When you're bugged by someone being not serious

[Sithdarth]

This thread has brought to the front of my mind something that annoys me personally. It also seems that this isn't entirely isolated to me. To preface this I'm not against joking around and being not serious. Hell this entire place is pretty much based around it. I also understand that humor and non-seriousness is a large part of the persona of many people around here. The thing I want to suggest/ask about here is some sort of sanction for someone to say "This use of humor offends me". I just get the feeling that there is a prevailing attitude that it is wrong to be offended by the "lovable" antics of some of our more colorful members. This can be particularly frustrating when the humor being used is only distinguishable from an actual serious argument based on the person that posted it.

Perhaps I'm in the minority here but I don't always appreciate the way some threads go. At the same time I'm afraid to say anything for fear of getting a "The internet is serious business" type of response. At which point I'm basically unable to participate in a thread because I'm not interested in the current tone of the arguments and any attempt to be a little more serious is met with what is essentially ridicule. Obviously some threads are for nothing but humor and have no business being serious. On the other hand we get our fair share of threads where hyperbole is used to emphasis (sometimes mild) dislike of something in place of actual criticism. Then when someone attempts a more serious line of discussion about this expressed dislike we end up back at "the internet is serious business" which seems slightly unfair. I feel it should be possible for the humorous, the serious, and humorously serious lines of conversation to coexist in a thread. The problem is that attempts at that often lead to someone becoming a pariah. (This probably also happens occasionally when people attempt to inject humor into a thread that was obviously serious.) Sure on option is to start a "totally serious" thread that parallels the topic of the less serious thread. However, that seems unnecessarily complicated and messy.

I guess the TL;DR version of this is that sometimes it seems like we let people get away with annoying other people because it's generally funny and I'm not sure that is fair to the person being annoyed. Maybe there is no good solution to this. I just think that it is worth being aware that this does seem to happen and is a potential source of drama.

P.S. I realize there is a serious tag. I'm just not sure when applied to a post that it is always respected. I'm also not sure it isn't occasionally used for hyperbole.

[shiney]

I understand your post. The position I take is, something may be annoying to some, or many, but is it right for the offender to be punished if they haven't really committed any sort of violation? It isn't against the rules (or law) to be irritating, and while being on a forum that is privately owned and managed affords some level of avoidance in re: "first amendment rights" inasmuch as the rules and enforcement of such are subject to the viewpoints of the owners/administration, I think it creates a concern and possibly slippery slope if I or another mod were to go around arbitrarily warning people because they have annoyed another user.

I mean it's happened before, god knows I am arguably the furthest from perfection around here, and it's also not happened when arguably it should have, but I just don't know if it's right to get involved in a personal dispute that could probably be handled more easily via PM between the affected parties.

[phil_]

I hadn't thought about this. That's probably because I prefer the current forum which errs toward too silly, as opposed to periods in the past when things got real serious with angry faces and temp bans being handed out for harsh language. I'm not sure how to instate a "consider other people's feelings when making a joke" policy, but that's why I'm not in charge. That and the drinking and general unreliability.

And I thought the tag was only to be used sarcastically.

[shiney]

It was originally intended to be used only seriously, and then it became a lulz sarcasm tool, and I guess nobody enforced its actual use. And so here we are.

[Sithdarth]

I understand your post. The position I take is, something may be annoying to some, or many, but is it right for the offender to be punished if they haven't really committed any sort of violation? It isn't against the rules (or law) to be irritating, and while being on a forum that is privately owned and managed affords some level of avoidance in re: "first amendment rights" inasmuch as the rules and enforcement of such are subject to the viewpoints of the owners/administration, I think it creates a concern and possibly slippery slope if I or another mod were to go around arbitrarily warning people because they have annoyed another user.

Of course there is no real way to objectively quantify something like this. I certainly see no way to make a rule governing it. This post was more about raising awareness that it happens. I believe we are all reasonable people around here and that the main cause of this is that people don't realize it can cross a line. That and the people who do end up annoyed or offended don't always feel they have the right to say "That annoyed/offended me" without getting lambasted for it. I guess this is more an open letter asking people to be more aware and understanding of other posters. Your largely free to say what you want and there certainly shouldn't be any sort of official moderation based around accidentally annoying/offending someone. However, we as a forum as a whole could do a lot better at acknowledging when someone has become annoyed and understanding that it is perfectly ok for someone to be annoyed/offended at something you personal find humorous.

So yeah basically its less a complaint and more of a public service announcement. This is something that is very easy to overlook unless/until someone decides to say something. Unfortunately by the time someone decides to speak out things are well on their way to being out of hand.

Originally Posted by phil_

I hadn't thought about this.

Precisely the point. People tend not to think about it and people suppress their annoyance until it erupts into something not entirely pretty.

And I thought the tag was only to be used sarcastically.

Also, a part of the point. Sometimes this place can be a minefield of things that seem serious but are actually hyperbole or sarcasm but the only way to tell is to know the personality of the person posting. But relying on that leads to a boy who cried wolf type scenario where a generally non-serious person will have trouble when they want to say something serious and a serious person will have trouble being part of the joke. Mostly it boils down to a lack of inflection and body language. This can be alleviated to some extend with tags and such but only if their use isn't ambiguous.

[Aerozord]

I find this place is a mixture of, mob mentality and shared dictatorship. Either majority dislikes your view and lashes out at you, or its something that upsets a specific mod. This normally amounts to members that are well liked getting away with more.

That being said, this is probably as good as a forum can get. This place is moderated by individuals that have their own ideas about whats ok and what isn't, but they typically error on the side of being less restrictive.

Personally I think alot of this could be solved just with proper usage of the "serious" tag, even as far as reprimanding those that use it sarcastically

[Magus]

Clearly just create a "internet is srs bsns" tag or something along those lines for things that are faux-serious and that'll leave the serious tag for things that are actually serious serious.

[Azisien]

I dunno, that thread in the OP seemed more to me like:

-Lord of the Rings talk.
-SMBP says LOTR is stupid because the villains are stupid and also the good guys are kind of stupid
-Some people actually know a hell of a lot about LOTR and demolish his argument pretty well
-SMBP shifts his argument more to fluffier and fluffier fallback positions
-People still know LOTR pretty well and continue to defend it pretty well
-Orc Cock (aka surrender)

[synkr0nized]

This post got kind of long. I hope it's not too dumb and at least the basic idea is sound.


I am a big fan of users helping guide the tone of threads.

What I mean is when someone comes in and sets a tone that's a contrast to everyone else's in a thread and people aren't a fan of it, they make it known -- not by flaming, not by whining, but by ignoring that user's baiting, admonishing that user in a friendly manner, and/or by pointing out fallacies if it's a discussion or argument and moving on.

I can think of many times where I've read a thread, both on forums I post at and other places, wherein someone comes in either to troll or to go on tangents or to generally be silly and the userbase has not stood for it. Usually the person gets the message and contributes differently, escalates into blatant trolling and is dealt with, or stops posting in the thread. In fact, after the OP I think you and I, sith, are on the same page:

Originally Posted by sith

This post was more about raising awareness that it happens. I believe we are all reasonable people around here and that the main cause of this is that people don't realize it can cross a line. That and the people who do end up annoyed or offended don't always feel they have the right to say "That annoyed/offended me" without getting lambasted for it. I guess this is more an open letter asking people to be more aware and understanding of other posters. Your largely free to say what you want and there certainly shouldn't be any sort of official moderation based around accidentally annoying/offending someone. However, we as a forum as a whole could do a lot better at acknowledging when someone has become annoyed and understanding that it is perfectly ok for someone to be annoyed/offended at something you personal find humorous.

Again, I am not advocating flaming or counter-trolling someone who is making you angry or whatever. Trying to preemptively prevent "annoying" is not only difficult but often wholly subjective. But if the users participating in a thread... OK, think of a conversation with a group of your friends. If one of them comes out of left field or whatever with a comment, folks groan or dismiss it or point out how dumb it is and go back to the topic, right? Or letting someone know the "joke" was actually not funny or is a problem. That's the kind of thing I mean.

In a few ways, pointing out the fallacies of SMB's argument in the given thread and, as Azisien notes, reducing his posts to talking about orc genetalia seemed a clear sign of "defeat" of his tangents/ramblings and is more or less what I mean. I think the situation just looks more ridiculous/serious because we got a report and then put in responses to it and further mucked up the thread, maybe.


This is not an attempt to skirt my own responsibilities here. Rather it is an attempt to emphasize the fact that a forum community grows and matures and defines itself by the actions and attitudes of the members. Yes, I should definitely be reading threads and making sure folks aren't being assholes, breaking the rules, or deliberately going at each other, etc. But I can't [and won't] be in a thread attempting to assess who's annoying to whom. And if folks are worried that they'll get backlash for posting about wanting to be more serious or not liking a joke, please come talk with me. Most of the time I like to think I am a reasonable person and someone who can be of help (I know there are times where I am quite terrible at posting), and I don't want people not posting 'cause they're afraid of the responses they'll get or something. That shouldn't be the case here.

However, I also fully recognize that I am pretty lax when it comes to folks givin' each other shit, and I think it's fair to say as a result I tend to not see a need for anyone to step in as quickly as perhaps they should. I kind of figure folks can sort out that kind of stuff on their own and shouldn't require hand-holding, but is my line drawn too far back? Like, in the linked thread as an example, I will admit that I saw the report, laughed at some of SMB's lines, and figured people perhaps should just not feed into him and move on -- which seems to have been a poor choice on my part.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Magus

Clearly just create a "internet is srs bsns" tag or something along those lines for things that are faux-serious and that'll leave the serious tag for things that are actually serious serious.

How about this: We should just stop using the serious tag non-seriously altogether, and anyone who does gets a stern internet talking to.

If there's one thing I am an expert in, it's how difficult it is to properly convey sarcasm over the internet.