AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I know exactly what I said Madican, and I know the implications of what I said as well. I reacted with emotion to his post, just as you reacted with emotion to mine. As I said before, even with proletariats, that happens from time to time, and I appreciate that sometimes it can cause trouble, but hell that's why I'm not the only mod. We keep each other in check too, believe me. I saw a post that screamed out to me that he blatantly wished to start an argument that I found needless and unnecessary. The fact that he was playing devil's advocate annoyed me further so I responded with an admittedly harsh post. Not as a mod, but as an annoyed person. I ignore stuff on here that I find dumb a lot, but this time I didn't and that's that. I do not need to be told what I've done.

I don't mean to sound all "vehemently against the TST's existence", but I really just don't see the benefit of keeping it around.

Just debating the guidelines for it is getting heated. Why not just remove the problem entirely?

Devil's advocates are fine so long as the person at least knows what they're arguing and isn't trying to talk down to others about the concept like it's impossible for them to grasp or think about without their help. I personally kinda like playing devil's advocate (though sometimes I kinda don't do the best at it, but hey, the point is to learn on both sides, not to preach), mainly because I'm kind of wishy-washy in the sense that I like to consider all of the pros and cons that I can conceive of and still learn about it before getting a solid opinion.

On another forum we had someone do this with things like gay marriage about the most basic things (almost to the point of "what are homosexuals?" kinda answers), so like you said, it wasn't necessarily novel. But all the same, for some people it's kinda hard to read what level of comfort everyone has with a concept, so it's easy to go "high school essay" and lead people through the logic, even if it's off-putting and annoying to read through.

The thing is though, TST isn't a place to really defend or lambast anything. We hate when people argue if funny pictures are funny or rude or whatnot, but we seem to kinda "expect" to get into arguments in TST, which shouldn't be a thing.

The thing is though, we can't take these things to taboo to begin with because the majority of the initial posts are "someone proporting a stupid opinion about something" like saying racism isn't a bad thing or something, and taboo is definitely not the place to go "holy shit this person is wrong and they make me so mad!". You almost would need like either a debate thread or a thread for "hey let's discuss this stuff" but even then it might turn into bickering like the TST has just on the basis that not everyone is going to agree, and not everyone is going to laugh when something they care about is being strawmanned by an idiot on tumblr.

So we're kinda stuck in that weird spot where "how do we find a place where people should expect this kind of thing to be discussed more civilly than a regular thread, but not as strictly as taboo topic?", and while I don't always agree with the weird or rude images people post in TST, I also don't necessarily want to say members are out to specifically hurt someone or cause a fight. There's just either no "safe" thread to put them in, or they don't realize that other people might react strongly to what's going on.

The main thing will be that people need to do more reporting when they're upset by something and let the proletariats make a note of it or address the issue rather than take it upon themselves to say that they're upset and make it a public thing, and if it goes past that point, others need to step back and not get involved to make it worse. I mean, MY GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT AND DISREGARD ALL CONSEQUENCES TO WHAT I SAY, you have the right to say whatever, but it seems to just cause a lot of unnecessary fights, and proletariats would be better off kinda knowing specifically what needs to be tweaked in the thread and what bad posts look like before they blow up into big messes and hurt feelings all the way around.

I mean, I'll admit, I'm often afraid of reporting things because I've had bad run ins with other forums (and I think once here when I first joined;;), where reporting seemed "superfluous" and "you're just reporting because of a grudge", but at this point, it's better safe than sorry, and I think proletariats would rather get tons of reports and stop people from fighting than have some of these lingering grudges that flare up on occasion because of something someone did months ago.

We didn't used to have arguments this ridiculous in TST until a while ago, though. When someone said "take it to taboo topics" (which really should be a given by now) they did. Now it just seems like things are turning into pointless pissing contests.

I don't think the issue is really whether or not TST exists. It's a matter of courtesy, if a mod tells you to stop, you stop. If they tell you to take it to Taboo, do so. If you have a problem with what they're telling you to do, take it to PMs so you don't clutter the thread.

It's a lot of work but I think it's important to mod in a way that allows people to do the right thing by themselves, instead of having to nanny people and lock thread because they've been naughty children.

Basically the idea is to foster a culture of maturity and respect within the forum, so eventually the proletariats don't have to do as much work to keep people in line.

At times there's no choice but to "nanny" people a bit when they've been dumbasses. I agree with you, though, and that's what we want to do. We're just having a hard time figuring out the best way to go about it.

It was originally created because the funny picture thread got flooded with text.

I disagree. There's still no reason to discuss things like that in that thread (or even, arguably, anywhere). Sure, the people playing devil's advocate are saying things which are true, but those things still don't need to be said. The people in the topic don't care. They want to see funny screencaps, not faux-intellectuals trying to educate us on incest.

Most of the things being said weren't even really informative. I guess I can't say this applies to everyone, but I at least didn't read a single new idea in that discussion. I'm willing to bet others found it just as unrevolutionary. It seems like an ego issue, to me - the people doing this think they're educating us unwashed masses, when really they're just being embarrassing on soapboxes. I reiterate: yes, we all know about the scientific and cultural basis for incest's taboo nature and why that basis could be perceived as flawed. We just don't feel the compulsion to discuss it on a forum about a silly video games webcomic.

Maybe you don't, but some people want to discuss it here regardless. This isn't just a forum about Katie's webcomic. If that was the case, we'd only have the Le Comic section.

I can concede that, but it was still a bad idea to even begin broaching the subject in text screencaps. I think the blame should fall less on the topic and more on the people who though it was appropriate to discuss it in the thread.

Yes, such topic should go in Taboo Topics right away - if there is a discussion to be had.

I know that, I was around when it got made, but is having TLDR stuff in Funny Pics really worse than having (almost) a whole thread turn into making fun of people on the internet? That's become the expectation for stuff that's posted there. Funny Pics on the other hand has the expectation of "stuff that makes you laugh", not "stuff that makes you rage at humanity". Deleting TST would just be a really easy way to get rid of some of that mindset about what kind of text to post. Will it get rid of these situations entirely, by itself? No, but it's an easy start and I think it would accomplish a lot for the small amount of effort it would take.

I do agree that the problem can be solved if everyone is more mature about it, but there's the question of how to enforce these things, where lines are drawn, what's considered too "heated" and expecting everyone to control themselves all the time. Ideally it'd be the best solution, but is it practical? We ultimately can't control what other people post or say. I do think people should know to do the right thing, but to regulate that thread correctly would require changing the mindset of a lot of people who post there regularly.

Trying to force a "culture" of respect and maturity is a noble goal, but we're just a forum on the internet. We can enforce explicit rules, but it's very difficult to change people's habits and mindsets on the "borderline" stuff, or to say "use good judgement" because you will inevitably run into disagreements as to what that means.

I'm totally supportive of trying to encourage good behavior, I trust that the proletariats can handle this just fine, but my two cents is that it seems like a lot of effort for some unknown results. Is deleting the thread a better solution? I honestly don't know, but it is definitely easier, and I think more low-risk; losing the TST thread is not a big loss, whereas going back to the way things were is not a good situation for anyone, even if there's only, say, a 50% chance of that happening.

Also if you're gonna post tl;dr stuff in any thread please

dumb it down as much as you can

because I am stupid and I get confused when I have to look at posts that are really long and complicated and half the time I am just lost.

It would be MUCH APPRECIATED but I understand if you can't c:

The issue isn't the thread. The issue is people arguing their points when really we could all just agree to disagree and move on. If a mod has to tell people to stop, then it's already too heated. I don't think it's much to ask for that people drop a subject when asked politely, by a mod or otherwise.

Here's how it works:
A mod asks nicely that you guys stop or you guys move to the appropriate thread.
You don't: Mod asks a bit more forcefully that everyone move on and then PMs the notable parties with an explanation/request/warning.
People continue to disobey: Bans get distributed along with a PM specifying the reason for and the length of the ban.


Also, I said 'foster' not 'force'. We need to foster a culture of maturity. Means we all take part in not acting like babies so the proletariats don't have to work so hard.
People will learn what's appropriate, if they don't deleting a thread isn't gonna stop them from being stupid or offensive. Which are what bans are for.

Locking a thread is still a lot of work as proletariats then need to explain to everyone why it was locked and still dole out appropriate punishments. If they don't offer explanations etc people can still continue to argue on any other thread. If we locked threads every time people disagreed we'd have zero threads.

We're not gonna delete stuff except grossly inappropriate/ illegal stuff.