Alarming trend

I know I will be slapped down for saying this but ...

Could we have a little respect fot the other posters here? If someone asks a question that is clearly not something you are interested in or have experience with, why does it become open game for your personal chatroom jokes?

Yes, this forum is a much nicer grup of people than almost any where else I have been.

No, scratch that. I have never been to any gaming forum that is more open, friendly and receptive than here. But the camaraderie is causing problems of it own now when you have to flip through several pages to find the information requested that is contained in a handful of replies.

I would hate to see the tone of this board change and I do enjoy the announcements for parties or even someone starting a thread because they are bored and want to joke with our friends here. But please, can we limit the jokes to the general threads?

Cue tedious thousand-page thread alternating between "yes you are all rude look what X said to me about Y on date Z in 2005" and "no there is no clique and anyway it is not rude oops".

Pfft! The main reason I read the Forum is to hear people riff on words. That and the belly laughs....

Interesting question: Does the trend in rudeness have any relationship to the time at which this form ceased to be moderated?

Let me think about it... No!

I see.

I guess I was wrong.






anyone else for the slap fest?













any lurkers care to post?


















I wonder why ....







































































































and thanks for all the fish.

We need more variety in the "just ignore and let this one die" thread.
When that one got going, it provided a safety valve for people.
I had an impression that the general OT jokey stuff in 'serious' threads lessened for a while.

But now that thread is like the Roman Empire, declining in a decadent excess of chocolate, various high-calories, stimulants and strong spirits.

LOL


Melissa, your right when you say that this is a very open, friendly and receptive forum. The vast majority are respectful, and truly enjoy being able to help. Keep in mind that there are all types of people here. Some enjoy the banter, and some don't. There's room for everyone.

For now, as long as those who post questions are being helped, and have their questions answered, all is well. I believe that if all the posts were dry, without any humour or any acknowledging of friendships between 'helpers', we'd be left with a very bland forum. Few would stick around waiting for questions to be asked. Many come here to lurk, or only post when they have a question. You can't just pick and choose the types of people you wish would answer.

Melissa does make a good point, although I think is was somewhat exagerated. To my way of thinking, it's the first response to a question that matters. If that one goes off-topic with humour or whatever else, then I think it's bad. But if that one answers the question, then I think that even the OPs will appreciate some humour.

We manage to answer a lot of questions and help people out a lot in between the jokes.
Without some fun you would likely have a lot less people hanging around to do that. I get your point, but no reason it can't be fun and informative imho.

There IS moderation. Katt Linden has been editing posts for personal attacks and trolling. Being there is about to be a face lift for the forums you may get your wish of a facts and just the facts board.

You are right about this being a nice enviornment of people. I used to be at Second Citizen and found myself become someone I didn't like through all the fights, drama, bashing etc that happened. I see that on at least one other third party site continuing. I came back to the official board because I wanted more positive interaction and fun with rules in place so that people are not hurt. All in all it is a good board. I hope it stays balanced between fun and info.

Thanks for your thoughts on the state of it. I am not discounting them. I just see it differently.

Exactly.

You jes saved us a lot of time, Misses Malaprop

Mari

I have to agree with Phil. I'm guilty of goofing off in threads, but I try to wait until the question has been answered, usually several times. If I post early in a thread, it's usually a serious answer. I was berated to the point where I left the forums for a couple weeks for trying to have fun in a few threads. So who is the problem? The people who joke around, or the people who get overly-aggravated when they see others enjoying life a little? (I don't mean Melissa by that - her post here wasn't nasty or spiteful at all). It seems to me, the problem is the people who have to feel like terminal outsiders or who get terribly upset when someone cracks a joke. Meh - what do I know, I'm just a worthless newb.

Your a bit late to join the oppressed... I will see if we have a window open in the near future to re-interview

*clears throat* It's like my grammy always says... F**K 'em!

As far as I can see people's questions get answered, quickly and with a minimum of extraneous banter. A minimum of extraneous banter doesn't mean no extraneous banter - that's an impossible goal.

I think a very good point was raised above - if you want to keep experienced people here to answer questions you have to let them have a little fun amongst themselves.

And, to the original poster - your second post seems to say that you are disappointed by the response your thread is getting. That's just bizarre. You've hardly been "slapped" - everyone's responding very respectfully and thoughtfully. What kind of response did you expect. "Yes, ma'am! We'll get in line as you wish right away!" ?

Look, at least people TALK about SL here. Try a certain much-touted third-party forum that many official forum members mentioned and fled to during the last drama meltdown we had here. You will DESPAIR of finding one SL-related thread raised there a day amongst all the off-topic, banter, flaming, drama, and in-jokes.

Yeah, but how HARD do you try?

I am with Trout.. once the question has been correctly answered then its open season... Sometimes the joking around brings up other good questions that get answered.

.d

/me disagrees

It's not limited to SL only, but there are better than 47,000 posts in the SL General forum, 5,000 or so more in Business & Technology, and an additional 2,500 in the Classifieds area.

Melissa,

I think you miss the point that there may be no answers to the questions people ask without the joking and camaraderie. No one is paid to hang out and answer questions. There's very little support from LL. So what is the pay off for being in the forums and answering questions?

Sometimes, unfortunately (and this is not a slap at you, just a general observation), the payoff is complaints, griping, trolling and general unpleasantness. If the people who answer many of the questions posed here like to joke and have a little fun, so what? The questioners have to page through a few jokes to get to the answer? Try looking it up in the Knowlegebase then.

I rarely have answers to questions posed because I'm such a technical idiot. When I do, I try to answer seriously before participating in jokes or fun, and I think the Forum posters are very conscientious about that.

I, for one, am REALLY tired of the complaints about ppl having fun on the forums. People with a sincere desire to help, and lots of wisdom to impart are continually being bashed for playing a little. This isn't a paid job, folks! Try a little gratitude, instead of the all me all the time attitude we seem to see so much of.

I am sincerely grateful to all the posters here who take time to answer questions, even the ones that get asked three times a day. My SL experience is richer for their contributions.


/me climbs off her high horse now.

As to rude behavior: Helpfulness does not excuse rudeness.

That said, when it comes to the Second Life forums, I don't think I've seen any more rude behavior here than I've seen on any other type of internet forum.

I'd say that a trend toward rudeness is actually a general American phenomenon over the past few decades, beginning before and not limited to popular internet use. And comparatively, beween general American culture and internet culture, people tend to get far ruder on the internet (regardless of nationality).

In that context, the Second Life forums are no ruder than any other place one can find on the internet. And even though helpfulness does not excuse rudeness, neither should helpfulness be forgotten because of occasional rudeness. The Resident Answers forum is often more informative than the Second Life Blog, and often more helpful than a Support Ticket.

When it comes to off-topic joking around: It would be the height of consideration to use the forum only for its stated, intended use. But it's also probably true that the people who do provide the most help on these forums would probably lose interest in coming back and spending their time to help over and over again unless there was also some sort of fun draw as well. So for those of us who depend on the forums for helpful information, it's probably best to let it slide when it comes to the imperfection of off-topic joking.

If the joking were malicious or interfered with the intended use of the forum, that would be a different case. Typically, it isn't malicious or the source of interference.

As long as the original poster gets answered, if I know the answer I will give it and a witty pun if it's a good set up for it

I don't want to turn this thread into a thread about that other board, but I disagree with your disagreement: there may have been a time in the past when lively SL discussions amassed the archives that you talk about, but when you click on the "new posts" button there today you have to dig pretty deep to find ongoing discussion of SL amongst all the other activity there. I tried it just now, and only 4 of the 25 new posts listed on the first page are even in SL-related forums - and as you know that doesn't even mean they are necessarily SL-related posts.

I stand by this on-topic point: If you want to talk about SL, this forum is still the best place to go, despite its imperfections.

"Despair of finding one thread a day" was an exaggeration (though I still think there are entire days that go by there without a new SL-related thread being started) but 4 for 25 is pretty poor signal-to-noise for someone looking for SL-related discussion. (I am not disparaging the community there in any way, just making a point about the ratio of SL-related discussion to other stuff.)

/me likes your Grammy.


I'm not even going to go down this road again,but I will say this. Mute me if you don't like my posts,other than that deal with it.When you pay my tier and membership fees or get a job with LL,you can moderate me.