Too Many Topics About US Election May Alienate Some Users

@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

I'm not the first to notice the overwhelming presence of US election topics. I thought to myself today that maybe our non-US A2Kers are being ostracized by this huge wave.

Part of it is the tag system which IMO discourages exploration on other topics. Hell, this topic may not even be discovered.

So here is a question I'd love to learn about form our neighbors to the north.

1) What the heck is up with Quebec? Can someone give a brief history or the region?

I'm very alienated by all the stuff about US elections, and I saw your thread perfectly easily, and I have no idea why tagging would have stopped me, or anyone else.

I think I likely need to start other threads, but all my threads are being found too boring to take off lately.

I have BEEN to Quebec, and it is a very great place to visit.

I can't answer your question, which is a good one, though....and which I only really have vague knowledge about.

What I will say is I hope someone can elucidate fully...but I found it kind of sad that all these Francophone Quebecois looked back to France all emotionally, because I doubt the French give a flying **** about THEM.

It also felt a tad weird that the Francophones would act like they didn't speak English until they figured we were Australian, not Anglophone Canadians, or Americans. They were very delightful to us after that.

I would love to go back to Quebec and Montreal.

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We are ALL totally bored at this whole election bullshit. I think weve heard all the issues several times. Weve heard them so much that, Im sure most of us USers can repeat the candidates pre -packaged responses. Im going to Tivo the next debate so I can watch the playoffs and a couple of movies if the news reports one or the other of them making a reasl gaff.

I must admit to a fantasy of doing Sarah PAlin on the floor of the Princeton Engineering Library. Technically, that really isnt politics .

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

We are ALL totally bored at this whole election bullshit.

I don't think Nimh and Soz are.

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@dlowan,

Soz has already said she's not, She's all fired up about her candidate. But that's an exception. Phoenix even has a thread about wishing this whole madness would stop. I cuncur. And I know what TKO means about the politics tags. To scan the A2K Home Page means seeing nothing but political stories. Nobody even clicks on tags e.g. music or debate and discussion or philosophy and religion any more. You click on any of those sites and find that the most recent posts are days old. I hate tagging. Bring back the old forum format. I have yet to tag a single topic and doubt greatly that I ever will. Clicking on the "my posts" feature is good enough for me, except that nobody seems to be posting on any topics except the political ones these days. Damn! I wish I weren't so addicted to this god-forsaken site.

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soz is just strange and nimh's a ferinner so he doesnt have the constant banners and radio spots and TV crap, and 24 news cycle full of attack ads.

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@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

I'm not the first to notice the overwhelming presence of US election topics. I thought to myself today that maybe our non-US A2Kers are being ostracized by this huge wave.

Simple solution: start lots of non-election related threads. If enough people are fed up with politics and want to talk about something else, those will thrive and stay on the New Posts homepage. If everyone who's bitchin' about all the politics threads would just start interesting threads about other stuff instead of bitchin', it wouldnt be all politics.

farmerman wrote:

We are ALL totally bored at this whole election bullshit.

Odd, then, that all anyone starts are election threads. Well, ok, there's those and there's the seemingly unceasing threads complaining about how sucky and uninteresting a2k's become.

Merry Andrew wrote:

Soz has already said she's not, She's all fired up about her candidate. But that's an exception. Phoenix even has a thread about wishing this whole madness would stop.

Yep, and as counterpart there's this thread: I am enjoying this election.

Merry Andrew wrote:

Clicking on the "my posts" feature is good enough for me, except that nobody seems to be posting on any topics except the political ones these days.

Well, start some interesting threads then! I'm sorry, but you're one of the posters who most adamantly complains about how a2k has become sucky, but you havent started a thread yourself in a year. If you want people to talk about something that interests you, start a thread about something that interests you!

Same for you Farmerman. If you're right that everyone is totally bored out of their mind with all the political threads, surely eneough people would respond if you'd start an interesting thread about something else to keep it alive... you havent started a thread in a month - and your last one was about ... politics.

Look guys, it's not like this is a newspaper and you have no choice but just to consume what "they" offer you, the powers that be or sumpin... it's also just up to all of you yourself. Fed up with the threads we start? Start other ones. As they say, "you've got the power!" Not on TV you dont, but here you do..

Sorry guys, I dont mean to personally attack you and I know that hey, Diest did exactly that just now, start a non-politics thread I mean. But jeebus it seems like all about half of a2k does nowadays is complain, and what gets me is that often the very same people who do the complaining arent doing anything to change anything about it; like just, you know, create different stuff then. Evil or Very Mad

farmerman wrote:

I must admit to a fantasy of doing Sarah PAlin on the floor of the Princeton Engineering Library. Technically, that really isnt politics .

OK that was funny Laughing

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

soz is just strange

word

Although ya know what, I cropped out the second part but maybe it's pertinent:

farmerman wrote:

and nimh's a ferinner so he doesnt have the constant banners and radio spots and TV crap, and 24 news cycle full of attack ads.

Since I'm deaf AND I pretty much never watch regular network TV, I don't have any sort of unwanted barrage of ads. I've seen maybe ten total all election cycle "live," on the air, as opposed to watching 'em on YouTube or whatever.

I get banners tho.

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@Diest TKO,

Hey . Some of us Us'ns are very tired of it as well. Trust me you are not alone.
There are quite a few of us who think arguing over things you have no control over is silly.

Though people seem to really enjoy it... thats their cup of tea i guess

But you are not alone.. people in the US, canada, Australian super fuzzy bunnies and funny speaking english people agree with you too Laughing

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@Diest TKO,

May alienate? Ha. The trouble with participating in the election stuff is there are a few voices that shout out or ignore all others. Plus, I find people post intentionally to bait into anger. Enough.

It's all become a bad business that will never end-- once we have a new president attention will turn to him and the awful/great job he's doing.

As for Quebec-- our neighbor to the North, I went their as a lad of 9. My first trip to another country! I have since been back as an adult and they have truly maintained their French identity.

As a 9 yr. old my first experience with the French was something of a slap in the face-- they didn't give a s*** about my adorable self.

As an adult, I have come to appreciate their aloofness.

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@Cliff Hanger,

I collapse the election threads - I have no problem finding what I am looking for.

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@mismi,

How do you collapse them?

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@Cliff Hanger,

Click on the thumbs down. Then they become nothing but a short line in a tiny font saying "Post/topic voted down"; and they will stay that way whenever you come back (as long as you're logged in) until you uncollapse them and thumb them back up.

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There seems always to have been a fair bit of protest here regarding either the amount of discussion on US politics or on the style of those discussions. But that's just a function of the membership with its earlier incarnation on abuzz. Not too much different from a house party, it seems to me, where you mingle about until you find a conversation of interest.

TKO
I've spent almost no time at all in french-speaking Canada, to my great regret. Not so for many other Canadians here. But we each have knowledge and opinions on this dual linguistic/cultural/legal heritage. I think we are bloody fortunate to have this situation. You could, of course, start a thread on it and I might even contribute if I can spare time away from the US political threads.

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@Diest TKO,

I find the number of them annoying but some I read and others I just vote them down (because they're inflammatory) so they don't clutter my screen. I do seem to spend a lot of time doing that. It hasn't alienated me, however. Some people obsess about politics, others about other things (guns, for example).

I've started a 'discussion' on a roasting issue. Get your butt in there and give me your opinion.

As to the Francophone issue, you're best to google it. We and they get along just fine. Whenever I've been there, they spoke to me in English, and I found most of them delightful. The most annoying thing about the Franco-Anglo thing to me is that I have to hear the airplane instructions and announcements in both languages every time I fly, even if it's from this burg to another, where not one Frenchie is ever on the plane. I fly a lot, so it gets wearying. I think we pretty much all know how to buckle up, if ya know what I mean.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

There seems always to have been a fair bit of protest here regarding either the amount of discussion on US politics or on the style of those discussions. But that's just a function of the membership with its earlier incarnation on abuzz. Not too much different from a house party, it seems to me, where you mingle about until you find a conversation of interest.

TKO
I've spent almost no time at all in french-speaking Canada, to my great regret. Not so for many other Canadians here. But we each have knowledge and opinions on this dual linguistic/cultural/legal heritage. I think we are bloody fortunate to have this situation. You could, of course, start a thread on it and I might even contribute if I can spare time away from the US political threads.

I thought he HAD started a threasd about it...just named it wrong.

Here's wikipedia's view on the issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement

Here's an excerpt from that:

With a sovereign state, Quebec sovereignists believe that the people of Quebec will be better equipped to foster their own economic, social, and cultural development. Sovereignists are opposed to the present federal system in Canada and do not believe it can be reformed in a way that could satisfy what they see as the desire of Quebecers to govern themselves apart from the rest of Canada in all respects.

The idea of sovereignty for Quebec is based, according to its proponents, on historical and sociological evidence that Quebecers are a people and a political nation"see Identity Politics. However, in recent polling, only Francophone Quebecers responded to questions implying they believe they belong to a Quebec nation, and non-Francophone Quebecers reject this idea.[2] Still, vocal elements of the francophone Quebecer political class feel that they have democratic control over a state of their own, but that inside the Canadian federation as it currently stands, this state does not have the constitutional powers which the Quebec government needs to be the effective national government of Quebecers.

Several attempts at reforming the federal system of Canada have thus far failed because of, particularly, the conflicting interests between sovereignists' representatives and the other provincial governments' representatives (see Constitutional debate of Canada). There is also a degree of resistance throughout Quebec and the rest of Canada to re-open constitutional debate for a number of reasons, in part, because of the nature of these failures"not all of which were the result simply of separatists and federalists not getting along. To cite one case, in a recent round of constitutional reform (see the Meech Lake Accord), an aboriginal leader from Manitoba was able to prevent ratification of the agreement in the provincial legislature because the interests of Canada's aboriginal population were not addressed.

But...I am sure Canajuns can do WAY better than that!!!

Doesn't it begin with the damn Redcoats deciding Canadia ought to be their's, too...and stuff about brave General Wolfe, and the opposing Montcalm and the Plains of Abraham...and all that?

Here's a soppy painting of Wolfe dying in the Battle of Quebec:

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@nimh,

Thanks.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Doesn't it begin with the damn Redcoats deciding Canadia ought to be their's, too...and stuff about brave General Wolfe, and the opposing Montcalm and the Plains of Abraham...and all that?

No, it started way before that... but you really need Set for this one. If I remember from 35 years ago (history class), England and France were involved in various activities (fur trading, exploration) here and in several treaties, swapped the land bank and forth. I think the first settlement were the French in the 1500's.

That was really pathetic!!

Here's a link: http://www.linksnorth.com/canada-history/rediscovery.html

Edit:
Actually, I find a lot of Canadian history fascinating, like the search for the NorthWest Passage, the building of the railroad...

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One could write a few essays on this topic and I'm way too lazy, particularly as there is so much available online like the piece Deb just posted.

But I'll give a little personal anecdote.

Canada went through a period of a couple of decades of turmoil re Quebec separatist goals which led up to the October Crisis in 1970 (DeGaulle played a small but critical part in this). The extremist FLQ organization took two hostages, a Quebec politician and a Brit trade commissioner and the first of these was assassinated. The Canadian PM invoked the War Measures Act (martial law) and FLQ members were rounded up en masse.

The lady with whom I had a relationship before my present floozy had been, prior to our relationship, married to a French Canadian fellow, had born him one child and was pregnant with the second when she first went to Quebec to meet his family. Whereupon she found out that he wasn't really who he had told her he was. His name wasn't his real name nor his declared past the real one. He had been involved in the above incidents and had been in hiding since.

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@blatham,

what is really important about quebec is the FOOD !!!
(i like watching some quebec-french language programs too . my french is very poor - but just watching the "quebecoise" is enough reward ) .

so getting back to food - please have a look here and ENJOY :

http://www.quebeciscooking.com/gourmet_products.htm

just smelling their cheeses makes me slobber !

http://www.quebeciscooking.com/quebeciscooking_files/cheese2.gif

1 Reply

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