Disturbing trend in the TMF

[RichardAuc]

This is the first time I've started my own thread, and I do it now because I've been seeing a disturbing trend in the TMF lately.

I'm not here to complain about the silly posts. Plenty of people are writing them, and plenty are complaining about them. Resistance to them is futile, for what we resist persists.

I'm here to complain about the posts that aren't being written. No one is talking about what we really care about, not even each other. Fewer new threads are being written now than ever before, and participation apart from the silly posts is in serious decline. I'm disturbed by these things.

One of the things about the TMF that got my attention when I joined is that it was a group of people who, because of a shared interest, were being ridiculed and shunned by the rest of the world. We're people, like everybody else. Hence all the silly posts, for people aren't terribly serious for the most part.

Let the silly posts continue--for who could stop them anyway--but not at the expense of those subjects near and dear to our hearts. It's one thing to scream for serious discourse, and quite another to volunteer some. Even if you don't answer this posts--which, statistically speaking, the majority of its readers won't--ask yourself this: are we serious about anything?

 

[His Divine Shadow]

I will be serious this once.

The reason no one is is because no one wants to. No one seems to have a serious issue they want to post. Believe me, there are PLENTY of people here that love to post serious stuff every so often. (BigJim, etc) In my opinion, this is the wind down period after the flood of serious threads during the war. When a new crisis grips the world, new threads will start. Just be patient.

 

[Neutron]

Richard...

Believe it or not, I agree. What especially irks me is when people copy and paste news items without giving an opinion. On other boards I go to, those posts get deleted and after 3 strikes the user is banned for a week or so.

Darth Neutron

 

[Battousai]

Personally, I think that the reason there are so many silly posts and not so many serious posts, is simply because the people posting PREFER to post silly things...like HDS here for instance ^^x

If there are people who want serious posts, then why don't they post them themselfs?

 

[Neutron]

I Don't Mind..

Silly threads. What I hate is these morons who copy and paste from news sites.

Tron

 

[Battousai]

Ah, well I suppose I agree with you there...its kinda pointless.

 

[TMF Jeff]

Re: I Don't Mind..

Silly threads. What I hate is these morons who copy and paste from news sites.

Tron

You said the same thing two posts up in this same thread, and now you're calling people morons. Give it a rest.

 

[red indian]

Well.................

.........it all sounds a right laugh to me!

 

[Neutron]

Re: Re: I Don't Mind..

You said the same thing two posts up in this same thread, and now you're calling people morons. Give it a rest.

Well I needed to do so because most the people here couldn't differentiate between whether I disliked silly threads (which I don't) and copy and paste threads. (which I detest).

Tron

 

[amk714]

I couldn't agree with you more, Richard. 🙂 In the future, I'll try to put up some serious topics for discussion.

 

[Sunday_10pm]

Bending the subject slightly but - you know what I find odd..

The way there are some people on the forum who are really active in the general discussion board, but never take part in any tickling related discussion. I don't get it?

 

[QBWeaver]

OK... Here's my $.02 cents.

In life, there are peaks and valleys. There is lots of news and very little news worth reading.

What you are seeing here is just one of those trends. We've seen it before. The TK community has gone through this several times just as any other group will.

Given the events of the last few years this looks like a time when people are trying to relax and enjoy living life. The silliness is needed sometimes. It's just plain fun in a written form.

Just watch.... you'll see the peaks and valleys if you watch long enough.

Jan

 

[BigJim]

Re: Richard...

Believe it or not, I agree. What especially irks me is when people copy and paste news items without giving an opinion. On other boards I go to, those posts get deleted and after 3 strikes the user is banned for a week or so.

Darth Neutron

Really? So even bringing a news article to someone else's attention without writing a few lines of your own is cause for being banned? Ouch...


*imagining a news group mod clenching a fist and saying............."I find your lack of faith disturbing!" to an unwary user*

 

[BigJim]

I will be serious this once.

The reason no one is is because no one wants to. No one seems to have a serious issue they want to post. Believe me, there are PLENTY of people here that love to post serious stuff every so often. (BigJim, etc) In my opinion, this is the wind down period after the flood of serious threads during the war. When a new crisis grips the world, new threads will start. Just be patient.

In the last two weeks or so I adopted the "If you can't beat em, join em!" attitude when it comes to posting on certain threads. I do like posing about serious material, but I've felt of late that unless it's about tickling and goes in Tickling Discussion, there's not much point. That may well be a skewed view of the reality, but I've lost interest in serious posting. Perhaps taking part in silly threads therefore makes me a hypocrite, I don't know. I think in the end that certain of these threads will be locked after a period of notice from the mods. When that happens they'll just sink without trace. A new one is coming forwards every couple of days at least, so within a month the first 4 pages of General Discussion will be inundated with them. Despite Myr saying that these threads were in the spirit that Gen Dis was intended, I don't think 4 pages full of them would be tolerated for long.

 

[avethibaltus]

For my part, I honestly thought "someone" was intercepting and canning the serious posts because they seemed to all at once suddenly disappear. Sure the war is over but Dubya is still in office!

It is probably more comfortable not to talk about politics and other "serious stuff" on this site but it definitely detracts from what has been a well rounded forum.

Maybe it would be a good idea to add a "Just Plain Stupid Posts" section so those marmelade weenies can get their rocks off without disturbing those of us so concerned about the fate of the world and price of gasoline, etc, etc, and vice versa.

 

[BigJim]

Maybe it would be a good idea to add a "Just Plain Stupid Posts" section so those marmelade weenies can get their rocks off without disturbing those of us so concerned about the fate of the world and price of gasoline, etc, etc, and vice versa.

Didn't someone already suggest that to the mods?

I think they did and Myr said he thought it was appropriate use of Gen Disc.

 

[Admiral Trouser]

People,

The appeal of those Marmalade threads was that they were something totaly innapropriate at the time of being posted: I seem to remember the first ones cropping up during the time in which the Gen dis. board became somewhat heated over those big Real Issues that we seem inable to get away from nor agree upon as a community. SI posting about his atomic marmalade and suchlike was probably an attempt to cool the whole forum off by being just down-right silly. And cudos to him and the others that got involved, I say. No need to fall out over those things that we can't possibley ever influence, right?

Now, I must admit that it amuses me that people *are* complaining about these silly threads, or rather, the lack of more serious topics to balance with the latter. People are fickle things, we switch from moods of utmost seriousness to plain silliness as though we were pendulams (sp, lol), no doubt we'll swing back to be being serious once these boards become saturated with the more light-hearted threads. As this thread quite aptly proves, that process has already begun.

Hmm....I don't often make posts, but I feel like waffling for little reason tonight. I think I made sense. lol.

*Throws his two cents into the hat*

Done.

AT

 

[TklDuo-Ann]

Bending the subject slightly but - you know what I find odd..

The way there are some people on the forum who are really active in the general discussion board, but never take part in any tickling related discussion. I don't get it?

As one of those who normally posts more in GD than in TD...

I find I can only rehash the same questions and discussions so many times in TD. While that doesn't make them at all invalid, it does mean that I sometimes am simply not interested in joining another round on a given topic. So, I will often sit out a thread.

Also, there's much more to my life than my love of tickling. That's true for everyone here...even if some allow tickling-related stuff to monopolize their every waking moment. There's still more to us than tickling. (I think most of us have been there at times.) In general discussion, we can get a feel for what people are really about...who they are outside of tickling. They can be very serious all the time, complete goofs all the time and everything in between.

If I'm going to talk to folks about things personal to me, like tickling, I want to know more about who they are. I much prefer that to keeping everyone anonymous...though there are plenty who choose to do so. Either is valid, I guess. I simply find actually getting to know people to be rewarding.

Good question!

Ann

 

[Sunday_10pm]

Yeah, there is alot more to my life than tickling. That's pretty much all I use the board for though. I don't have anything against the members I'm talking about - I was just curious.

 

[Sunday_10pm]

Oh stop throwing your toys out the crib ffs

Ok, calm down. When I asked the simple question "why do some people participate almost solely in the general discussion board when the forum is about tickling?" you might have assumed that I had counted all your posts and calculated the percentage of them that were made in general discussion board. I can assure you, I didn't have a clue who you were. (omg I just noticed your reply to my original question, so I apologise for not putting you in your place earlier)
It's actually an observation I made a long time ago and never got round to asking the question. In fact I was referring to Biggles and a few others whose names I can't even remember. It's a pretty irrelevant question since it looks like they haven't been around for a long time anyway.
Also, you'll probably find that although 40% of my posts have been made outside the tickling discussion area, I probably write half the number of words in an average general discussion post. Please don't hold me to that.

 

[Sunday_10pm]

Originally posted by RichardAuc in the thread "Are you born with it"
I notice people are interpreting my previous posts on this topic to mean things I don't mean at all.

Yeah I just read this. It's annoying no?

 

[RichardAuc]

Re: Oh stop throwing your toys out the crib ffs

Ok, calm down...I apologise for not putting you in your place earlier)

Let me get this straight. After hijacking this thread, slamming me for not posting a certain way which you yourself don't post, lying about the way you post by way of example and throwing a tantrum when I call you on it, dismissing my posts as "throwing crib toys", "putting me in my place" and crossreferencing irrelevant posts which quote me out of context...now you want me to calm down?

Folks, this is exactly what I'm talking about. How can we expect anything but ridicule from closed-minded outsiders when we can't even be civil to each other?

 

[Sunday_10pm]

Sigh

OK, try to see this from my point of view:

On the May31st I notice a thread about a trend in the TMF. It was about the behaviour of some of the posters. Although it wasn’t a subject I was particularly concerned with, it did remind me of a question I’d been meaning to ask for a while. So I typed this:

Bending the subject slightly but - you know what I find odd..
The way there are some people on the forum who are really active in the general discussion board, but never take part in any tickling related discussion. I don't get it?

I then came back the next day and saw the following, level-headed reply from Ann:

As one of those who normally posts more in GD than in TD...

I find I can only rehash the same questions and discussions so many times in TD. While that doesn't make them at all invalid, it does mean that I sometimes am simply not interested in joining another round on a given topic. So, I will often sit out a thread.

Also, there's much more to my life than my love of tickling. That's true for everyone here...even if some allow tickling-related stuff to monopolize their every waking moment. There's still more to us than tickling. (I think most of us have been there at times.) In general discussion, we can get a feel for what people are really about...who they are outside of tickling. They can be very serious all the time, complete goofs all the time and everything in between.

If I'm going to talk to folks about things personal to me, like tickling, I want to know more about who they are. I much prefer that to keeping everyone anonymous...though there are plenty who choose to do so. Either is valid, I guess. I simply find actually getting to know people to be rewarding.

Good question!

Ann

I replied to this with the following comment:

Yeah, there is alot more to my life than tickling. That's pretty much all I use the board for though. I don't have anything against the members I'm talking about - I was just curious.

I was then a little confused when I found the following:

You don't do yourself justice, Sunday. 64 of your posts to date aren't on the tickling board--nearly 40%. "Pretty much all I use it for?"
You don't fight fair. I expressed a genuine concern for the future of the TMF, and instead of constructive contribution you find excuses to dismiss me derisively. Shame on you.

In fact, I got a bit angry and started to write a response to you. In the middle of writing it though, I re-read the thread and noticed your slightly less level-headed reply to my original question:

Fair non-question, Sunday. Here's a fair answer to why "some people" (meaning me, for those who haven't been checking my previous posts like Sunday apparently has) haven't posted on the tickling discussion board in a long time: there's been no tickling or romance in my life since the autumn of '94, and unlike so many people I believe in confining my posts to subjects on which I have something constructive to say. This isn't whining, which doesn't impress anyone; it's my life.

Just to humor you, I just read the last 200 posts in the tickling discussion board on the off-chance there were a few posts that weren't on the order of "if you could tickle someone from any cartoon", etc. I did reply to the ones to which I felt I could constructively contribute. There weren't many, but if that's what it takes to get people to take what I have to say seriously around here, so be it.

I saw that you’d managed to interpret my question as a personal attack, and then gone on to shame me for doing it. This bit particularly infuriated me:

(meaning me, for those who haven't been checking my previous posts like Sunday apparently has)

It certainly didn’t refer to you. I had no idea who you were, let alone where you post.

Maybe now you can see the relevance of these words:
“I notice people are interpreting my previous posts on this topic to mean things I don't mean at all.”

Can you see what’s happened?

 

[Sunday_10pm]

Richard, I know you've read the above by now, and I'll assume from your lack of response that you've finally understood it. I'm not mad; but you could at least acknowledge what went wrong.

 

[sole seeker]

Sunday,

You make a good point... there's no point in taking things personally.
Richard is maybe making a good point too... there's no point in anyone belaboring their point of view.

IMO, the best point that directly addressed the question was posted by Ann:

Originally posted by Ann

As one of those who normally posts more in GD than in TD...

I find I can only rehash the same questions and discussions so many times in TD. While that doesn't make them at all invalid, it does mean that I sometimes am simply not interested in joining another round on a given topic. So, I will often sit out a thread.

Also, there's much more to my life than my love of tickling. That's true for everyone here...even if some allow tickling-related stuff to monopolize their every waking moment. There's still more to us than tickling. (I think most of us have been there at times.) In general discussion, we can get a feel for what people are really about...who they are outside of tickling. They can be very serious all the time, complete goofs all the time and everything in between.

If I'm going to talk to folks about things personal to me, like tickling, I want to know more about who they are. I much prefer that to keeping everyone anonymous...though there are plenty who choose to do so. Either is valid, I guess. I simply find actually getting to know people to be rewarding.

I am really impressed with this response, Ann! (Insightful, well written, non-threatening. Oh, and I share your point of view.)