THE "CHATBOX"

[brianv]

...please just accept some moderation from the site mods/admins from time to time, without producing sarcastic snits. It is for the sake of keeping things focused.

Fine, but it isn't about grammar or moderation. It's about the odious manners of one particular person.

Bad manners? I presume you mean me? I thought I was was being rather kind and forgiving with my initial "glass of Chablis" post, it was the retort that was a bit on the caustic side.

[brianv]

Rules re: brianv

1. No one gets by brianv because it takes one to know one — no one other than he.
2. No one else in the admin dept. seems bothered by this, so if you are bothered, refer back to No. 1.

Excuse me! Why are you sticking your oar in here? Mind your own bloody business! And for the record I am not an "admin".

Rather than start a new post, I edited this one.

So here's where we're at.

A less than frequent visitor arrives and dumps on our site.
"brianv", remarks on the the shoddy post.
LTFV retorts waspishly.
"brianv" tells LTFV to "fuck off"
everyone jumps on "brianv"

You all wouldn't have been so quick with your smart remarks if hoi had challenged the OP, who has it happens has disappeared.

In future I will simply delete the offending post and contact the poster.

[lux]

Excuse me! Why are you sticking your oar in here?

Because he's a member of the forum?

Mind your own bloody business!

Since when do members need your permission to post comments? Since when is this thread exclusively your business?

[brianv]

Excuse me! Why are you sticking your oar in here?

Because he's a member of the forum?

Mind your own bloody business!

Since when do members need your permission to post comments? Since when is this thread exclusively your business?

When they interfere in something that's none of their their business. Like you are doing.

[lux]

When they interfere in something that's none of their their business. Like you are doing.

[brianv]

When they interfere in something that's none of their their business. Like you are doing.

Quite understandable, you "fucks" have me rattled, but I'm not backing down.

[Libero]

There, there. Perhaps a glass of Chablis is in order.

[hoi.polloi]

Okay, leave brianv alone. His manner is harsh but he gets the job done. And we need that. I've personally seen him be pretty choosy with his responses — sometimes harsh and sometimes mellow.

Remember that text has all sorts of "emotionless-ness" to it. So you can read into it. You can see personal criticism there or not. You can see deliberate ambiguity to hide personal criticism, as well, and all the paranoid levels that go with that. It's fucking annoying, but it's what we have.

So to be on the safe side, and protect your own emotions, try not to take much of anything personally on this site, unless maybe you feel you can come away with something positive from the text.

Of course we can't help but juxtapose styles, and those styles will appear differently weak and differently strong. But just like you can't know yourself best except from people who know you and give you feedback, you can't always read your style or how it comes across. And even then, is that so important? The people who get something valuable out of your text may not be whom you expect. They may not even be commenting. They might just be reading.

We just don't want people who are overly enamored with the charm of completely confused words to get cozy on the site. We are trying to appeal to different folks' most logical thinking. So we have to be strict on some level. So please try to just let brianv do his job because we need someone to mod.

Having said that, I understand and hear the criticism that we all sometimes let our defensiveness rise up and add an extra point or two in our text, to try to push away the kinds of personalities we don't want near us. A lot of this site has this kind of attitude toward mostly inanimate simulations, and occasionally a clown dressed up in simulation wanting us to buy them as real.

But the "enemy" in that drama is the sim, not each other.

And we could all of us do better at sharpening our senses in this regard. We should all get better at recognizing this, if we can, since — let's face it — we are already about as physically far from one another as physically possible, we are interacting with each other through imagination aided by the computer screens, and it's not real human interaction. So do we need to pretend it is? I don't think so. Let's keep this site focused on the research.

[hoi.polloi]

Well, okay, here we get into it. Maybe this is fun for people to discuss. Maybe not. I am open to being swayed.

WRONG: Oh no, I stepped in some shit!
RIGHT: Oh, no! I stepped in some shit!

OR ...

WRONG: Look, there goes a grammar Nazi!
RIGHT: Look! There goes a grammar Nazi!

I have read enough books to tell the difference between a conversational or "dialogue" style and a formal narrative style.

I was also raised, perhaps, in a different time, under different "rules" evolved out of Internet parlance. As a result, I don't find it very disturbing to like, occasionally see a, y'know, expressiveness in or out of commas.

I think the "WRONG" you mention above could definitely be wrong in certain contexts, or it could be right in "break out" comments that add a punchline to some text. I think the "RIGHT" you have there is a bit stiff for those particular comments. They are exclamations.

Not to mention that English professors, if you ask enough of them, will tell you wildly conflicting ideas of acceptable or unacceptable usage! I think we are just going a bit with the idea that if the style is self-consistent, it indicates more care and less jumble. Uh, look, we all fuck up though, once in a while. Telling someone how to laugh in text form is a very confusing subject.

hahahaha, whew! seems fine to me. So does a laugh leading into text, if indeed that person is someone who would do that in conversation or use laughter spontaneously in such a fashion.

It would be bizarre and confusing if someone wrote so conversationally here that they typed:
Huahahahaaaoooohhhh man, what a maroo-hoo-hoo-hoooon, he-he-he thinks we went to thah haha-ha mooon!

But distinguishing a "hahaha" or a "Ha!" doesn't seem, by comparison, to be onomatopoeia. It is more like an expression of some kind. A weird (perhaps post-post-post-modern?) one but not terribly out of place.

[lux]

I might be more appreciative of brianv if I knew what sims he has flushed out or repelled from the forum. Can you name three two ... one?

[Libero]

Let's keep this site focused on the research.

Hear, hear!

For the record, brianv's initial comment regarding the Chablis had me cracking up.

Man, all of this talk of wine is giving me the urge to whip out a verse or two of "The Anacreontic Song."


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqyQO3xhNx0

[hoi.polloi]

I might be more appreciative of brianv if I knew what sims he has flushed out or repelled from the forum. Can you name three two ... one?

All of them, if you credit brianv with starting the forum in the first place.

But specifically "outing" a shill — I don't think any of us has ever done that except in very rare and debatable cases. I think most shills want to avoid him like the plague, because he doesn't have a great deal of patience for them. Nobody can "get close" to him, and that makes him more immune to something Simon and I sometimes fall victim to, which is people sucking up to the research.

So there aren't shills for him to "suddenly expose" because he keeps the whole conflagration at arm's length or more. But maybe I am thinking about this wrong. I don't know.

[truthseeker]

I'm leaving this forum. Good luck to everyone.I guess you do need smarter people here.
truthseeker.

[lux]

I might be more appreciative of brianv if I knew what sims he has flushed out or repelled from the forum. Can you name three two ... one?

All of them, if you credit brianv with starting the forum in the first place.

But specifically "outing" a shill — I don't think any of us has ever done that except in very rare and debatable cases. I think most shills want to avoid him like the plague, because he doesn't have a great deal of patience for them. Nobody can "get close" to him, and that makes him more immune to something Simon and I sometimes fall victim to, which is people sucking up to the research.

So there aren't shills for him to "suddenly expose" because he keeps the whole conflagration at arm's length or more. But maybe I am thinking about this wrong. I don't know.

On the positive side I do appreciate your listening to me, hoi, and taking my opinions seriously enough to give thoughtful replies. And, I was under the impression that Simon and you, hoi, started the forum. So, if it's true that brianv started it then that would be a considerable point to brianv's credit of which I was unaware.

I would just like to say something about outing shills here …

Back when the forum was in love with Boethius I stood alone (well, almost) in my critical analysis of his posts and took the abuse of the others here who defended him. I remained silent while his nonsense was swallowed hook, line and sinker by otherwise intelligent forum members. Months later he turned on Simon and CF via another forum. I also took issue with EE's recent shillery and he was banned for it but reinstated and I bit my tongue on that one too. Later he too showed his true colors elsewhere. There have been other similar situations but I can't honestly remember their names just now.

I don't really care that much about brianv's lack of manners. Growling canines just tempt my mischievous side, I guess. And, maybe he does manage to scare away a bad guy now and then.

Just please don't think he's the forum's only watchdog.

[brianv]

I'd rather say that I was instrumental in the forum's creation. I don't want that distinction.

I'm not trying to be a "watchdog", I don't even have admin rights. OK, too many "I's" already. Not my kinda post.