s just say “attention”. Whether that’s a good thing or not, whether that’s trolling or bait and [del]jerk[/del] switch, I don’t know. Because of it, I do think tomndebb made the correct call.
Jim, no offense, but it isn’t like its the first time around this block. I understood your main concern is trying to find fault with Tomndebb but lets not look at it in a vacuum. What we had was a poster, as far as anyone knows from another country, make a poorly worded OP. From there it started to turn the corner into into a minor high-jack. Tomndebb stepped in and clarified the wording to get to (what I would consider) the actual intent of the question. I’m not kidding you when I say that I read the OP as “changed” even before I saw the actual Post 19. And since that Post 19 both the serious and joking posts have been half-way interesting. So basically a case of job well done by the mods this time, right?
Well, I know you won’t agree. But after seeing so many of the international posters fade after getting jumped time and again, any effort on their behalf is something I can live with.
kopek, the fact that you read “cured” twice without realizing it argues more for the benefits of having a discussion on that point way more than any discussion about whether homosexuals could be put through aversive conditioning. Looks like a pretty bad blind spot.
It also seems to me that we have a pretty healthy international contingent. I think we might even have someone from Spain who posts here. If we lose someone who drive-by posts about curing homosexuality, that doesn’t seem like such a loss.
“… so that I can ignore the question being asked, and carrying on flaying the poster for implying that homosexuality is a disease, which is much more fun and gets me more cheers from the peanut gallery”.
I would call it more personal curiosity than I would a blind spot but that could just be me. I come from the school of thought that says behavior can be changed but orientation cannot, so possibly that comes into play in my reading. Changed is the interesting side of the discussion, most other readings we would try to impose on the OP are little more than another Pit thread waiting for the right moment to happen - nothing gained and certainly nothing learned.
While we do have some international membership they are not as prevalent among the more regular posters as they were when I was reading and then first joined. And a lot of what we do have is more British Commonwealth. Not to take away what they can bring to the table but I would like to see the wider range of Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Pacific Rim, etc. members posting on a regular basis as they did before. They are often the ones who start the better GQs that get me thinking more about us; the American Experience if you will. Not a bad thing to have happen in the greater scheme of the universe, at least IMHO.
Perhaps he took post #9 as a model.
Regards,
Shodan
So now you’re going to be all PC and act like a comment was offensive?
You made a stupid post because you apparently didn’t read what the thread was actually about. Then, rather than admit it, you keep on insulting everyone for your own mistake.
But I guess we can have tomndebb come in and tell us we have to debate a version of your post that makes sense rather than what it really says.
Really? I didn’t even make a post in it. By the time I noticed it, the intervention by Mod had already happened. That’s why I started this thread, because I was told I could not respond to the OP.
No, his point is to discourage this type of thing entirely. Whether you are international or not, the principle of this board is that your post stands as it is. You don’t get to have the mods come in and tell everyone what it means. You yourself can try to clarify, but you can’t report your post to the mods to have them come in and declare by fiat that only one possible interpretation is allowed.
Hell, my first Warning was for saying something in a way that someone completely misinterpreted. I didn’t get to have the mods come in and say “well, it can only mean this non-offensive thing.” Hell, pretty much all the posts I’ve made that people hate me for are posts where they misunderstand, but I don’t get to have the mods come in and say what I meant.
He said “cure.” Cure is not a synonym for “change.” It presupposes that there is a disease state. Even if you say it doens’t need to be fixed, you’re still seeing it as a disease, just a disease that people have the right to choose to live with. It is also rather unlikely that anyone would know the word “cure” but not the word “change.”
Tom changed the post. He decided that his interpretation of what it meant is the only one. Maybe mine’s wrong, but I should have the right to argue it. That’s kinda the point of Great Debates. If the OP disagrees, they can always come back and clarify.
But in no way should the mods act as a cushion to protect people from the words they chose. Well, not unless they want to completely change how this board is moderated.
No, I am going to make fun of posts that complain about snark that comes from other people, and not about snark that comes from the complainer.
[QUOTE=Your Great Darsh Face]
“… so that I can ignore the question being asked, and carrying on flaying the poster for implying that homosexuality is a disease, which is much more fun and gets me more cheers from the peanut gallery”.
[/QUOTE]
This is, obviously, exactly what was going on.
Regards,
Shodan
Not clever, not funny, extrodinarily hostile and offensive. Ouch, you hurt my feelings.
But thank you for letting me know your feelings. You see I don’t come here to get all worked up I just come for fun and the occasional good read. Enjoy.
Moderator Note
This thread is turning into a bunch of snark and snippy comments. ATMB is not the place for that. This is not The Pit or even The Pit Light. ATMB is the place for POLITE and CIVIL discussion of board issues.
If you have an issue that you wish to discuss, by all means, please do so.
If you want to make a snippy comment, do so elsewhere, or not at all. But don’t do it here.
I agree. tomndeb decided to protect posts by not giving out warnings like he claims he could have. Makes one wander why he didn’t want to give warnings to those posts.
It’s not like there’s no precedent for mods keeping threads on track by instructing what is not a proper reply.
Because it’s easier than wading through individual posts to see who should be warned for what? Nothing new there, either.
On that, as well as the rest of this debate, we will have to respectfully disagree.
He was either already reading the thread or when he got the notice it was at most 18 posts long. If it’s too hard to read 18 posts then I don’t know what to tell you. Now if it was pages long then I see just doing what he did. Nobody wants to read 100+ posts looking for what might be just one idiot being an idiot in one post.
I’m fully behind tomndebb in this matter, I need some brownie points with him.
The OP made some poor choices in which words he chose, especially the word “cured”. However, in context it was obvious the OP wasn’t trying to make being gay into some kind of infectious disease. The debate started out between whether the OP was some criminally insensitive moron or whether he was Hitler reborn. The moderator action simply clarified that the debate was about changing gender identity, which in hindsight was the OP’s intent.
If you want to Pit the OP, then Pit it, but Pit it in the Pit.
On the contrary, it is probably much more productive to correct people’s ignorant misuse of terms. It may help them to more fully understand the issues. Like substituting gender identity for sexual orientatiion.