I went to Jodi’s car thread, too, and I almost (almost, I tell you!) posted to it. The only reason I didn’t is that I had nothing to really offer other than, “Man, that’s crappy luck!” I mean, I did have bad luck with cars myself, but nothing compared with Jodi’s luck. And this was after a few people had already posted similar tales of woe.
One of the things that’s convinced me this Board is the finest place on the internet is the way people respond. Last winter, I went and ranted in the Pit because I couldn’t believe the way my Employee Assistance program treated me. The sympathy and support I got from people who I thought were complete strangers overwhelmed me. I’ve yet to meet a Doper face-to-face, except for agentfroot and a certain nameless lurker, who I introduced to these boards, but I do count you people as friends.
At the risk of sounding like a total geek (who me?:)), a line from Babylon 5 comes to mind where DeLenn talks with wonder about human’s remarkable ability to form communities. Community? No. You people are more than that. You’re my friends. Thank you for letting me come to this party.
Now, bring on the booze and the chocolate!!!
CJ
There’s a dark side to that, cj. If you post something personal, there will always be someone who rails against you, instead of against the people or things you’re railing against. This can be pretty traumatic for folks who were just looking for a little sympathy. A good example are the “pet who died” threads - you will see a lot of great, well-meaning people who sympathize and empathize, but every now and then there will be one person who will blast YOU for some odd reason.
Oh, I know, Dan. After all, I was one of the people arguing with you in the Pit recently. Then again, last time someone tried to mindlessly insult me (in GD, no less!), someone else came to my defense first. I’ve also probably done my share of being unreasonable. On the other hand, I’ve been going through a bit of hell recently, and I’ve found wonderful support here. Heck one person even tried to find me a job (and he still has my thanks)!
CJ
One of the first threads I ever began here concerned the murder of our pet dog by another dog. I knew absolutely no one here. There were a LOT of warm, sympathetic posts. But then it kind of devolved into a “should pit bulls be put down” thread, and some of those posts did come off as a little insensitive. People push their own agenda even if they don’t know it, sometimes.
“When Dopers become more than just Dopers”
Well, there’s this one cute Doperette… and she’s definitely more than ‘just a Doper’. 
By the way, did anyone have visions of a new Fox special when they read this thread? Just curious.
So many possibilities:
When Dopers Attack
or
World’s Deadliest Sequential Thread Titles
or
‘Hi Opal’, The Truth Behind The Terror
or perhaps a reality show:
Survivor: The BBQ Pit
This place has changed my life. I have friends I would have never met, I’ve gone places I never would have and when I’ve been in a tough situation the people here are always willing to give me advice. I consider the advice of the people here as important as that of family. Really I honestly think my life would be in a worse place if it wasn’t for the SDMB.
Thank God I was searching around for DonMclean lyrics that night a couple years ago. Stumbled upon this place in the process.
Funny, I was just thinking about posting a thread about those threads. I had just read scott evil’s thread, and I felt a little guilty about reading it without saying “good luck.” It occured to me that the view count would get much higher than the post count, and it would be obvious that I bunch of us were just prying into someone’s personal life. In real life, if a stranger shared something personal with me, I would say something, but I don’t do the same here.
You know, chula, I had much the same thought. If you just say “good luck” and can’t offer much else (like noting you’ve gone through a similar experience), then it almost seems like you’re posting to be seen. I figure if the person is someone who’s ‘been around’ then people who know the person better or who have had a similar experience will be able to offer a more productive post.
that goes to the issue you raise, which is really IMO the key issue in this thread:
Where exactly is the line between “agenda-advancement” and “me-too-ism”?
It’s agreed that jumping in on a sympathy-thread to chime in “Yup, what he/she/they said” is bad form, creates a competitive element, etc. So posters, I think wisely, have been encouraged in this thread to say something of substance in such threads.
Problem is, anything (or almost anything) substantial can also be read as agenda-advancement. Take your dog thread. Obviously I wasn’t on the SDMB then, but say you went way over the top, started carrying on as if your dog’s life was more valued to you than any human life, or you attributed traits to your deceased dog (of super-canine intelligence, insight, etc.) that smacked of sentimental excess to me. If I then expressed sympathy to you for your loss, but opined that your emotional response implied a moral equivalence of human and canine life that could offend people, would that response inherently be over the top?
I’m new here, and I don’t want to tell you Dopers how to run this site, but it occurred to me that maybe an explicit “Sympathy” forum would do the trick. The other day, I got in on someone’s thread about her marriage breaking up, and got generally blasted for intruding unwelcome comments into a post designed to elicit sympathetic responses. I was thinking that, because the person put it up on the discussion board (I believe it was up in MPSIMS), it was open for polite discussion, and apparently I was mistaken. I was accused, maybe justly, of agenda-advancement.
I guess I’m saying that someone could be seeking sympathy in a thread, but still state/overstate/ misstate/assume/etc. something that someone else has an issue with. If we adopt the rule that if the original poster is offended by a response, then that response is wrong, this site is IMO diminished.
I think that if I wanted only sympathetic responses to my thread, I would probably communicate via e-mail to people who I knew would give me what I needed. By posting on a board like this, isn’t one asking for comments that have the potential to offend? How about appending a statement to the post like “Please don’t take this thread for a place to debate [issue]: I’m just looking to get sympathy from my fellow Dopers” (phrased more nicely, of course)? Or a whole separate board for such threads?
And sorry about your dog, if that’s at all unclear.
Maybe “MPSIMS” already IS the sympathy-only-thread that I’m rattling on about, and I’m too much of an arrogant newbie to understand that.
Does the “share” part of MPSIMS preclude different responses other than “I share your pain”?
“I think that if I wanted only sympathetic responses to my thread, I would probably communicate via e-mail to people who I knew would give me what I needed. By posting on a board like this, isn’t one asking for comments that have the potential to offend?”
I have to say…I’m with you on this one. In my (pretty freakin’ far from humble) opinion, if you post anything - anything - to a public message board, you are opening anything you say for public comment. If someone takes issue with a point in your post, that’s their RIGHT.
I mean, if you’re on the phone spilling your heart to a friend, your roommate doesn’t have the right to pick up the line and say, “GOD, you’re being melodramatic!” If you write a letter to a friend telling how poorly things are going, no one else has the right to open it before you send it and add editorial comment. But…if you put up a poster on the side of your building detailing the things that are making you unhappy, any random yaboo can - and will - add his or her opinions, and you really lost the right to be unhappy about that when you tacked the damned thing up.
All of which is, quite frankly, why I don’t usually post to sympathy threads. If I know the person in question, I probably have them on IMs, and I’ll express my sympathy and/or willingness to help more personally. If I don’t know them…man, by the very nature of humanity, I can’t take what they’re saying at face value. So…unless it’s something that really speaks to me, I don’t post.
As a result of this message board, I care about more people than I would have, but my trust button is harder to push.
A few days ago I tried to post to this thread, “I care more about more people on here than any of them knows, or that I would care to advertise.” That’s true. I’m not a touchy-feely person by any stretch of the imagination…but there’s a lot of caring I do without saying a damned word.
It probably would. It’s a fine line. You just need to read the OP and try to get a sense of what the person’s intentions are. Are they just trying to tell you about something that’s happened in their lives, something to which you can relate? Or are they using something that’s happened as a platform for a different agenda? It’s important to view the OP in the correct spirit. It’s bad form to criticize someone in a MPSIMS thread in which they’re obviously pouring their heart out. Now, if the same thread had been put in IMHO, then criticism would be the way to go.
Again, it’s a fine line. There were people in the dog thread who chided me for various reasons. If you’re the OP and made the initial post under some duress, then these comments will affect you - but there’s no real way for the poster to know this. I think polite criticism is perfectly okay, as long as tact and decorum are recognized. It just comes down to the intentions of the OP. Do they seem to want nothing but sympathy? If so, and you don’t have sympathy to provide but would rather be critical, then don’t be too surprised if others in the thread jump your case. Timing is key - “I know you had a rough time, and I empathize with you, but …” might not be the right thing to say.
Another factor is the familiarity of the poster. The more people recognize your screen name, the more slack you might get. If you’ve never caused any kind of fuss before, people probably won’t overreact to your being critical of the OP. If you haven’t posted much, they might. It’s not always right, but it can be the case.
When people begin these threads, they don’t always consciously think of them as simply ‘sympathy-getters.’ They may know people on the board and wish to let them know what’s going on in their lives. I didn’t post my dog thread solely so people would post sympathetic responses. Heck, I’m not even sure why I did it, come to think of it.
But if you frequent a message board, then certain traumatic experiences - big deals - can be dealt with therapeutically if they’re shared on that message board. It just makes you feel better to post about it, no matter what the sympathy level is.
It pains me a little to agree with Hamadryad :), but this is so true. If you post it on here, then be ready for good and bad responses. That’s the way it goes. No matter the forum in which it’s posted. (Of course, I’d say it’s not a right people have, but a privilege, but that’s hair splitting.)
My point being that it’s kind of unfair to credit so much of the judgment to the “intentions of the OP” when many OPs don’t see all the implications themselves.
No, they don’t. But it still depends on where the thread is taking place, I think. If you post in MPSIMS, you’re more likely to get mostly positive responses. If you post in IMHO, you’re opening yourself up to negative responses. And, of course, if you post in the Pit, be prepared to get slaughtered - with support sprinkled in occasionally.
Case in point, scott evil’s thread, in MPSIMS. Had he posted that revelatory thread in the Pit, he’d be skewered. Had he posted it in IMHO, he’d still have people telling him he’s wrong, for whatever reason. Since he posted it in MPSIMS, I’m more inclined to just take the OP at face value.
Thanks for clarifying the distinction for me. You the man.