h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

az, maybe it was a different issue.

The following is a post I made on the community soapbox thread about this issue. I felt that anyone who was involved in this really should both see this post and be aware of the thread in question.

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Right.

I am horrified to discover this thread.

I started the thread about Della Wars are they a problem and I was roundly critisised for doing so. However I did it specifically because I was horrified at this type of thread.

Undoubtably the situation is a problem but the real question is how to deal with it. For my I have decided as of the end of said thread wherever possible do my damndest to ignore U179697. I gathered that in future there are some people who will regard anyone formerly associated with what had been branded the "anti U179697" camp would be considered to be "flamewarring" if they ever disagreed with her.

I cannot say I have been entirely succesfull and I have occasionally crossed swords with her but it seems my worst fears have been realised. There is obviously a sizable contigant of the hootoo communiuty utterly disgusted with me and mine, first we had Gosho's "resignation" thread from the Forum and now this.

The way I see it there are a number of problems here with the general situation.

1) I make no apologies for making this problem one at least in my eyes. The behavior of U179697, I am absolutly convinced that the root of all of this is the way she behaves. Note that none of the Forums threads she is disinterested in end up that way, even though most of the other participants are there.

Thing is what to do about this one, I cannot see anything other than her being banned from being able to solve this part. That is not to say I am advocating that solution. However not only does she roundly reject any accusation that she should change, but she also refuses to accept there is a problem. In her eyes this has *nothing* to do with her whatsoever and it is just a group of maliciouas bullies who have a problem with her. She wont change because she doesn't see that she has to.

I also (and with raised eyebrows) say this but I think the reaction of the community has not helped. I appreciate that peoples natural sense of fair play intervenes and what they see as a group of researches attacking another researcher probably seems unfair. But it seems to me (particularly on the Della Wars thread) that the reating of neatrals is to casitage us and sympathise with her. That means she isn't even looking at the possibility that she is mayby doing something wrong.

2) This is almost (but not quite IMHO) as big a problem as number 1. Namely the reactions of those people un-willing or un-able to just ignore U179697 and all the naty things she says. Whilst I am not giong to go into exhaustive depth about what was talked about in the "DW-Are they an issue..." thread a common consensus emerged from what I will loosly call the anti-U179697 brigade (myself included).

That is that some people are just unwilling to ignore what she says. When she does her party pieces of condeminng homosexuals or mother who choose to abort, some people simply cannot hold thier tongues.

I think that whilst hard this is where the potential solution to the problems lies. The question is how to achive it. Obviously the consensus we came up with (one which I was never entirely happy with) of the Dumb bomb/Thread bomb alert simply hasn't worked. The arguments are raging still and the existance of this thread goes to show the problem is still a big issue.

I am willing to accept that this a) hasn't worked and that b) this is the area a solution is possible (if not likely) but how?

It is all well and good saying that it bores people, or that we are self absorbed or whatever but the truth is this is obviously effecting people and we need to do something about it. I just dont know what to do and if this is to be solved then ideas need to happen.

Having just read the thread in question, FB, I have to say that I am less than horrified. I didn't see any posts which implicated any particular individual, or even any particular side of the conflict. It looked to me like some people acknowledging that there is a problem, and trying to involve the editors in finding the solution. I have no issue with that.

Well to clarify I am horrified at two points.

Firstly that the DWs are still an issues for lots of people and that the best efforts of this thread have done nothing abnout that.

Secondly that Morts "newbies" wont get to hear about "the forum" because of the Della Wars. I think that is a shame for both "the forum" and for the newbies.

There are still some of us ACEs who link to the Forum in our welcome messages ...

Forget Della wars, what's needed is basic education.

This is what she really said in a convo.

"Banks, eh? Some of them (probably most of them) are just out for as much money as they can get.

Evidently Addeledaide has worked out that banks, most or probably most of them, are out to make a profit. No sh*t Sherlock.

I have now given up all hope of ever getting reason out of that woman if that's the level of her *thinking*.

<>

I happen to agree with both points. The DWs are still an issue. And nothing we've done has changed that.

<>

Do we really want newbies deciding that the conduct of Apple and her new ally Shifty is the sort of behavior we encourage at The Forum? Or elsewhere on hootoo?

I know when I go to a new forum, I take the temperature there by reading through some posts, and adjust my style appropriately. If you think I'm bad from time to time in the DWs, you should see me on my everything-goes fantasy football board, where flaming is not only condoned, it is encouraged. If I walked into this site and my first steps were at The Forum, I'd think this place was just like my football board.

*sigh*

I know it has been suggested and rejected before, but perhaps now is the time to refloat this idea.

How about ignoring Della/Apple/Adelaide? Don't respond to any of her inflamatory posts. I know the argument has been made in the past that that gives tacit approval of her posting. Isn't the implication that the posting just isn't worth a reply worthwhile?

Have to agree Witty. It's the thing we haven't tried.

I think an upfront, explicit boycott of Apple/Della1 is called for. Because the problem is in the big fast threads that she is in, I think if as many people as possible, especially the other serious players, refused to engage with her _at all_ then we might see a change.

I think it should be for an agreed period of time (say a month and then revise), and that if needed a link to an explanatory page can be posted to make clear what is going on to new people (but with no further explanation, or comment in the post).

In order to work people need to agree to not engage with Apple *at all* - that includes not going elsewhere on the site to respond to her. I think not engaging in discussion about Apple would also be useful (or at least containing them to one A page).


However, it won't surprise me if the main protagonists won't want to do this, as it means giving up a significant avenue of point scoring. I also don't have a lot of energy for organising something like this. And I think part of the reason why the D bomb concept isn't working is because we don't have a consensus on what we were doing - people seemed attached to their version of what should happen, which is not an effective way of organising collectively. I certainly don't believe that it has been given a decent trial.



Because of that, I am quite happy now for the Italics to put people on premod, as the people posting nasty personal stuff are all grownups who know how to change if the boundary gets set.


btw Ferrett, I don't think you will be the first person they will be considering to put on premod. Out of all the people involved you would be one of the ones who has made the most effort to change your behaviour, and I would certainly speak up about that if needed


I've been avoiding The Forum for the last month, the threads with the D wars in them in particular (although I am aware of other trolling problems as well). So I'm a bit out of the loop. But really, as far as I can see the people posting nasty, personal stuff aren't doing so out of some righteous need to combat Apple/Della's homophobia and racism etc (although they do that concurrently as well). They appear to be doing it because either they enjoy it or because they haven't yet learnt selfcontrol in communicating.

I don't think premod is in anyway an ideal solution, but it may be the only one.

Whenever this thread pops up I sigh. I must have missed something because I honestly thought it was dieing a death. I tried the combustion triangle analogy now here's another one.

One of my stress indicators is Ecxema, also known as the itch scratch rash. The more you scratch it the more it itches. Steroid cream works but also weakens the skin.

If we stop scratching the Della problem it will eventually stop annoying the community. Look upon the italics as steroids. They might work but by doing so will also weaken the community.

It does seem a fair few of the regulars have stopped posting in general since the current troll feeding frenzy. Me, being one of them, it takes too much time sifting through the trolling posts and rebukes to get to the actual meat of the thread so I have stopped posting here and there. However, I will be ignoring trolling posts and I will not be dumbing bombing the dumb bomb troll posts.

I have to say my general hootoo experience is being tarnished by this whole thing. What I like about hootoo is mainly the forum. But increasingly I feel like I dont want to post there because of what is going on.

I'm slightly confused now.

Blicky seems to be offended (above) at Della's statement of the obvious ('Banks make money'). He regards this statement as dumb.

But all sorts of other contributors make dumb comments all the time. We don't have to take them as personal affronts. I thought that we were discussing the *conduct* of debate, not the content. No?

Or is the heat now at such a level that some are looking at the world through sh*t-tinted glasses?

I'm with you Ed, least said soonest mended.

As you may know, I'm largely absent from h2g2 after more than 5 happy years because of this problem. I intend to return next semester, because I need the fix. If Della's still with us,(well, we can live in hope) I'll ignore any postings, but will say so eg "Previous posting ignored. This in answer to number 27" I've tried ignoring things without saying so in the past and this a)makes people think I have no opinion on her postings b)that I agree, however tacitly. grieving for the Forum

That's a bit like me saying to myself 'I'll just have a little scratch at this itch'. The little turns into a litle bit more and to mix my analogies we have a full blown fire going.

That sounds like another version of the Thread Bomb Alert, Wand'rin star. I agree that it is often difficult to say nothing at all, especially when a complete lie is told about you, or your words have been mangled beyond all recognition. It's hard to leave stuff like that unchallenged, though it is also futile to try and debate with a brick wall.


az

I've recieved some pleasant and some not so pleasant replies to some of my posts from *all* parties involved in the so called Della Wars. I have also occasionally made some pretty dumb comments and have been completely ignored more than once.

Do I care? No I bloody don't. I move on. Why can't you all do the same?

*sigh*

rearrange...molehill - mountain - making a - out of

You know what Lady? We've had quite a few posts like that in this thread - where people come in with some smart words but actually contribute almost nothing to the conversation. I appreciate your personal view . I don't appreciate the implication that there is nothing realy the matter and we should all just get over it (whoever 'we' is), as it marginalises both the seriousness of the issue as well as people's perspectives.

Marginalising people is a sure way to create conflict.

It also artificially simplifies a complex situation - entrenched conflict happens for many reasons including where people don't feel listened to. Your post leaves me feeling that you haven't heard or understood the real and valid concerns I have about this situation (or most other people's either).

>>I'm slightly confused now.
Blicky seems to be offended (above) at Della's statement of the obvious ('Banks make money'). He regards this statement as dumb.
<<

Edward, that was blicky being a brat


>>
One of my stress indicators is Ecxema, also known as the itch scratch rash. The more you scratch it the more it itches. Steroid cream works but also weakens the skin.

If we stop scratching the Della problem it will eventually stop annoying the community. Look upon the italics as steroids. They might work but by doing so will also weaken the community.
<<

Albatross, I hope that you can see that this thread is neither the itch nor the scratch.

Obviously ignoring the problem doesn't work - I've been ignoring it for a few weeks now and it's still going on. Unless enough of those involved agree to change their behaviour (and we have been over this in this thread already), the only other options I can see are to put up with it, or for the Italics to get involved.


I think individuals choosing to ignore those of Apple's posts that are offensive or trolling is a good thing. I'm not sure that on it's own it will be enough because those most vehement against Apple have indicated they won't do this.

I must admit I am rapidly losing respect for the researchers who are choosing to play dirty and who are keeping this conflict personal (and alive).