Is it just me or does it seem like half the people on these forums are just on here to argue? I will probably not get a kind response in jc because most of the people im talking about are you. It just seems like no matter what you say people here dissect your post and find something that will “offend” them. I really get annoyed and wish that it would move toward a more uni oriented forum. I realize that arguments will always happen i just wish you guys would keep it in jc. I realize that this thread is going to be dissected and i will probably be bashed but whatever…
yep. From what I’ve seen I don’t know if I would label them as arguments or debates but rather smart remarks towards someone or something. Although that could be an argument depending how you look at it. It’s unfortunate. Along with the stupid, random threads on the forum.
Your subject is ambiguous. I thought your intentions were to post links to all the argument thread for easy access!! Now I’ll just have to wait for BillyTheMountain to bump them when they reach page 11.
I tend to think so as well. Debating is fine, but the debates here never come to a conclusion and it’s just debating for the sake of it. In all the forums I belong to, this one is has to be the most unorganized and dare I saw it “immature”.
The number of asinine threads started has increased dramatically. In inverse proportion, the ability of the forum population to accurately or coherently express themselves has decreased just as dramatically. To add to the complexity, the sensitivity of forum members has skyrocketed. This is the fun part, people taking innocent comments far, far, far too seriously and over-reacting to simple suggestions or corrections. Nice and volatile, I like that. It’s like entering a room filled with huge, red buttons all of which have a “push me” label on them.
This was a courteous, family oriented forum at one time and for the most part, it still is. There is a big push every so often from a whining minority to bust it wide open with foul language and inappropriate, bigoted comments but the population generally self-polices and discourages that kind of behavior. As a result, the folks who want to drag things into the gutter make a big fuss about it and then go away in a huff for awhile. But they always come back, now it’s just sooner than before.
I like the debates because people get really worked up and they’re funny.
But I usually skip over them cuz I usually don’t care a whole lot. You could try that.
There are people in this world who communicate to be offended. And others just use a vocabulary which could potentially offend others - not intentionally, but just because they do not always care about political correctness when they write a post.
Just take the example which has lead to this tread:
In a world of tolerance and positive thinking, everybody should know what is meant and this is not intentionally a sexist expression. It is based on language that has developed itself over thousands of years. It does not mean that the author of the post wants to offend women. He is only using a forum in the same way like he would talk to his friends, in his community.
Everybody is free to have his own opinion about that. (and you could now be offended because I did not write “his/her”).
Just do not abuse a forum to teach political correctness.
The use of language is important, especially on the internet where there is only language (rather than the non verbal stuff of real life interactions). People have to be much more careful about what they say when we can’t judge from their non verbals whether they mean to be offensive or not.
Whether an expression is meant to be sexist or homophobic or not is irrelevant to the person reading the comment. The onus is on the poster to express themselves in an acceptable way, not for the reader to try to decide whether they meant to be offensive or not. It’s not that difficult to express yourself using non-offensive language.
I also believe that the casual use of sexist, homophobic, whateverist language is almost more offensive than the offensive use of it because it shows that, although you know that kind of language can be offensive you just don’t care enough moderate it. It also causes a kind of pervasive sexism/homophobia/whateverism where the use of offensive language is accepted and people are told that they are too ‘senitive’ if they don’t like it. Victim blaming.
And we are not his friends in his community, we are a group of very disparate people from all over the world. Everyone knows that you moderate your language according to your context (speak differently to your teacher than you do to your little brother). Therefore the language you use on an international forum should reflect this.
However did you think this was a world of tolerance and positive thinking?
(But also this kind of debate is one of the mechanisms for the evolution of language. Language doesn’t develop itself, people develop it.)
