Appropriate innuendo and crass sexual content?

The thing about the innuendo (and more explicit stuff) is it's just plain boring and common. It's kiddie chat room garbage, which can be found all over the Internet. A2K is supposed to be a more unique experience. Letting it deteriorate to "let me tell you all about my sex life" is an invitation to be like everyone else.

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makemeshiver33 wrote:

I have been made to feel unwelcome by some of the TRASH TALK and blantant opions of others and have tried to hang in there.

I'm sorry to hear this and glad you're willing to hang in there. I know it is as easy, maybe easier, to get your feelings hurt online as face-to-face, but there is always another thread to try. I used to post a lot more, but I've been busy lately so I haven't officially welcomed you or anything. My bad, it's late, but...

Welcome to a2k, makemeshiver! Wink

I have read your posts and enjoyed them even though I didn't reply, but I should have said something sooner. Your five-year-old son, for example, sounds like a riot! I loved that story of his camo. paint! Glad you're here.

I am surprised, a little, that this discussion lapsed almost immediately into censorship. I don't think that's what Husker meant. I was surprised the first time (which was a while ago) that Craven talked about all the censoring he has to do. I hadn't thought about it before. I am a free-spirit and any reining-in by somebody else was hard for me to accept. I have that contrary streak that makes me want to immediately post those "bad" words... but I've been holding back. Very Happy

I did get censored a few months ago when I posted a favorite album cover, so Lord knows, I'm not without my own level of crass taste. <I still love that album and think it should have been OK, but I took it down. If I were really going to offend someone, I could do a lot better than that!>

While I have been taken aback by some things that I've seen, it is nothing that makes me angry or upset or makes me feel I should report it. I just scroll on. Some have different needs, one of which may be to try to shock the next reader. Okay, you shock me a little. Big deal, or as we used to say, BFD. Twisted Evil

I'm hardly prim and proper, but I'd want my family to read anything I had posted and not be embarassed. Even more, I'd want to come back in ten years and read everything I wrote without wishing I'd held back more. That's probably a vain hope, but it is mine. I'm into self-censorship.

------
Added -- Jespah makes a very good point. Who wants to be boring and/or common? Jespah, you sound like my mom, but she made a lot of sense to me. I agree.

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THank you Piffka, I apprecaite it.

And yes....my 5 year old is a riot. He loves to watch John Wayne Movies and gets a bit carried away...especially with some of the language. lol

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Well, I always thought you were prim and proper, Piffka.

Welcome again, shiver.

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Husker, I have read this thread very carefully. Most people on A2K are simply giving in to an irresistible impulse. I really don't think graphic description is necessary, but an innuendo once in a great while is neat. The Crush threads are delightful and harmless. Once, on the Realm, someone posted a very explicit picture and that was stopped immediately.
Some threads, intended to be erotic, leave me totally cold.

Someone here said something about cronyism, and I'm certain that it must seem that way to many newbies.

I prefer the poetry and music threads, but I try and participate in all to which I have something to contribute; however, it is up to the individual members to decide for themselves what the appropriate "post" is.

As for me, I would never report anyone unless the post or response seems threatening.

The managers on this site do a fantastic job, and I'm certain will continue to do so.

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Letty you trying to subdue me or chasten for a graphic example? I tried to go to great lengths to not reveal the identity or the specific topic.

I enjoy and take part in some of those topics (for fun) - I however feel it's totally inappropriate to hijack a topic of a minor youth and exploit the a topic with innuendo and explicit erotic language.

For the most part there is a time and place for that appropriate language and discussion - but not at the expense of someone's topic that (also a newbie).
This for be was the straw that broke the camels back and caused me to reflect - believe me - you know I'm not a prude. I've just noticed an insurgence and thought it time for reflection and discussion.

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er, husker. Subdue you? Chasten you? Nope, not either one. I simply responded to your thread, and gave my honest opinion. My response was a generalized one.

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roger wrote:

Well, I always thought you were prim and proper, Piffka.

Welcome again, shiver.

Hmmmmmm?!?!!?? Shocked

Roger, that must be because you have not met me in person... yet!

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husker wrote:

I enjoy and take part in some of those topics (for fun) - I however feel it's totally inappropriate to hijack a topic of a minor youth and exploit the a topic with innuendo and explicit erotic language.

For the most part there is a time and place for that appropriate language and discussion - but not at the expense of someone's topic that (also a newbie).
This for be was the straw that broke the camels back and caused me to reflect - believe me - you know I'm not a prude. I've just noticed an insurgence and thought it time for reflection and discussion.

This falls in line with the observation Craven made in another thread about the hive mentality of hijacking of threads with unrelated nonsense rather then ignoring or responding to the topic. It is one of the reasons why newbies see A2K as a hard shell of cronyism to break into. It happens all over the board in most categories to both new and seasoned posters. It's very easy to start new threads to discuss a side topic rather then hijack the thread. Why doesn't that occur more often?

This isn't the first, third or even tenth time I've seen the subject raised in the time I've participated on A2K. Is it time yet to reflect on and change our mode of operations rather then make more excuses and justifications for why folks have that "false" first impression of A2K?

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Hmmm...

I felt that way when I first went to Abuzz... I was largely ignored (except by Jespah, which was one reason I liked her early) (and have continued to), and I got pretty irritated by the cliques.

There was a fascinating thread here about cliques... I think I found it. Start from about here:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=23954#23954

What was interesting to me is that some people who are seen as the, what, giants, doyennes, belles of the ball, like Phoenix and ehBeth, were utterly against cliques or felt out of the loop. The people who seemed most empirically IN still felt out in one way or another.

I didn't re-read the whole thing, so I forget if it was there or elsewhere that Jes said something about that being the nature of online communities.

I think we definitely need to be welcoming to newbies, but I'm not really comfortable with anything beyond that. I enjoy the aspects of community, the in-jokes, the "bavks", the single-emoticon answers that mean something because the people know each other. I didn't know nothin' about the significance of Nutella and got a little annoyed when it came up at Abuzz, but I helped inaugurate "bavk", (Merry Andrew started it) and other stuff keeps developing. What I would like to see is for the newbies to be welcomed, for this stuff to be explained to anyone who asks, and for new in-jokes to keep being developed with and by the newbies.

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Jes has said it too, but fishin' said it well here:

fishin' wrote:

Not to minimize what's been said here but I think there are people who feel like they are on the outside looking in at every on-line discussion site I've ever been on.

There is an initial hurdle that everyone has to clear to become a "member" of the group. I managed to do that with some groups on Abuzz but not with others. I happened to stumble acros Abuzz in Jun 2000 and there were all sorts of on-going "party" threads. I just jumped into one and started posting just going with the flow. As it turned out it happened to be a thread that Diva, Adian, Stoat, debster, Ridinghood and a bunch of others were in and things, for me, went from there so I never really felt "left out". There were other groups that never responded to my posts so I just drifted away from them.

In my first few months I tried to pass a "welcome" note to every new name I saw but that just became overwhelming after a while with a few hundred people joining every day. I did welcome new people as I ran across them day in and day out up until I signed off of Abuzz completely but I didn't hit every one of them.

We'll have cliques here too - It's a natural thing. As the number of people grows our ability to interact with all of them dimishes so we select a few and interact with them for the most part.

These types of threads do help though. If the newcomers can find them they recognize that it's someplace they can post safely. As long as the thread doesn't become a target of opportunity for trolls anyway...

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I think that's all great stuff too and don't wish to discourage it. As Husker and others have said, there's a time and place for everything, rather then everything being placed anywhere at all times.

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I agree by my experience with Sozobe. One of my first posts at abuzz had someone slightly irritated with me - who was irritating with stupid process type questions (I still do that) - my first time on the internet, and that person said something nice shortly thereafter and I love him dearly now, hi, Roger!!! in part because of how we worked out what I was asking and how he could help me.

I had no idea what any talk was about Nutella, though people seemed to bring it up all the time, and did notice how people seemed to all know each other, but still, I got to talk with people and felt at home quite fast.

I agree, welcome newbies, and create more community. I think community is some part of why many of us are here.

To butryflynet, I like and respect you as a key contributor here and hope never to make you feel shut off by cronyism.
Yet, it cheers me to communicate with people here, within threads. I really don't plan to stop, with the exception that I should be quieter on philosophy questions since I am so far out of my league there.

I think if a Topic question poster doesn't want chitchat to occur (and I agree that is a reasonable choice, especially on debate type questions) then maybe we could work out some signal that it is displeasing to the question asker.

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There is another matter I have never seen talked about, and perhaps, given how off topic this is, I will start a question on it - that is,

is the question asker the leader of the topic?

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I guess we're off of the key question here, which was about the inpropriety of a thread by a very young and new poster being swung into graphically described physicality. I have mentioned that I am hard to offend, but I see Husker's point, that that is veering on terms of use violation and besides that, not a great routine.

Husker, did you report that?

Is this something that can be handled by community "intervention"?

Husker, what is it you think should be done? Did you speak up about your displeasure on the thread?

Not to chastise you if you didn't, just wondering.

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ossobuco wrote:

There is another matter I have never seen talked about, and perhaps, given how off topic this is, I will start a question on it - that is,

is the question asker the leader of the topic?

My instinctive reaction: course not. Its just like with any conversation. If you're in the pub with a group of pals - or with a friend who's with a friend who's with ... etc - or even if you walk up to a random group of strangers in a pub - if you ask something, you'll get some replies, hopefully good ones, and then the conversation will drift. Its absolutely your RIGHT to go - hey guys, come on, I was asking something here - anyone got to say anything still about that? But you cant expect to set some kind of formal rule about people not being ALLOWED to drift off to something that your question triggered them on, even if its not directly related. Its how community conversation goes, online perhaps even more than irl. I only try to split stuff off when I think the diversion in itself has become so interesting that it deserves to be easily found back by later visitors under a title of its own.

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Thanks Roger,......And Mornin' to ya!

And I can understand about the cliques on forums. It comes from trust and understanding. A newbie shows up, your not sure what they are..who they are, or what they are up too. Some use it and abuse it.

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Oh, there's definitely a cliquish aspect of A2K and all online communities. Essentially, the experience for most people vis a vis online communities is that they start off very excited because it's very new, and (assuming the community is large and there are a lot of topics popping up every day, such as here at A2K), constantly changing. Then people realize that they can't possibly keep up with everything, so they retreat into little nooks - Science, Relationships, Politics, whatever tickles their fancy.

If the community is vibrant and the number of new and interesting inquiries doesn't diminish over time, people remain interested. If the number and quality of new topics begins to fall off, people will hunt elsewhere for a new thrill. And, sometimes, even when the quality and quantity of new stuff remains high, people still look for something new, because they want the frisson of excitement that comes with new experiences. We all have far shorter attention spans online than we do IRL.

Anyway, yes, there's a cliquish aspect here, and in-jokes are a part of that. In-jokes aren't bad, but truly they shouldn't dominate conversation. If all anyone ever did was yak about something completely insular, it would get dull after a while, even for the people in on the joke. After all, don't most people like to talk about more than one thing (as nimh pointed out)?

I think remaining on topic is a lot more of an issue for newbies and for informational questions. Fortunately, most informational inquiries are made by newbies, so the two often go hand in hand. Someone coming here intending to get ideas for decorating their kitchen does not want to read about my theory of time travel. Someone asking about how to save their marriage isn't interested in my political views.

With new people, I think we really need to put ourselves in their shoes. Are we really being welcoming, or are we paying lip service on the welcome threads and then turning to chat with our buddies, thereby excluding the new person? While it's true that the vast majority of new people will not stick around, some might. For those people, I think we need to be a bit more sensitive, and I think when they genuinely want to know more about us, I think we should be forthcoming (as we feel comfortable, of course), because we can't expect them to just "get" that we're just joking, or we're really not like ___ (whatever). It's a first impression we're making, and it should be a good one.

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That's an interesting point about trust, makemeshiver. (If I haven't welcomed you yet, welcome!)

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jespah wrote:

With new people, I think we really need to put ourselves in their shoes. Are we really being welcoming, or are we paying lip service on the welcome threads and then turning to chat with our buddies, thereby excluding the new person? While it's true that the vast majority of new people will not stick around, some might. For those people, I think we need to be a bit more sensitive, and I think when they genuinely want to know more about us, I think we should be forthcoming (as we feel comfortable, of course), because we can't expect them to just "get" that we're just joking, or we're really not like ___ (whatever). It's a first impression we're making, and it should be a good one.

All very laudable, and one can hardly disagree. But to just suggest a little perspective, I think there are preciously few boards where the users already worry so much about the first impression they're making on newbies as this one.

Sometimes I think we might actually perhaps be all too patronising, already. I mean, you can safely assume that three/quarters of newbies wont actually be wholly new to the board phenomenon, and know more or less what they can expect already. In fact, perhaps it's because we are already relatively accomodating that A2K seems to have a relatively high number of people who are not y'r average, traditional experienced board-user-nerd-dude. I mean, that by ways of perspective.

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