posted
Have people desserted TMO for sunnier climes or more interesting frums?
There seems to be a lack of posts these days on here apart from the stagnated clearing your box thread that seems to go on for 2 million pages, oh and there's the TMO soap that makes my eyes bleed, and again is at least 40 thousand pages too long.
Do we need a recruitment drive on here? I say so,there is nothing like fresh meat to have a banter with.
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so as I don't post in clan like fashionette, and attend your meats that makes me a troll? Err Ok then dumbwit.
Maybe it's the silly little digs some of you give out that stops posters habitating on TMO.
-------------------- Helen says she will be happy to answer any questions you might have as long as you don't ask, "Why did you bother to come here?" Posts: 285
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The TMO welcome consists of at least on reg bod telling you to fuck off, and one correcting your spelling.
Trust moi I have suffered the wrath of the 'boys' on here.
*snifs*
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posted
You people are scary when people first join. Some people try their very best to make noobs look stupid and in no way good enough to be allowed to post on this site. To be fair some have deserved it, but it did take some time to begin to love you and not fear a harsh slap down every time i missed a comma.
-------------------- New for 2005 - STD FREE!!
Greenpeace is just like the BNP, just with like…seals and stuff Posts: 211
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posted
You can be too aware of being a newbie, constant references to it tire. not helped by current board members making constant references to it. gets me down, you know.
quote:Originally posted by miffysocks: You people are scary when people first join. Some people try their very best to make noobs look stupid and in no way good enough to be allowed to post on this site. To be fair some have deserved it, but it did take some time to begin to love you and not fear a harsh slap down every time i missed a comma.
posted
I haven't noticed much in the way of newbie baiting of late, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been going on. Perhaps there should be a moratorium on discrimination against newbies, even if they do post a 'Hi, I'm new thread' or use bad grammar?
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posted
Did I write that? I must have Typettes Syndrome. What I meant to say was 'Oh! Hello Miffy! We need tickets to Glasgee, immediately, so like call me because I have to talk to you, and I am sans credit. Ta!
posted
Why do newbies get so upset about people being suspicious of them? Isn't that part of the very nature of being new? Like if you start a new job and the rest of the team has been working together for a couple of years, or if you go into your new local pub where the same people have been leaning on the bar for the last twenty years. It doesn't mean they actually hate you, or that they'll never accept you and become bestist mates... it just means that you're fucking new, dunnit.
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: Why do newbies get so upset about people being suspicious of them? Isn't that part of the very nature of being new? Like if you start a new job and the rest of the team has been working together for a couple of years, or if you go into your new local pub where the same people have been leaning on the bar for the last twenty years. It doesn't mean they actually hate you, or that they'll never accept you and become bestist mates... it just means that you're fucking new, dunnit.
Who are these amorphous newbies? Did they all just drop off the same Christmas tree as I did yesterday?
Perhaps we're all just so relieved not to be greeted with mandatory ((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))) and copious that we've momentarily lost our individual identities.
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quote:Originally posted by funkypurplepants: Specially when you are me and cant spell
I think a lot of newbies just pretend they can't spell, like when you hide your posh accent when you go into a tool hire shop or something.
"Awright mate? Got a fuck off big drill 'ammer fing fer knockin' dahn walls an' that? And, er, I don't suppose you've got one of those jolly old carpet shampooing devices for the cleansing of the old mansion, what? I mean, er, got a fuckin' vacuum fing wot cleans shit off floors, mate?"
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posted
But in all seriousness, I don't think it's a matter of needing or not needing newbies, at the moment the boards are pretty dead and a lot of the old thread starters aren't doing so at the moment. Without getting too embroilled in the classic state of the boards argument, there is something going on that's stopping people from posting right now.
I have noticed that there has been a nastier edge to posts recently, a feeling that people can lay into another poster (whether that poster be new or not) and I think that is stopping people from expressing themselves. Threads and posts alike are ripped apart by people, not over the content or topic under discussion but over the character or personality of the poster, or an emotion that they are expressing, more often than not because the person doing it is bored, I would imagine, or in some instances has a personal axe to grind against that poster.
I'm not talking about jokey responses or banter, I know that sometimes people can be over-sensitive (myself especially), but at the same time some people have got noticably meaner.
Well, that is what I have observed anyway *shrugs*
quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: But in all seriousness, I don't think it's a matter of needing or not needing newbies, at the moment the boards are pretty dead and a lot of the old thread starters aren't doing so at the moment. Without getting too embroilled in the classic state of the boards argument, there is something going on that's stopping people from posting right now.
I have noticed that there has been a nastier edge to posts recently, a feeling that people can lay into another poster (whether that poster be new or not) and I think that is stopping people from expressing themselves. Threads and posts alike are ripped apart by people, not over the content or topic under discussion but over the character or personality of the poster, or an emotion that they are expressing, more often than not because the person doing it is bored, I would imagine, or in some instances has a personal axe to grind against that poster.
I'm not talking about jokey responses or banter, I know that sometimes people can be over-sensitive (myself especially), but at the same time some people have got noticably meaner.
Well, that is what I have observed anyway *shrugs*
*shrug* I would conclude exactly the opposite -- that the tedium often settling on the boards is due to people either shooting the breeze for pages on end with their real-life friends, or being reluctant to speak their mind about anyone else's post because they've either met that person and are therefore warier of offending them, or because they know that person has a gang of buddies who are going to come out of the woodwork in defence at the slightest criticism.
I think there's a culture of banality on the boards -- and perhaps a subculture of secret resentment below it -- because people are being either dully, or dishonestly, "nice":
"dully" because it is not entertaining to see people chat at length on here:
"dishonestly" because I think there is a holding-back for fear of offending someone and an awareness that it just isn't worth the trouble of having a mini-clique start haranguing you in response.
I have held my tongue a lot recently for this reason, and not spoken openly when someone or something on TMO irritated me -- so I find it strange that you believe people are being more vicious and petty. I actually feel I'm subject to self-censorship, which is of course my own fault in a way, but it's a response to the general mood on here. There are, it seems, very few arguments on TMO these days where people genuinely say what they feel, rather than simply play a pantomime part like Louche and Bamba having some routine spat.
I'd suggest that threads full of one-line in-jokes and X-ed out exchanges are just as likely to put off new contributors as are threads of sharp-tongued debate -- simply because they make the board look so pointless and unappealing to outsiders.
posted
I agree with some of what you're saying kovacs, I think what I have observed, and indeed experienced, is people being nasty in a snide way rather than coming out and saying "I have an issue with what you are saying because..." and that's usually because their "issue" is to do with the person not what they are saying.
I took a (very mini-)break from the boards because at a time when I was really down I was being constantly harangued and it was affecting me in RL the way that something like that shouldn't. At first I thought it was my own paranoia but then other people started picking up on it without prompting from me and asking what was going on. So I didn't look at the boards at all for a bit and it was just the kind of break I needed and I vowed to change my posting style and not give people ammunition to have a go at me on a plate. Or a post.
I had noticed examples of this kind of snide nastiness going on towards other people too and have noticed it more since my experience. At the end of the day I would rather be at the end of a cut and paste dissection of a post of mine from your sharp tongue, clever mind and quick fingers than a snide dig that goes on page after page, day afer day, thread after thread. For me anyway, its not the sharp debate that is off-putting.
With regards to the "nice" comment, well yes, to a certain degree if people become friends then they do interact with each other on a slightly different level but I'm sure that most people on here have a strong enough personality to be able to debate with their friends, whether it be directly or in "pantomime".
I agree that if all there are on the forum are long-winded chat threads, one-line gags going on over 5 pages and X-ed out conversations then it is tedious but if there are lively debate threads going on in other areas of the forum as well then I don't think it should be that much of an issue.
I think we should focus on how we can get the interesting threads going again. The fact is, if you've been posting on here for a while and have got to know people at meets then you will have friends on here. This is a fact we can't change, so instead of trying to change something which we can't why don't we look at changing something we can?
Not me though, I'm not going first, I fear my threads fall into the "post a long bit of prose about yourself and tag a question to the forum on on the end" style of posting recently derided by yourself.
scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
posted
quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: I fear my threads fall into the "post a long bit of prose about yourself and tag a question to the forum on on the end" style of posting recently derided by yourself.
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Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
posted
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: There are, it seems, very few arguments on TMO these days where people genuinely say what they feel, rather than simply play a pantomime part like Louche and Bamba having some routine spat.
*sigh* This has been trotted out before, though I can't recall whether it was you that trotted it out. What I find diffiult to believe is that 'boring exchange of unmeant insults' is being carped upon again. I can't recall the last time I did this sort of thing on TMO. In fact I can't recall the last post I made on TMO which wasn't half-assed. The persona I cultivated when I began posting appears to be set in stone, even though I feel I have appreciably widened my posting horizons since the early days of dubious Bateman references, nihilism and general Stygian gloom. Perhaps you're reading the wrong board, Kovacs?
As for the current TMO lull, I ceased posting for no other reason than generalised apathy. Perhaps that's the fault of the topics which have been available to post on, but more probably it's a combination of factors, like work and life and other internet interests and a depressing tendency on my part to drown all these in an increasing collection of bad supermarket thrillers. I wouldn't like to ascribe the current lull to either of the factors described by you and Uber as I have been discouraged from posting only by my own lethargy and lack of time, though I have to admit I am doubly discouraged when it seems that there is minimal potential for reaction to/from any post I might make.
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posted
Yes actually I forgot to mention the "half-assed" thing - thanks for reminding me Louche. I have spoken to a couple of people in catching up who said "O yeah, I was going to post more / on that thread but then I couldn't be arsed." But the reasons for half-assedness varied, from the reasons stated by myself or Kovacs, or indeed to RL things such as work and non-internet related activities and the suchlike as mentioned by Louche.
quote:Originally posted by Louche: I can't recall the last time I did this sort of thing on TMO.
I can't find it, which is annoying, but surely it was only a couple of days ago that you posted some mock-pissy rant to Thorn or Bamba, to which one of them riposted that it was Louche-by-numbers and "women can't even do angry properly".
quote:Perhaps you're reading the wrong board, Kovacs?
I also read Barbelith, Handbag and TCL, so I get quite a bit of variety. In fairness I may sometimes confuse things you've written on TCL with your contributions to TMO, and generalise about your persona based on evidence from that site (not really relevant to discussion of TMO).
I wouldn't even say there is a lull now. I would say there's that self-censorship and possibly false smileyness, or at least a swallowing of genuinely-felt irritation. But I am happy enough with meaty threads like the one about menstrual art, and the religion/marriage discussion I contributed to last Friday. If there is one decent, thoughtful, fast-moving and provocative debate thread per week, that -- supplemented by daily dips into Barbelith -- is enough to placate me.
I don't agree that because people make friends in real life, there must be chatty threads on the board. I'm friends with quite a few people on the board but I think you would barely know it from reading my posts: if I want to tell them about my life or hear about theirs, I email or text them.
It might be countered that there's room for different types of thread. However, right now I think there is more of what I would consider inconsequential, wasteful, trivial threads of interest to nobody but the few people posting at the time, most of whom edit their posts out when they sober up anyway. This kind of thread swamps the board and sucks down good content.
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