Author Topic: Forum Discourse  (Read 21030 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2016, 06:23:47 AM »
It seems like such a minor thing, but I think we all owe a great debt of thanks to whomever it was, ten odd years ago, who programmed this forum to always replace f—k with CINECAST!. I suspect that not being able to rely on that linguistic crutch — so often, on the internet, linked to anger, hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, false outrage, etc. — is greatly responsible for his forum having generally been an oasis of (somewhat) measured cyber sanity and respect.

I have no experience of other internet forums, so I believe everyone at their word when they say there are some ghastly places out there - it certainly would not contradict what I know about the internet. That said, comparatively or not, I do appreciate this small haven as a hyper-pressurized bit of carbon of public discourse. I don't know that it is, or that I would want it to be, very sane, but I feel the cyber respect. Despite the odd inflammatory remark or not-so-pleasant exchange, I consider this forum to be overwhelmingly pleasurable to dwell in.

Thank you to the mods and admins who have the bitter task to peruse all the posts looking for lines crossed, whilst always hoping, I am sure, never to encounter them. They do a wonderful job and I have never witnessed anything but fairness and patience from them. They even put a stop to Sandy's heinous cookie dictatorship plot with minimal blood loss (two trays of cookies were dropped on the floor in the altercation, never to be heard from again). I tip my hat to you good sirs and gentle ladies.

(I was going to add an adorable gif of a toddler tipping his hat here, but I cannot remember what the trick is with tinypic, so just pretend I was hilarious and endearing.)

The simple fact that I am aware of the CINECAST! feature of this forum tells me that it has been of use. I understand the need to stave off the most extreme excesses of vulgarity. They probably have been helpful in some instances to make sure certain boundaries of unpleasantness were not crossed. What I do not necessarily agree about though is that those little lines of code in the forum's programming are the main, or one of the main, reason this forum is what it is. I credit the people. Maybe I am being disingenuous and the censorship does work to discourage some vociferous elements from posting in here. I get the feeling that the people who do make their way here do not need so much though. This is a tiny enough corner that whoever finds it is usually essentially decent. Except for those people who keep confusing me with their counter-intuitive avatars.

So I am not generally in favour of measures that restrict speech of censor words. That said,

Random things. Like "overrated" could become "MAYONNAISE!"

I would love to say threads littered with capitalised « MAYONNAISE »s. I assume that is the direction this sort of thing would (and should) take.

More seriously though, and I am not sure if this is being really discussed by the powers that be, having certain expressions as "overrated" disappear would create some inconveniences that I for one feel would be serious. I recognize how they would oblige us to make the extra effort to engage each other and the movies we talk about, but that extra effort could make it hard to participate in a conversation. It might prevent one from posting a quick answer to a comment, whether negative or positive. We don't always have the time to be exhaustive or really go into a film. It is often nice to be able to resort to accessible options, even if it is to call a movie "boring".

Differences of opinion and smirnoff's gifs are the two things that make this place interesting. Passion and strong opinions are great. Sarcasm (the good kind) is great. Even ridicule has its place. But all those things have to fall under the umbrella of respect.

This.
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Sandy

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2016, 06:56:43 AM »
Very nice.

As for the cookies! :))

I'm sure they got eaten, because of the 5 second rule put in place by the mods.

Bondo

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2016, 07:39:13 AM »
To be fair, I probably use the words CINECAST! and FILMSPOTTER! more knowing that they'll show up as CINECAST! and FILMSPOTTER!. I would also start saying MAYONNAISE! more often, if only to point out that it is certainly not MAYONNAISE!.

Teproc

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #13 on: May 20, 2016, 07:42:50 AM »
I didn't even realize the CINECAST! thing was automatic, I assumed it was more of a running joke and people were writing it out.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #14 on: May 20, 2016, 10:41:07 AM »
I didn't even realize the CINECAST! thing was automatic, I assumed it was more of a running joke and people were writing it out.

 ;D

I love the naivete here.
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Sandy

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #15 on: May 20, 2016, 01:37:44 PM »
I didn't even realize the CINECAST! thing was automatic, I assumed it was more of a running joke and people were writing it out.

 ;D

I love the naivete here.

Teproc, I did too for a long time. :)

pixote

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #16 on: May 20, 2016, 01:45:16 PM »
More seriously though, and I am not sure if this is being really discussed by the powers that be ...

Ha, no, that was just my being silly to make a point. Censorship is MAYONNAISE!.

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St. Martin the Bald

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #17 on: May 20, 2016, 04:09:18 PM »
CINECAST! MAYONNAISE!
Hey, nice marmot!

tinyholidays

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #18 on: May 20, 2016, 05:29:35 PM »
Thank you, pixote and other mods and admins for keeping this place as comfortable as possible.

I popped out for a few days and it looks like I missed some ugly business. Probably for the best.


DarkeningHumour

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Re: Forum Discourse
« Reply #19 on: May 20, 2016, 10:52:38 PM »
More seriously though, and I am not sure if this is being really discussed by the powers that be ...

Ha, no, that was just my being silly to make a point. Censorship is MAYONNAISE!.

pixote

 ;D
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