Slashdot's Disagree Mail 426
Everyone likes to belong to something. Whether it be for fun, a sense of belonging, or a need for attention, a group gives you a feeling of solidarity. Surrounding yourself with people that share common goals and ideas can be comforting. Sometimes however, you realize that you hate the people you've surrounded yourself with. Your religion doesn't allow you to read anything that has profanity or you've subscribed to Slashdot thinking you could learn more about hockey. This week's collection is composed of people who don't want to play, read, or be associated with us anymore. Read below to find out how bad they want out.
On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 ****** wrote:
"I'm relly sick of the level of discrimination that goes on here. I thought it might be different with other people who maybe didn't win everything. But its no different people won't be nice when your nice first. I try to say what others are saying and they get marked up? Not me as well? How can that be? If I'm the same how can they not act the same to me. It's like you have to be around forever before they won't say bad things about your comments. I thought it was different but they are just as BIG COCSUCKERS!!!!! Take my account and throw it away I've had enough of the newbie bigotry and FUCKING UNFAIR LIES."
Being just like everyone else is harder than you think. This next guy at least isn't concerned about being accepted. He has a clear vision of what he wants out of life. His vision is a world without profanity.
On Tue, 13 May 2008 ******* wrote:
"I try to live a good clean life by learning all I can and nurturing my body and spirit. I'm afraid that I will not be able to become part of your community as I find it sick. Sick in mind body and soul. Why your people deem it necessary to use the language that they do I can never understand. Women, children and people of faith will never be able to learn what you have to impart because of the filth you are tending in this rank garden. Please stop sending me email."
This next guy had me puzzled. I'd never had a complaint from fans of Guns-N-Roses, horror movies or unsound logging practices about the confusing "Slash" part of Slashdot.
On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 ******** wrote:
"I came here to learn about hockey and there is no hockey to be found. Your lucky that I didn't send you any money or we would have a big problem right now. If you don't want others to be confused to I suggest you think about changing your name to something that isn't obviously about hockey. I asked some coworkers and they agree, I'm not just some idiot. Come up with a name that means something."
So Many Questions About This Section (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, what is the expected result of our discussions of this stuff? Is it to pick it apart and analyze it? Is it to provide user generated retorts that you can't due to legal reasons? I shall try a little of both.
Is Slashdot trying to add an optional low brow element to satisfy users that have left for other sites dedicated to that? Because, you know that half of your users are going to tag this 'pleasestop' or some such negative approval tag.
Also, why does it look different than the rest of Slashdot? Isn't it just another section? Why do you need another CSS for it? I seem to think it would be better site design to have a thorough reused theme but maybe you want the reader to know it's Idle. Who knows? Sure seems to upset a lot of people.
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"I'm relly sick of the level of discrimination that goes on here."
This level of reverence for the moderation system never ceases to amaze me. Hell, I myself can have a sour day if I'm given a thrashing on a post. This person doesn't even seem to be a regular user and they are already upset.
A very peculiar amount of power, these mod points are. Enough for someone to call a negative moderation discrimination!
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"I try to live a good clean life by learning all I can and nurturing my body and spirit."
Despite being raised Roman Catholic for 18 years, this still baffles me. I know I'm not the first person to share this view (I think I read about it in Vonnegut's "Palm Sunday") but there is a reason I don't swear often. It's not so I can be 'clean' and 'pure' ... it's so that when I do swear, people know I'm not fucking around. Seriously, if you're dropping f-bombs left and right then where do you go when you're genuinely upset? I prefer to not raise my voice so those words are reserved for extreme moments. I feel bad for the people who incorporate them into everyday life ... how loud do you think an injured rapper would have to raise their voice before people gave them medical attention?
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"I came here to learn about hockey and there is no hockey to be found. Your lucky that I didn't send you any money or we would have a big problem right now."
Am I the only person that had the sudden urge to register hockeydot.org and have it redirect to Slashdot?
"If you don't want others to be confused to I suggest you think about changing your name to something that isn't obviously about hockey. I asked some coworkers and they agree ..."
Are these the same coworkers that face physical abuse or verbal ridicule if they don't agree with you?
" ... I'm not just some idiot. Come up with a name that means something."
Of course you're not an idiot, you're just a hockey fan. And if <insert object here> isn't bleeding with hockey (in this case the internet), you are angered with it. I understand. I'm from Minnesota where many of your kind roam around in large herds laying waste to beer and stadiums. I would suggest moving there for solace and the ability to experience all hockey all the time.
idle (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:2, Insightful)
"how loud do you think an injured rapper would have to raise their voice before people gave them medical attention? "
Um... Who cares?
Re:idle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:idle (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, listen to your users.
I find idle to be an aptly named entertaining time-waster.
Please count me as a vote to keep it, in all its green-backgrounded, hate-mail-filled glory.
The Profanity Guy (Score:3, Insightful)
So, I totally sympathize with him, even though it's obvious his email is misdirected.
Re:The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Score:3, Insightful)
There's another effect that's quite similar: People over-estimate mediocre skills in others when they don't possess that skill. For example, I am, at best, an average math student by most standards. However, some people think I'm mathematically gifted because I can explain a linear equation.
Then there's the effect where people assume someone is smart because they agree on some irrelevant point. For example, say I oppose the (current incarnation) of the death penalty. Others think I'm smart because they oppose the death penalty. However, my argument may be based on the fairness of the punishment (i.e., not carried out equally to all violators) whereas their argument may be religiously based (thou shalt not kill). Politicians exploit this quite often. "I am a , therefore I am a good choice for this office."
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:5, Insightful)
For what it's worth, I look forward to these disagree mails. Low brow? That's one way to see it. But on another level, I find it a useful reminder, especially in a fairly-like-minded community like this, that much of the world thinks far differently than I do.
Epimenides would be proud (Score:4, Insightful)
This is fantastic. Your comment disproves itself!
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:5, Insightful)
They are entertaining. For awhile, I wondered about moderation and how it works here, but figured it out finally. Now, When I get modded troll or flamebait, I like to think of it as a trophy... for having offended someone enough to waste their mod point that way :)
Seeing others get angry out of confusion or just tech illiteracy does my heart good.
Reading their comments, you just know this is the guy at your local watering hole wearing the nascar hat backwards and having a great time with some light beer. (with some luck, I've just offended a few more people :))) {it's humor people}
It's fun to see that /. gets its share of normal people who do not know rm -rf from a hole in their hard drive.
Re:I'm following the money... (Score:3, Insightful)
I come to that conclusion by process of elimination because there is no other intelligent reason for this
Yeah, because nobody else in the geek community ever [thebestpag...iverse.net] posts their hate mail [thepiratebay.org].
It's funny, entertaining, and it's on idle. Get over it.
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:2, Insightful)
"Also, what is the expected result of our discussions of this stuff? Is it to pick it apart and analyze it? Is it to provide user generated retorts that you can't due to legal reasons? I shall try a little of both. "
You shouldn't expect something comming out of idle because that's the section idea,right? No article or comment on idle is expected to have a point. You can say "I prefer idle not to exist", but it is actually delivering what was promissed: nothing but idle time.
Anyways, I don't like idle either. I would go to over there [watching-grass-grow.com] for this kind of stuff
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe /. looks kind of like a hockey stick hitting a puck?
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Epimenides would be proud (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the fact that you are being flamed in the responses to your posts, indicates that your posts are, in fact, "flamebait"
Additionally, the abusive verbiage used in your original post indicates that you were posting clearly for incendiary value.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:5, Insightful)
The moderation system is not perfect, but the majority of the mods that I see are fair; those complaining about the system being broken are usually the most profane, offensive people.
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:2, Insightful)
I personally hate the horizontal slider for the simple reason that it breaks page up/page down. The browser scrolls by a full 'page', but the toolbar takes up ~10% of the currently-viewed 'page'.
This makes it very annoying to read the page using spacebar/page down.
Re: So Many Questions About This Section (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me see if I get this right. There's some vast conspiracy amongst the randomly selected slashdot modders to cover up the truth and promote a "self server corporate agenda" (which unless you're a CEO or a board member of a corporation doesn't seem to make sense to me but what do I know?). The answer to this problem is to get rid of it so I have to root through every post some 13 year old kid makes to find something interesting or to place the modding system into the hands of some enlightened elite group of people who know better than everyone else. Is that it?
If so, my only question is who would choose these enlightened souls and / or who would they be?
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:3, Insightful)
He is probably that Levi Johnson guy. I wouldn't bother.
Re:So Many Questions About This Section (Score:2, Insightful)