THE THING IS . . .

I don't see those people. Ahhhh.

You're missin out, then, Darlin. How can ya pile on if ya can't even see the pile?

You enjoy fighting about religion?

Americans endlessly moan about the evils that beset their nation, but as soon as a Brit makes the same criticisms, their cockles go up. Outsider syndrome, maybe.

By that principle, I'm certain nobody here wants to know what this site looked like to me on my first day. I'm an outsider, so I'll keep it to myself.

In due course I discovered that there actually are people worth talking to here. It's just a different climate with its own ways. I gather its residents like it the way it is, evils and all.

the climate changes pretty regularly

there are months when I don't even look at anything but the word games (other than to thumb threads down to get them out of my line of sight)

then there are more engaging times

__

stick around
have fun

These attacks on holy rollers are vicious and uncalled for. Holy rollers are human beings and have as much right to be here as any of us. People with diverse opinions should be welcomed here, not attacked as "f***ing idiots".

I started a new thread to stand up for the holy rollers and against the bullying so as not to disrupt this thread in support of bullying. The new thread is here.

http://able2know.org/topic/301391-1

Hopefully there is support for a community that can accept diverse opinions.

I will simply point out that this thread does not "support" bullying of holy rollers. After which, i will ignore Max, who, as usual, just wants to pick a fight. He can go off and play the knight in shining armor to his heart's content--it's no skin off my nose.

That recalls to me the early days, which i think of as the period of the religious wars here. There were people who followed me around, looking for something to jump on. One mellowed out eventually, and we became at least cordial if not actually good friends. The other retained the grudge, so it was just best to ignore him. My "arguing about religion" days are long over. I have made a few comments to the Squeaker in the past, and i went into one of his threads to offer my criticisms, and i've left him alone ever since. Not only is he an ignorant, largely uneducated hillbilly holy roller, but we all know that you can't get your message across to true fanatics. As Jespah points out, it doesn't do anything to mitigate the page ranking.

I don't care to argue about religion. People just see what they want to see anyway. For years, for example, i have pointed out that you can't really have a religious war which lasts for any length of time, because you need economic or political goals (and political goals are much the same as economic) to get a monarch or a government to pay the tab for protracted warfare--so i usually don't buy the idiot arguments about religion being responsible for wars--they just provide an excuse. That means i'm usually arguing with people who might consider themselves atheist, and who claim religion is responsible for so many wars. But that doesn't mean anything to the holy rollers, because they have already identified me as their enemy.

My complaint is that the holy rollers don't stay in their own sand box. They can't resist going into other peoples' sand boxes and kicking the sand around.

When your post uses the term "f***ing idiot" to refer to people who participate here because you don't like the opinion they are expressing... it meets the definition of bullying.

Setanta is also wrong about his idea of "sandboxes"... there are no sandboxes here. Able2know is designed in such a way that anyone can respond in any thread. No one controls any thread and one member can't control how other people respond.

In my opinion this is a good thing. This is not Facebook where you have your personal page that you control. Here anyone is free to express diverse opinions on any page... and no one has the power to block anyone else out.

Setanta can express his own opinions. He can't prevent people from responding with their own opinions.

Of course he is able to call people "f***ing idiots" when they choose to disagree with him on threads he considers to be "his sandbox".

I hope that as a community we could stand up to this type of abusive behavior.

He HAD to do it, caincha see?

He was VICTIMIZED, yet again.

My experience mirrors Set's. these people infested the place and proselytized all over the place. The only hard and fast rule we have here forbids using this place to sell your stuff. I don't want to be swarmed here by aluminum siding salesmen or Goddites either. I Should be unmolested by anyone trying to sell me anything.

It was a massive infestation of rude, illiterate assholes.

They are unwelcome by me.

Amen . . . so to speak . . .

I disagree Lash. I don't have any problem ignoring the religious proselytizing here. I don't tend to engage it. If I did, I would do so with name-calling. Supporting diversity and freedom of expression means you support people you disagree with. You can disagree without personal attacks.

And think of it this way. If Setanta had the ability to kick people out of his sandbox, do you think either you or I would allowed to stay?

I remember more courtesy here, way back when, never punctilious, but a generalized attention to the thread maker's intent. One could always start one's own thread, still can. Courtesy to thread starter's intent wasn't any kind of rule, but reasonably well maintained over time. Pretty good debating happened sometimes, not always, but more than now. Trolling seems to have increased on a lot of boards, and certainly here over the years.

Joke threads, parody threads, satire, remained that way, with a serious comment once in a while. And so on. Digressions happen, especially as threads get older and baked like pies, but we often go back to the original topic, even now. On another site, Dlowan started a series of digression threads that were, in my memory, real treasures by a lot of good writers... which were in tune with the thread starters quest. But - Thread killing (directly against wish of the thread starter's intent) has grown, sort of similar to algae, especially about religion or lack of it, but also with blowhards on other threads and people feeding them, which keeps them going. Answering is normal, especially once, but over and over is jerking them. Clarifying useful. Insultathons only feed. A lot of us have done it, including me.

There aren't, over all, that many threads that the authors specifically point out their intention for; usually now the intent is put in the author's tags, but sometimes the intention is in the opening post.

It's true that thread starters don't own their threads. Still, free speech doesn't make repetitive assholeness useful for a communication tool. With a lot of assholeness everywhere, it's a site eater, a deterrent to sane readers.

Play no attention.

Joe(I don't)Nation

This isn't about Set in my opinion. He just brought up the topic.

It's about the rule of not being solicited here. Other spammers are dispatched with haste. Because this spamming / soliciting seems different, these people are free to push their product on us ad nauseum.

If they confine it to their threads, I have no problem. That is easily avoidable. Their former behavior was MUCH different. Maybe the threads where I participate haven't been infected and Set's have - I don't know. But having a different opinion is a far cry from plastering sermons and scriptures all over threads in order to disrupt. I was told by these people years ago that they were in a Holy War with the sinners at A2K - they were fighting Satan (me, among others).

You would not want to see what that type of infestation looks like.

1) I don't think this was ever the case. The good old days weren't always good.

2) I don't think this would be a good thing. Able2know is built so that everyone can comment on any read and respond to any post. This is a strength. It means that anyone can express their opinion and anyone can choose to support it, engage it, or ignore it.

3) I don't think "thread killing" is a thing. If a discussion on a thread has merit, and there is more to talk about on a thread, then it continues. It is pretty easy, you ignore the posts that you feel are a digression and continue the conversation with people whose position interest you.

4) The real issue is that there is a group of people that have what they feel to be the "correct" point of view. They are trying, through these posts, to stop anyone from challenging their ideas or from posting any point of view they have deemed unacceptable. They aren't doing this through debate. They are doing this through name-calling and personal attacks.

5) Once you start calling people "f***ing idiots" or "assholes", as people have done on this thread, you lose any argument about courtesy.

6) Let's support freedom of expression on Able2know and allow a diverse set of opinions to clash in a respectful way.

Post your opinions on any thread. Allow other people to to post theirs. If you agree with someone support them. If you don't agree, you can choose to ignore them or engage them. I like this space as a mixture of points of view where sometimes the interactions are interesting and when they are not, they can just be ignored.

This is how a board designed to support freedom of expression best works.

I only wish that the personal attacks and name-calling could stop.

Well said.


(ignoring/not engaging/not naming has been working well for me for the past six months or so)

- I wish that those goody two-shoes stop pretending.

- I wish those pretending to know what's going on on other people's mind would stop.

- I wish people keep calling a spade a spade.