Community Suggestions

[Eric Rose]

I think what we have here is Post Traumatic Election Syndrome. Prozac is your friend.

 

[anyte]

Why do people who don't want to discuss politics or religion knowingly read and sometimes participate in threads on those subjects even when they are clearly labeled? And why should they have a say in whether or not those threads should or shouldn't be allowed?

I briefly glanced at the "vote" thread and decided that I had nothing to contribute and that it was likely to go in a direction that might spark some negativity in me. I opted not to ignore the thread from there on.

Not liking the content of some threads is not justification to eliminate them. We all have free will and I would think we are all mature enough to wisely choose what to read and what not to read. Sometimes a thread may have a misleading heading but that's not an excuse to read and participate in a subject that you don't want occuring on the board.

I believe it has been reasoned that those discussions create problems amongst members and that they even cause people to leave. Does not the same hold true about photographic threads? I've seen some pretty heated photographic discussions in which people took verbal swings at one another. So let's get rid of photographic discussions as well. And while we're at it I think we should eliminate commenting on photos because when there is nothing else to discuss people will start investing more time and thought into critiquing and I gaurantee you that it will not all be positive. I've seen critiques turn horribly bitter.

You cannot regulate people so that there is never an occurance of harsh words and hurt feelings. It's totally unrealistic. Even if there were only 5 close friends here, eventually something would set off a chain of events that would cause someone to say something that hurts someone or someone to misunderstand something said and end up with hurt feelings. The larger the group the higher the statistical probability that someone is going to say something to hurt someone and that someone may misunderstand something and feel hurt.

 

[Shmoo]

I think that Aggie is just trying to make us "think" in a more civil fashion. The computer/Internet can be both a powerful communication device as well as a powerful destroyer of communication if used improperly. Online communication does not come with the physical body language nor the vocal inflections that normal conversation has.

The thread in question was stated in what seemed to be an aggressive nature, but I'm sure it was not intended as such. By the same token, some of the responses might have seemed aggressive also. A lot of you are what I consider "old timers" to this website and probably have a very familiar, off-handed way of "talking" which might be misconstrued by some and be plainly offensive to others.

I think it's important to note that a lot of companies these days are now "teaching" their employees how to write emails so that they won't offend or get them into lawsuits.

(of course, I'm probably on everyone's ignore list, so nobody'll see this...)

 

[Sean]

I look at it this way.. Some threads are just not worth the fallout that they can cause to the community or my ability to manage the community. We rarely lock something down and out of 1,000's of threads hardly a handful have been locked. This is one of the most open forums I've participated in and I see other forums out there instantly delete any thread that seems 0.00001% controversial, or ban users right out. I agree that people should just stay out of these threads, but this is wishful thinking and it will never happen. It's just trying to find a balance, and as someone who has participated in many internet forums on various sites, trust me, a 'free for all' approach in internet forums is a recipe for disaster..

 

[blansky]

Okay, let’s call a spade a spade, here. All this talk of community, of goodwill, “can’t we all just get along”, we’re a band of brothers, it’s us against the world. What a crock a shit

Lets face it most of the people that write in here are complete and total losers who, if it weren’t for this site wouldn’t be talking to anybody at all, aside from walking down the street mumbling to their shoes. I doubt that ¾ of the people here have any semblance of a life or ever had any kind of a meaningful relationship, that didn’t involve Brittany Spears or Sally Mann pictures. They don’t have a friend in the world so they clutch onto internet websites desperate to find a friend to chat with, hoping against hope that maybe a girl will log on so they can sweep her off her chair and perhaps meet at some bus terminal in Pheonix. Please God, make it a different crack whore than last time. Shit at this point they’d probably settle for a crossdressing pre-op with fake tits.

I venture to guess that most are dropouts out of some obscure engineering school, probably expelled for spending too much time on Ted Kazinsky’s bomb making 101 website and deemed to be too high a risk for the community college that they barely made it into.

They probably still live in their parent’s basement and have mom cooking for them and doing their laundry, conning the old nit-wit into believing that they are still trying to find themselves. Their online porn bill has already maxxed out mom’s credit cards and damaged her credit so badly that they’ve cancelled her account on the Home Shopping Network Club. Just last week the 700 Club sent around a collector to get her weekly tythe, that she stupidly promised when the TV went on the fritz last summer.

Then there are the women. Pathetically desperate creatures, craving a man so badly that they joined a site full of engineers, just to maybe find one that can soup up her vibrator, because the max speed, just doesn’t get it done anymore. So she goes out and invests in a well used 35mm with a 300mm lens and stares vacant eyed at it all day fantasizing about what will never be. She spends her nights batting her fake eyelashes at the computer screen in the futile hope that at least maybe one of the retired guys, with 4 ex-wives left in the dust, might take a liking to her dumb blonde questions. Maybe they could hook up at one of the regional loser parties and tell each other lies about themselves. Good luck.

On top of that, there are very few people who write in here that actually make any sense what so ever, and if it weren’t for spellcheck would be deemed functionally illiterate. Probably the only person that has half a clue is bjork, and who the hell knows what he is saying most of the time. It’s like a G version of Tourettes Syndrome, but at least he includes pictures.

Speaking of pictures the gallery is another joke. People sending substandard pictures, and one desperate soul after another, commenting on how deep and wonderfully executed the pictures were and that person being so eternally grateful that anybody acknowledged them, that they say the same thing about the other person’s mundane and socially irrelevant work. It makes me want to puke. I sometimes doubt if most of the people here even own their own cameras. Probably stole it from their alcoholic stupored step- father who spends his days on the couch eating garbage out of plastic bags and farting incessently ‘cause he needs his space. He, being an old portrait photographer who loved kids so much that he spent 10 years in prison, and has the dubious distinction of having his portrait displayed on every lamp post in the neighborhood.


Lets not talk politics, lets not talk religion, what if someone gets hurt feeling, maybe they’ll lock themselves in their room and never come out again. Big loss. Maybe they’ll overdose on Rodinal and turn themselves into one giant contact print on the floor of their squalor filled hovel, until Jesus comes down to claim them, and take them to the big darkroom in the sky. Yeah right, when chickens fly out my ass.

They are too stupid to know that everything is politics and that……..WHAT? I’M ON THE INTERNET.

Shit, I can’t hear a thing. TURN THE DAMN DRYER OFF. Stupid bitch.

I’M ON THE COMPUTER.
OK. I’LL BE UP IN A MINUTE. Probably ****ing macaroni and cheese again. Why do I bother.

 

[clogz]

You forgot to mention that those lives so graphically depicted will only lead to dancing.

 

[noblebeast]

You're my new hero, Michael. Thanks for the reality check, and the good laugh. I gotta go rub Mom's feet now, or I lose my cot in the basement...

 

[Andy K]

Bill Hicks lives!

 

[Lee Shively]

Damn you, blansky! You've uncovered my true identity and released the details of my sordid existence. You bastard!

(But next week I will return with a new identity and a new line of BS to awe and inspire you.)

 

[Ed Sukach]

Okay, let’s call a spade a spade, here. All this talk of community, of goodwill, “can’t we all just get along”, we’re a band of brothers, it’s us against the world. What a crock a shit..

Ok ... Let's have a reality check.

Are you serious, trying to be funny, sarcastic or what?

 

[Jorge]

After Blansky's tirade I felt so bad I was going to put myself in my ignore list....nahh.....

 

[Jeremy]

Such efforts as blansky's should be applauded, but I'm afraid his mother will yell at us to keep it down.

 

[bmac]

Looks like somebody's prescription ran out... again...

 

[jd callow]

That was an interesting post by blansky.

 

[John McCallum]

Man who opened the window and let that dose of reality in? ......quick shut it!.......(?)

 

[Ed Sukach]

Man who opened the window and let that dose of reality in? ......quick shut it!.......(?)

That was NOT reality.

I'm waiting for the "reality check" information.

 

[Joe Symchyshyn]

Bravo Michael!

joe

 

[BWGirl]

Soooo, Michael....tell us how you really feel. oops....dropped my vibrator.

 

[photomc]

Yeah right, when chickens fly out my ass.

? Michael....Don't the feathers tickle....

 

[John McCallum]

That was NOT reality.

I'm waiting for the "reality check" information.

Well .... in my humble opinion, most of us generally have heads up arses to varying degrees. Msr Blanski takes a peak out every now and again, perhaps this is the reality for him. (with a little artistic license applied for affect).

Don't be offended if it's not true! ............ and someone take the wine-bottle off Blanski.

 

[Peter Schrager]

life

Gee if I could only get a life!.........I'm waiting for the Blansky tutorial on DVD to come out. Now I have to go back in and figure out how to load this Brownie Camera
Regards Peter

 

[Dave Parker]

Okay, let’s call a spade a spade, here. All this talk of community, of goodwill, “can’t we all just get along”, we’re a band of brothers, it’s us against the world. What a crock a shit

Now, I have got my laugh of the day, this is funny, funny stuff. thanks.

Dave

 

[Helen B]

'Then there are the women. Pathetically desperate creatures, craving a man so badly that they joined a site full of engineers...'

Now you tell us. Look mate, I've spent hours sewing sequins on my posts, drenched them in Chanel 19 and wrapped them in pink angorra and there's just a bunch of overworked, underpaid, undervalued engineers reading them? No more touchy-feely saccarine-sweet posts from me pal. 'Oh bondage, up yours!' as my dear friend Poly Styrene used to say.

Now, what was that other forum? www royalyachtsquadronmartiniusersgroup dot org.

(hands on hips) 'Well I never. The nerve!'
Helen

 

[jim kirk jr.]

Mike made me laugh so hard I forgot about the green female with antennae and four arms hanging all over me....living vicariously through a long dead TV show...ho hum...


Now is Mike's tutorial a 12 step program and is lots of alcohol involved(if so I'm in!)

 

[John McCallum]

Helen he he he...