Reply #43: ... [View All]

[Lyric]

If I had to go around worrying all the time about whether or not someone could POSSIBLY be offended by what I said, I would be a pretty mute person IRL.

Indeed. But there is a rather large difference between worrying about *everything* you say, and being respectful enough to tone down one small aspect of the things that you say. Not because you *have* to, but because you care enough about the feelings of other people to *want* to.

Where I work (where people actually think I'm funny for the most part) unless its truly offensive (and most fo us know the difference) no one tells anyone, well I don't think you are funny so just go away cause you are drowning out my old friends and making them leave.

Lounge folks aren't your co-workers; obviously there are differences of personality involved, as well as the differences between how people express themselves IRL as opposed to online. If you were doing something that *did* upset your co-workers, though, do you think they'd be horrible, selfish people for speaking up and telling you so? I think that speaking up (albeit in a more respectful and private way than the other poster chose to do so) is the most responsible way of dealing with a situation like that.

I feel like part of the issue is that people long for the old days and there seems to be an element of prejudice agaisnt non-oldtimers in this.

I'm not really an "old-timer" here, but I think that perhaps the longing for the "old days" has more to do with the way people respected each others' feelings and opinions back then, as opposed to now. I've heard that The Lounge was smaller and more community-oriented at that time. I honestly don't think it's automatically a bad thing to want to make it a real community again.

I can't help it if people leave. Happens all the time. If anyone is leaving because the Lounge is inane, I think thats pretty sad anyway. There are plenty of other places here for intellectual discussion (which I frequent).

I realize that people leave all the time for various reasons that are often beyond anyone's control, but when a significant number of people have all disappeared for the *same* reason, it's not unreasonable for other people to try and "fix" that reason so that they don't lose any more friends. I don't think the problem is just inanity; half the fun of the Lounge is being silly, after all. I think the problem is the excessive nature of the way some people post certain kinds of threads, like copycats. Seeing the board flood with copycats is sometimes funny, but most of the ones I've seen lately seemed more like spam than humor, you know?

I think its pretty sad that people just can't deal with ignore and hide thread if they are that annoyed. those functions aren't hard to use.

I think it's for two reasons. The first is that most people like to save Ignore for truly offensive stuff--think racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. The second is that I think a lot of people see lame copycats in the same way that they see spam e-mail--sure, you can "hide" it, but it's irritating to have to repeat that process when it's so much easier to simply ask someone to stop posting so many of them.

I can't speak for anyone else, turtlensue, but I don't think you're a bad person, and I don't want to see you leave. I often find myself laughing at your posts here, along with many other people. I think there is a respectful middle ground here that should be considered, for everyone's sake. I'm not singling you out because I think it's all your fault or anything; I'm only addressing this to you because you seem to be so upset about it. An increase in the level of respect on everyone's part couldn't possibly be anything but a good idea.