I used to hang out occasionally at another large, general-interest forum. (Can we name other forums here? Can’t remember and can’t be arsed looking through the rules.)
While it has many intelligent posters and thought-provoking discussions on a wide range of topics, one has to winnow through a shit-ton of ignorance, willful stupidity, witlessness and horrible, dime-store moderating to get to the good stuff. Not to mention frequent misspelling and fifth-grade level writing, which makes me itch all over.
Since I rediscovered these fora, I’ve all but stopped checking in with the other forum. I truly appreciate a forum where people write coherently, like adults, and are generally well-educated, smart and snarky. So, yah, y’all are cool.
tl;dr: I lanced a boil yesterday. It was gross and awesome and I feel much better now.
This was my first board. I’ve attempted to read other boards but I just can’t deal with the spelling, grammar, and other nonsense that you mentioned. The unfortunate part of this is that my online classes all come with message boards and it just about kills me every time I have to read them. It’s bad enough when a recreational message board is filled with crap but do we have to have low standards in college too?
By the way, chiroptera, your tl;dr made me inhale lemonade. It came out my nose too. Owie.
I don’t see why we can’t name other forums here.
The other place I frequent is Tivo Community. It’s a great place for anything TiVo related from how do I do this hack to what is wrong with my Tivo, but the Off Topic area (specifically the Happy Hour section) is pretty much on par with our MPSIMS/IMHO/GD with a bit of GQ thrown in for good measure.
There’s a large UK user base which tends to throw me for loop if I’m not paying attention. I have a book mark that pulls up the New Posts without any of the UK subforums.
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congodwarf**, I used to be a participant on a “professional” members-only writers’ board and it was pretty fucking horrendous. Given the mileau. Having an edumacation doesn’t make people smart that’s for sure. I don’t have an edumacation but I’m still [del] edumacated intel [/del]l smart.
I actually got spoiled, since I started online with the SFRT on GEnie, then followed it to SFF.net boards. I got used to highly intelligent discussion on all sorts of topics. The Straight Dope fit right in that model.
But there are many others that I’ve looked at and found nothing of interest.
A mod will probably be in shortly to explain that they don’t want to foster any cross-board wars or the like. I had a thread shot down for that reason (about the worst bulletin boards you’ve ever run across).
I love these forums. My first <beyond BBS> was <and is> a smaller board built of people who all sorta knew each other, one way or another, before putting it together. It’s been almost a decade, and the numbers have narrowed down to a comfortably-nitpicky family unit, which has it’s points.
But THIS is the board I appreciate the most for it’s diversity, wit, intelligence and banter.
I am on several boards for professional automotive technicians. At one of them the administrator is a grammar Nazi. That board is a pleasure to read. Complete sentences, words are spelled correctly. However the other boards are unmoderated as far as grammar and spelling goes. There are a few guys that write clear and concise posts about the problem they are having, or suggestions about other peoples problems. Most of the guy write stuff that can be translated with a bit of reading.
However there are several guys that could not build a readable sentence if you spotted them a noun, a vowel, 2 adjectives and a period.
The SDMB is a OG send after reading those posts.
We’re not allowed to start board wars, that makes sense, but discussing boards that we’re members of that have good topics and members that can properly utilize the English language is hardly going to incite a war.
Saying something like “Hey guys, I need some help in a thread over at thisotherplace.com could a couple of people back me up over there?” is clearly not allowed. Or “I need as many people as possible to go over to thisotherplace.com on September 19th and use the search function as much as possible all day long” would probably get the thread locked and the name of the board deleted.
But what we’re doing shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ll give you the noun, vowel and adjectives, but you’ll have to spot your own period. :eek:
I agree that the SDMB is an island of coherence in a sea of ignorance. I spend more time here than anywhere else. I heartily enjoy the thoughtful, well-written posts. Even the pittings are typically done with pinache.
Confession time: I’m actually a moderator (somewhat inactive) over on a model building board but the “different rules for different members” thing has made me a ghost there. The only other board I can think of that comes close to the SDMB is a pipe-smokers forum I frequent, but though usually very polite and well-mannered, it’s often full of “text-speak” (r u likin it 2?) and honestly, once you learn how to smoke a pipe and decide which tobaccos you enjoy, there’s really not a lot more that can be said about it.
Thanks, 'Dopers! You always add a lot of enjoyment to my day!
There’s a message board that serves the tri-county area where I live, and sometimes the concentrated ignorance and stoopidity makes my head asplode. I first joined just before I moved to this area, hoping to perhaps “meet” my future neighbors. My introduction came soon after my first post when one guy asked “Are you chubby?” Yeah, that had a lot to do with what I’d asked… :rolleyes:
Some of the members are obviously among those who were “cool kids” in elementary school and never let go of that mindset. They mock n00bs for not knowing that “we already had a thread on that 4 years ago… duh” or for not knowing the inside jokes. I quit reading the social forum because of the prevailing nastiness. If I ever log on there now, it’s to check the local news forum or the section that talks about new retail and restaurants opening in the area. Beyond that, the hatefulness and political extremism (oh, how they hate the Dems!!!) is just too much. And let’s not talk about the animated avatars and .sigs…
The Dope helps me maintain what little sanity I have left.
