PSA regarding telling anecdotes on the Dope

[GuanoLad]

Never mind.

[Hal_Briston]

@Munch

I highly approve of this message.

Wait, do you mean you, or another person you’re referring to by the letter “I”?

[Lamia]

@Cat_Whisperer

That’s a good point, too - unless we NEED to know it’s your cousin’s doctor’s sister’s monkey (but really, how often does that happen?). My sister is terrible with telling anecdotes for this reason - she gives us all the names and histories of everyone involved in the story when “a guy I used to work with” would suffice.

I’m afraid I tend to do this in real life as well, although I try to restrain myself.

I don’t do the mysterious initial thing on the Dope though, and I’m glad to see it annoys others. I enjoy making up pseudonyms for people, I think it’s fun to give them unusual names rather than generic ones. And unless you’re deliberately trying to be vague about the sex or sexual orientations of the people involved, use obviously gender-specific names. Don’t call a couple “Pat” and “Chris” unless you have a damn good reason for leaving us to wonder whether this is a straight couple, a lesbian couple, or a gay couple.

I have mixed feelings about descriptive nicknames like “Psycho Ex”. If there are just one or two people involved then this generally works fine, but I remember a particular SDMB thread where the OP was telling a complicated story with a number of characters with these kinds of nicknames and it quickly became confusing. There was someone with a nickname like “Psycho Ex”, but one of the people involved was the OP’s ex-boyfriend and another was the ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, so “Psycho Ex” wasn’t specific enough.

[Autolycus]

What is this emotion you humans call ‘wuv?’

[Little_Nemo]

@MsWhatsit

Let’s say you have a friend, A. That friend has a son, B. The son’s girlfriend, C, is having an altercation with one of her college professors, let’s call him D.

B and D get together with A to talk about C, and then C gets together with B, and then D meets up with G, who is frankly somewhat of a shadowy figure that nobody knows much about, and you know what happened then?

No, you don’t, because you quit reading, because this looks like a damn word problem instead of an interesting anecdote.

But then we’ll talk about the time C went on spring break in Cabo with her roommate R. And they had to share a bed because it was this real cheap hotel room. And then one night they had a few too many drinks and started goofing around…

And just like that, the story is interesting again.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Lamia

<snip> And unless you’re deliberately trying to be vague about the sex or sexual orientations of the people involved, use obviously gender-specific names. Don’t call a couple “Pat” and “Chris” unless you have a damn good reason for leaving us to wonder whether this is a straight couple, a lesbian couple, or a gay couple.<snip>

Ooh, another good point. Welcome to androgyny!

[AlsoNamedBort]

Also, I don’t mind the cutesy nicknames for your family based on your username, make it obvious who you’re talking about. If your username is Rock, don’t make a post about how “Pebble” did something without making it clear that Pebble is your kid.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

As Woody Allen said, “I dated G. for a while, until I realized she was never going to tell me what the other letters in her first name were.”

[shantih]

@needscoffee

While we’re at it, I hate links to YouTube videos that don’t just say what the damn song or movie clip is, since you can’t just mouse-over to see it.

So right! I don’t live in the US and there’s an excellent chance that any given youtube video will be blocked for me. If I knew what it was, I could look it up elsewhere (if I cared enough), but without knowing, all I have is bitter, bitter frustration.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@shantih

So right! I don’t live in the US and there’s an excellent chance that any given youtube video will be blocked for me. If I knew what it was, I could look it up elsewhere (if I cared enough), but without knowing, all I have is bitter, bitter frustration.

That’s right! I get tired of asking for descriptions so I can try to find the videos, too. US Americans, whenever you link to a video on a tv channel website, no one outside the US can see it.