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Second Quarterly Forum Superlatives!


Emotional Outlet

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Those are some awesome categories. I think most of those are better than last. I just wanted to say that you spelled "organized" wrong...but if that was intentional then sorry for pointing it out.

EDIT:

Will the categories change each time a new Superlative starts?

Edited by Sakura Rei
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It's fine.

My dad always spelt stuff the non-American way, mostly to troll people. I picked up on the habit as a little girl, so it's just how I spell most things now. (All the more evidence that a parent is just as important to a child's education as any teacher.) Anyway, I had to make an effort through school to make sure I used the American spellings because, quote-unquote, "I'm in America".

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Ah I see! That makes sense. I know how that is. My Nana is the reason I often have to check spelling and grammar...she is always correcting me. She isn't much fond of how I speak because I'm so southern and she is very much northern. Thou, grammar is my biggest weakness.

Edited by Sakura Rei
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English grammar is pretty chaotic. So is the spelling, if all those comedians are to be believed with talks of "fish" being spelt "ghoti". One of my friends finds those bits annoying. "It's based on context! You can't just assign random sounds to letters!"

Will the categories change each time a new Superlative starts?

The main categories will probably stay the same (maybe squish a couple together or add a new one), but the individual titles I'll try to vary each quarter. That way we're not always voting on forum cannibals (Rune) or who's the most intimidating (Koby), haha. Running jokes are fine, but inside jokes can be off-putting to people newer to the forum (especially since we don't have a "LURK MOAR" philosophy), so I want to curb how much they feel left out or confused.

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EO:

I guess we are so sleep inducing only 4 people could even manage to vote for us combined...LOL. I don't know whether to be relieved or insulted, I take pride in just how mind numbingly dense my prose is after all *rolls eyes*. It takes real work/effort to proof read and proof read for errors tomes that verbose, and that effort is only recognized by 2 people?!? I think on reflection I'll go with insulted after all...*GRIN* Seriously, we seem to be the only two that have any chance in that category, is that saying more about how long winded we are or how much ADD the rest have (which given I have severe ADHD just rolls me over laughing when I think about it) when it comes to their writing styles? Ah well, I know I am such a geek, I'm even looking forward to watching Obama and Romney debate tonight and I'm not even an American, how geeky boring is that eh?

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It just seems to be the trend these days.

Like you, I generally read and re-read what I write and try to edit it so it can be as "tight" as I can get it. Obviously I'm not a professional writer of magazine articles, so it's not the tightest of writing. I don't say much in real life, so I guess I make up for the disparity by writing more. The only person who ever hears me talk at length regularly is my therapist.

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I guess it's mostly just visibility. We write lengthy posts almost everywhere on the forum, whereas others seem to stay in their areas of expertise, where they can really expound on their points and experiences. If you don't spend a lot of time in the tech area, you wouldn't know that Dae can write a lot about that stuff. If you don't visit the debate area, you wouldn't know that Mal can write up rejoinders longer than the average post.

Edited by Emotional Outlet
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I should get some sort of plaque for being the only one who got a negative score! And supprisingly correct about my wierd fasion sense. I've shaved my head on the top and sides leaving the back to grow like a fucking Lion's main and I dyed it blue. Every thing I wear are chains, jeans, and odd ass T-Shirts from the seventies with a pair of boots or converce. And that's just how I look now, imagine when I get my crazy ass fucking pearcings in! Oh. It's gonna suck that I'm not gonna be around for the next one. If any thing, vote me for the shit head that wont stop cursing! x ]

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EO:

Interesting article you linked to there with the 7 types people wish would STFU, As a generalization it is one of the better ones I've seen in terms of dealing with that topic, and I suspect for most I would be a solid #7 without question. The problem for me though is I write the way I speak, the only difference is that in verbal conversation I do break so that the other(s) I am talking with have their chances to add to the conversation instead of just doing a non-stop info-dump on them. I much prefer a dynamic interaction to just expounding on my own, I am not in love with the sound of my own voice, contrary to what some have said about me in the past, I am simply a high information value personality. Indeed, I found the trend towards increasingly preferring the low information approach in western/NA culture over the past few decades to be one of my great disappointments, especially in terms of political conversation but not exclusive to it. I am old enough to have grown up when being able to write essays was considered a valuable skill that everyone needed to have some ability with to succeed in life, these days though it seems to me that it is more about who can simplify/oversimplify something the most into 1 or 2 sentence answers that is the most valuable, and that is something I find profoundly disturbing. The reason why is because of how much nuance and context is devalued/lost in the process and leaves concepts of serious importance open to gross distortion, manipulation, and outright deception, just look at how the Republican Party message approach works, especially once Karl Rove became a powerful influence, when you believe that being a member of the "reality based community" is a disadvantage politically because you can make your own reality instead and have it sell to tens of millions of people there is something seriously wrong there REGARDLESS of the content of the message!

I value serious content and try to offer it whenever I speak, I know it is old fashioned of me, and not the preferred/popular way to go in the modern world, but I believe it is important and valuable to do so, and since I can only control my own actions and not any one else, I don't let it worry me when someone tells me I need to STFU or at least cut way back on the verbiage if I want anyone to read it. I figure those that want to read it will and those that don't well I doubt I would ever be of interest to those that place length as a sorting filter for quality. While yes I agree that not every person that writes lengthy pieces is automatically worth reading, to use length as a basis to decide whether to read someone is equally foolish and shallow IMHO. While I love the information age computers have created I do find this increasing trend to value highly compressed message styles (especially since these days the storage and processing ability of computers does not require it, unlike back in the pre-WWW days before GUI interfaces came about and the world of local BBSes was the main form of digital social media/interaction) to the point that the skills required to make higher density information flow becomes devalued and indeed dismissed/discarded by so many a serious problem for the health of our respective societies/cultures. When you reduce things to their simplest you lose a lot, you make it much easier for the demagogues to rise to power and such has never been historically a good thing for democratic societies and ones that believe in the importance of things like free speech, the rule of law, and the right of equality under that law applying to all.

Sorry, hadn't meant to get this serious about this just because of a linked article, hope you didn't mind. *blush*

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No, it's okay, haha.

I read random threads on a lot of fora because my Google searches are endless. I came across one about longer posts versus shorter posts on a random anime forum and saw a comment that piqued an interesting train of thought for me. The gist of it was if you can condense it into a TL;DR, you didn't need to post the long version in the short place.

One of my friends is a frequent reader--she works at the library, is always making book recommendations on Facebook, and almost always posts interesting articles on her Facebook (she's also a bit of a hippie so I tend to agree with most of what she posts). One of the things she laments often is how little interest people express in reading. You'll see similar lamentations on Cracked, but the irony that it's a longer article that can scare off some people is not lost on me. That people have lost so much interest in reading in general they can't even be bothered to read more than a paragraph from a friend is disappointing.

Because, yes, you can condense everything into a sentence or two, easily read in the space of a minute, or maybe even a paragraph if you're talking lengthier works like King's Dark Tower series. But is it worth it? Would cinema be better off if everything was a five second film? Is that all entertainment is--"just tell me how it ends"?

And I do see a lot of people expecting the same abridging of information when it comes election time--they either don't have the time or the interest in reading lengthier pieces to become more informed and secure in how they want to vote. They want bullet points about each person--and all the better if you just demonise one person and pander to their pet issues or attack their pathos with pictures of a fetus and some slogan about abortion.

But for all that fuss, I haven't completely lost hope, haha. People talk a lot of trash about Tumblr, but a lot of the people I follow watched the debate. They were paying attention. Which is more than can be said for these people. And I'm in good company on my Facebook--lot of folk with a good head on their shoulders, questioning the status quo, questioning the laziness and indifference, questioning the comfort of ignorance. No matter what their political stance is.

I can talk at length with close friends and I leave frequent spaces for conversation because I'm not much of the domineering type, but I can be something of a recluse, so I don't interact much with people unless they specifically ask for me or my roommate brings his friends over (we have a fairly significant overlap in friends). I've talked often enough about "the old days" of this forum, but I can remember length never really being an issue that was brought up as often as it is now--and if it was, then that things seemed closer and more intimate was probably why I don't remember (also I'm older and I have the memory of a rock). Like they understood the format of a forum, that it's not like a chat room, that you can easily carry multiple conversations in a thread with ease. It makes me sad to see that a format I've been a part of in some way since I was thirteen has gone from a place where lengthy discussion and sharing in-depth stories was welcomed to a place where people disparage those who make detailed posts, condescendingly posting "tl;dr".

There a few holdouts, but a lot of them seem to be closed communities or more niche fora--I visit several Sims fora regularly, take a peek at the NationStates forum on occasion, and end up in the odd BJD or bodybuilder (???) forum because of Tumblr.

And for all the ways you're not old-fashioned, I think you can afford to be old-fashioned in this regard, haha.

Edited by Emotional Outlet
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hahaha I checked the results of the semi annual event awhile ago but I thought I would get around to posting about it now. I find it funny that there will be yet another party at my house (I hope it BYOB) otherwise there will be a bigger whole in my pocket. I must say though to me this event didnt seem as popular as the first but I guess maybe people didn't know about it looking at the above comments.

Also for the next one or when ever do we still want to do the prize type signatures? Say you win a certain catergory the get a little sig type artwork the displays there win? Or do will simply want to leave it as it is?

Also reading your last post EO I must say that you speak a lot of truth in people only wanting the dot points of a topic rather than the long read which to them is nothing but a waste of time. I for one must admit a long read can turn me off from reading most threads or posts, why? I just feel that I do not have the time to read the posts, but I am not always like this sometimes I feel like a good read and will read every inch of the post, like I have done with your previous post. I think the world we are moving into now is an age where we want things now, not later but NOW! So the good old reads are being reduced to dot points of being re-phrased into smaller sentences summing up the long post/read etc.

I think this may suit some people but I believe it is always nice to have a good read and enjoy the post in all its great detail, a lot can be gathered from these detailed posts that the summed up shorter posts will not describe.

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If people want to make reward graphics, that is okay with me! I already have the next set of superlatives up if anyone wants to take a crack at them. I try to play these things kind of loose and flexible because I find being excited about getting things done a certain way tends to fall apart, haha.

And like I said, I'll try to make sure it gets more airtime come December without being too annoying. I just figured people would notice the new thread at the top of the forum.

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Reading pieces that are both dry and lengthy can be dull for me, especially if I already don't care about the topic, so I understand that people don't want to read long things. The thing is, not everything that is lengthy is dry! I try to keep my writing "tight" by moving stuff around and deleting any repetition (I've read shorter posts that repeat themselves more than I do myself), in addition to making sure I stay personable. I generally read long posts on the forum regardless of who posts it because most people are good about being personable--not to mention that they tend to be the ones most interested in a conversation.

I like bullet points for humourous pieces and things I'm already familiar with (like the Books-A-Minute I linked--the ones I enjoyed the most were of books I already read), but they are definitely lacking in detail and very likely won't provide anyone with a greater understanding of the subject at hand. You can try to teach me economics through short bullet points, but without actual study and effort on my part, I'm going to understand jack.

A lot of articles on the phenomenon of people preferring instant information suggest or outright say that technology is to blame--we feel like we have no time at all to do things, that people feel constantly hurried and rushed not necessarily because they actually are, but because we're being moulded into feeling like we are.

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Id be happy to, I did start making them at one point but like most of us do, things got busy In real life and I had to drop the project. I still don't have a lot of time on my hands now but I do like to do them every now and again so Im sure I should be able to get some up. Plus if I don't I know a few people who would be happy to do the winnings.

Hahaha when something posts in the broadcast thread it is usually one of the first things I read when coming onto the forum, you might never know what you will miss if you ignore the most important thread on the site.....Well if your not a leecher that s then the most important thread would be the downloads one haha. Just an idea on how to broadcast the the next event is happening when it is open, maybe a banner could be put up with all the other site banner advertising that the event is open for voting and in the broadcast section. But I guess that would be Koby's choice as he decides what goes up in the banner section.

I guess thats a resoniable answer, saying technology is to blaim for most people being a now person, but really who is to say that this wasn't the case in the past as well? Maybe it is more obvious now a days with the internet being around.. I have no clue personally but I guess it is as simple as if you want to read a long post go ahead if you don't your loss (That is if your interested in the topic as well lol.)

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Word. It doesn't matter to me if the graphics don't all match or there's overlap in who does what. I guess I can try to whip up a couple of my own, but I make no guarantees that they won't end up being MS Paint abominations like I gave Zanco.

And, yes, that's the gist of it, haha. I only have so much power, so I try to stay within my bounds and try not to be too annoying. There's initiative and then there's overstepping my authority, so I'm not too keen on trying to do stuff like getting banners up.

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I'll just stick a link in my signature and post weekly status updates about it when the time comes, since voting stays open for a few weeks. It doesn't have to be a huge production or nothing. As it's still a fairly new event for the forum (at least this current iteration of its existence--I'm not entirely familiar with its history during the periods I was absent), there are still kinks to work out and some experimentation to be done to see what's most effective.

That would be my train of thought for most things, haha. It's possible we were always like this--it's difficult to tell, given the speed at which technology developed and how decidedly slow evolution is. I just know that it's not insurmountable and so long as there's always people willing to put in the effort to communicate and people willing to listen, losing a few people because everything is "TL;DR" isn't that big of a deal.

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