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Zixar

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Posts posted by Zixar

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    Tom: Funny how you left out the last six words of my post. Funnier still how you can accuse me of being "manipulative" and "subversive" while completely ignoring the whole point of my message. No one's "herding" anyone, Tom. Ask Psalmie and Zshot if what I said affected their own observations in any way they weren't already troubled about. What will you do if they say they never communicated with me about this? Ignore them, too?

    So you don't like me, Tom, I get that. Subtlety has never been one of your longsuits. If you'd just look at what I'm saying, rather than what you wish I said, you might come to the same conclusion as all the people who voted "downhill".

    Than again, you might not. I'll ask you this, then. Should there be no rules at all here? Should people be free to say whatever they want just so they don't have to take the effort to be polite? Is "censorship" a greater evil than "decency"? Should the Wierwille-worshippers get to accuse his victims of being vicious, character-assassinating liars? Should people be allowed to post gay Jesus porn? How about if we just started calling everyone who disagreed with us a "c**kb****g m*****f****r", 'cause we can? (It's not like we couldn't have said that in TWI, after all. Didn't Martindale use that phrase in a teaching at the Rock one year?)

    Or perhaps maybe, just maybe, it's worth watching what we say for the sake of a little more peace? Accepting responsibility for what we say instead of hiding behind some "right" to say it?

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    Psalmie: I appreciate what you said, but it looks like few want to listen.

    You know, so many people have asked, "Why didn't the 'good' leaders in TWI step in and confront VPW?" That's easy to ask after the fact. Most folks were so blissfully ignorant about what was going on that they didn't even want to hear that things might not be all WOWburgers and fries.

    I'm afraid that unless people actually start to examine what's been going on, and take steps to correct it, they'll have simply traded one blind trust for another. Cripes, after Victor Paul Wierwille, you'd think we'd know better than to create an unquestionable Victor Paw Tucket in his image. I know he doesn't want that, and we shouldn't want it either.

    Paw does have to lead the way through better moderation. Yet he can only delegate so much of that. The rest of us have to follow the example he sets and exercise self-restraint so that the Mods won't have to police this place 24/7. No, we don't have to all hold the exact same views, ideas, or beliefs, but we should hold the same manners.

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    Chuck: I'm not trying to convert anyone. It's a question of inappropriate behavior in inappropriate forums.

    It's one thing for a person to be an atheist and post his reasons why in the Doctrinal Forum. It's quite another to start religiously offensive threads in the Open Forum.

    Or, can you not see why your calling the Bible "a load of bull...." is as grossly offensive as using racial or ethnic slurs? Freedom of speech is one thing, as is freedom to disagree. I don't care whether you belive the Bible or not, but when you deliberately denigrate it with obscenity, you've crossed way over the line.

    Forget this "Christian" site dodge, too. No one is saying this has to be a stated "Christian" site. But it doesn't have to be a stated "African-American" site in order for "n*gger" to be offensive, either.

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    I could be wrong, but I thought nobody could be that dense unless they have some sort of severe brain disorder. Yet...

    If I had said "GreaseSpot has gone round the bend", I'm sure some idiot would say something along the lines of "Duh, GreaseSpot ain't got no wheels, so it couldn't have been on the road in the first place."

    If I had said "GreaseSpot is past its prime", some wiseass would say "GreaseSpot isn't a number, so you can't tell what divides it, so you can't tell if it's prime." Or some other idiot would say "Duh, GreaseSpot ain't no cut of meat, but if it wuz, it'd be choice, not prime. You're stoopid."

    If I had gone in earlier today and changed both the poll and the title of the thread itself to remove all references to shark-jumping so as not to tax the easily-bewildered, I'm sure someone would still find some way to broadcast their complete ignorance of the difference between speaking literally and speaking figuratively.

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    quote:
    Originally posted by Mister P-Mosh:

    He may or may not answer, so I'll give a few suggestions, to be taken with the dehydrated Salt Lake.

    1) Define the site more clearly, and find a way to make sure people realize that. There have been many people that come here and think that we're all supposed to be Christians. I assume Dot Matrix left because she felt that this site wasn't Christian enough or something like that. I think that pawtucket has designed this to not be anti-Christian, but to allow people of whatever belief system (or lack thereof) to come here and discuss TWI. (Un)fortunately, there are other forums than "About the Way" that sometimes distract us from that, but the way international is the main topic of this site.

    To be clear, Dot was under no misapprehension that this was a Christian site. She's not stupid. What she (and I, and others) DID believe was that it was not a place where one's religion would be allowed to be ridiculed on the Open Forum. It was the equivalent of a Holocaust denial on a Jewish board and should never have been allowed to go on for as long as it did.

    2) Stricter enforcement of forums by the moderators. I don't want to ask for more work to be done, but I think it might be good to be a little more strict about the sectioning of things. For example, moving refiner's topic about rejecting the bible was something that should happen more often.

    Absolutely. Part of this stems from the fact that the offending "Reject Jesus" thread was two days old and six pages deep before Pawtucket did anything about it.

    3) More posts by the rest of us. I could probably post more things to discuss, but don't really do it much other than in the political forums. I think that some of the issues Zixar was complaining about are due to a lack of other posts by people here. The reality is that even though the main focus of this site should be the "About the Way" forum, the community here on the other forums is just as important since it ties us all together. I think it's fine to post birthdays and such, because it helps us all know each other a little better. I'd just like to see more stuff posted as well that are our thoughts on other topics. Even though my "favorite candy" topic has been done already and is fairly asinine, it at least gives people something to talk about.

    There's nothing inherently wrong with "fluff" topics, certainly not. The point is that when they start to become most of what's posted, there's not much left of substance that hasn't been said already. It's not that it's bad, it's rather indicative of a lull at least, a decline at worst.

    4) Lighten the f***** up! Some people around here take things entirely too seriously, and some of us get frustrated by others here too easily. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the most tightly wound people around here who need to take this advice the most will probably not do so. I am primarily thinking of myself here, because it's too easily to passionately argue about some of the things I argue about here. I know others are the same way.

    I agree, and I'll go you one further--the Political forums should be abolished altogether. Everyone has pretty much already made up their minds, and it's accomplishing nothing but perpetuating nasty arguments.

    Anyway, there are four suggestions, take them or leave them it doesn't matter. They're just suggestions. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    Long Gone: If it were just me, then you'd be right. If I don't like what's going on, I can just leave, the same as anyone else.

    The problem is, it isn't just me, is it? The results were a long way away from 31-to-1. Typically in the past, whenever the site has been questioned, the fairweather friends leap out of the woodwork and outnumber the questioners by at least 4-to-1, usually a lot more.

    Until the numbers were brought up, I assume people voted honestly on the issue instead of along personality lines. I would think the prudent course would be to acknowledge that there's something going wrong and fix it, not cover it up in another rah-rah session for Pawtucket. It's purely my opinion of course, but that's what caused it to grow in the background in the first place.

    The site won't suffer a bit without me. It might disappoint a couple of people, but it certainly won't come crashing down because of the loss of one poster. We've lost good (and bad) people before and it carried on just fine. However, when a large number of unrelated people get disgruntled at the same time, it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out that there's a problem that needs to be addressed for the good of the remaining folks.

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    quote:
    Originally posted by pawtucket:

    Zixar,

    I don't know what you are trying to acheive, but your quote is based on nothing and you should tell me where I said what you claim I said. I know you don't like being misrepresented, why are you doing it to me?

    quote:
    There is growing unrest among the GreaseSpot posters, and b) Pawtucket currently has no intentions of changing anything to address that.

    I neither used quote tags nor quotation marks. I drew the conclusion that you intend no change from the following:

    quote:
    This community, hopefully, evolves. Different people with diverse stories, yet common elements. There aren't always going to be new episodes and new characters. Sometimes the familiar is good enough.

    Remembering birthdays IS part of a community.

    Arguing is one of the healthiest things we do here.

    Take the "irritating" items and you have the ingredients to a return to the general population after living under a micro-managed cult. It ain't always pretty.

    So YES we "jumped the shark". Hopefully we do it often.

    If that is the wrong conclusion to draw from that, then I apologize. How are you planning to change the site to address the issue, then?

    Has GreaseSpot finally gone downhill?

    in Open

    Posted

    Paw: The number of answers is irrelevant. Consider if, say, Mr. P-Mosh, for example, posted a poll asking who will win the Presidential election and gave the following choices:

    a) Kerry, because Bush is an idiot

    b) Kerry, because Bush is a warmonger

    c) Kerry, because Bush is Halliburton's sock puppet

    d) Kerry, because my goldfish told me so

    e) Nader, because Kerry owes me money

    f) George W. Bush.

    The Kerry voters might be split as to a-d, but odds are choice f would be the single highest vote getter in the poll. A-E combined would still be the opposite of F, and still give an overall indication of whom the polled people preferred.

    In this poll, the largest response group were the ones who agreed that GS has changed for the worse(10 votes). If it were just a few disgruntled posters, you'd expect choice A to have the overwhelming majority, regardless of how many other answers there are. A and D were split almost 50-50, and that's before I brought the stats up here. Like I said earlier, I had expected it to run about 80% for GS, 20% against. So far, that hasn't been anywhere close to the results.

    Doesn't that tell you something?

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