The Big Picture: Words for Nerds

anthony87

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krellen said:
EverythingIncredible said:
Everything here is in good fun. Even if it can appear mean spirited to certain groups of people.
No. No it's not.

"In good fun" is the bully excuse. This is exactly what Bob is talking about.
I'm sorry but when has there ever been "bullying" on these forums?
 
Jan 27, 2011
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Wait, posting long comments is "doing it wrong"?? I should just go do sometime more worthwhile instead?

Bob, Going into detail is not a bad thing. It gets the point across much better and leads to better discussion value. It's almost like saying "keep all conversations short and concise, and don't ever go in depth about anything."

Plus, sometimes a subject CAN'T be said in a short and concise manner. For a generic example: What provides more to the discussion, a 3 paragraph statement on why I feel PETA is hypocritical, or "PETA are just hyprocrites"? What about times when a person is going through a problem, and they need to tell everyone the whole picture to get advice (IE, saying "My brother is a douche, help" Versus going into detail about WHY he's a jerk, and WHY you can't just kick him to the curb for whatever reason. Which one will allow you to get the better advice?)

Lastly....go do something worthwhile instead? Like what? I already have a circle of close friends I keep in touch with, I have a girlfriend, and I happen to LIKE posting on forums and sharing opinions in a detailed way. Who are you to tell me that I can't have my fun, as long as I'm not hurting anyone?

And on that note, I have almost NEVER agressed anyone online. At least I can't remember doing so, aside from one or two stupid things I said when I first got on the internet forum scene over 5 years ago.

TLDR version: .....Oh just read the post, you lazy bum. :p
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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MovieBob said:
Words for Nerds

Bob would like to speak to some of you about your behavior.

Watch Video
Interesting, interesting. I might disagree with the "long post" thing... but that's just a personal bias of mine. I find discussion to be, in and of itself, a worthwhile thing. Even if it's about something stupid and pointless - lifting weights is "pointless" in abstract, but it exercises useful muscles that can be applied to other tasks, no?

And I agree that we're all at fault for the "nerds can't be bullies," or "women can't be sexist," or "minorities can't be racist" mentality. As nerds, we root for the perceived underdog, right or wrong -- and everyone sees his/her own as the "underdogs." When we look to judge someone's behavior, we tend to look at how many people he/she has on his/her side, rather than looking at the behavior and judging it on its own.

And then there's this:

EverythingIncredible said:
I hate to say it, but you're doing it wrong.

I get that this is kind of your job right now. But you need to stop taking the internet culture so seriously. It's not meant to be taken seriously. Everything here is in good fun. Even if it can appear mean spirited to certain groups of people.
Bob's point, it seems to me, is that we have to really wonder about ourselves if we consider this "mean-spirited" stuff to be good fun. I mean... isn't that exactly what bullies do? They pick on the kid with glasses... not because they really hate glasses, or even that kid, but because they get some catharsis out of the kid's reaction to the teasing. Bullies behave that way because they don't bother to consider what impact their actions have on others.

And it's in all of us to do that. Our nature doesn't drive us to be "right." It drives us to be "dominant." Even nerds have the capacity to be bullies, and it wouldn't hurt us to be aware of that.

It isn't that Bob is taking internet culture seriously. It's that he's taking the apparent mentality behind that culture as a bad sign of what kind of people we're letting ourselves become.

(And hey, Bob, in the same way -- not all of us take "internet discussions" seriously, but rather the process behind the discussion. So... go easy on us long-winded folks.)
 

CronoT

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May 15, 2010
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Good insight as always, Bob. But, I do have a question. If this video was about bullying and such, wouldn't this have been a PERFECT segway into a post-wrap text about PETA screwing with Mario Land 3D about the Tanooki suit?

I remember when you took a shot at PETA about their griping over Cooking Mama. This surprised me, seeing as how they're going after one of your Sacred Cows. I'd be pretty up in arms if this happened to Zelda, and I was up in arms when people starting kvetching about Metroid: Other M. Just saying I'm surprised you didn't have a response to it.
 

hexFrank202

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I've never let people walk all over me. So I guess I'm not a nerd, I'm just a person who loves video games and movies and spends two-thirds of my life on the internet at 3am.
 

Susan Arendt

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Jan 9, 2007
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EverythingIncredible said:
I hate to say it, but you're doing it wrong.

I get that this is kind of your job right now. But you need to stop taking the internet culture so seriously. It's not meant to be taken seriously. Everything here is in good fun. Even if it can appear mean spirited to certain groups of people.
I disagree with the "it's the internet, so it doesn't mean anything" philosophy. It may have been true once upon a time when only a minority of people used the internet for fun or communication, but it's become so ubiquitous that it's simply unreasonable and unfair to expect people to just put up with mean-spirited or otherwise jerkish behavior.

Not everything is "in good fun." Some people enjoy the opportunity to be spiteful, cruel, and angry - and even those who don't actually mean any harm often don't think about how their words might impact the person reading them.
 

GeorgW

ALL GLORY TO ME!
Aug 27, 2010
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I agree with your points, except for the long post one. There's a time and a place for them, sure, but there's always a place for them. If you don't want to read a long post, don't, but some people like to go through an argument in great detail and others like to poke through that big detailed mess and come with counter-points. Why is that "doing it wrong"?

Mikeyfell said:
I hope every single moderator watched number 4 and will stop banning people for short posts.

TL;DR LCP is a stupid rule
EverythingIncredible said:
Mikeyfell said:
I hope every single moderator watched number 4 and will stop banning people for short posts.

TL;DR LCP is a stupid rule
I agree.

Moderators should really stop moderating for short posts and instead focus on pointless ones.

Sometimes, a lot more can be said with fewer words. The concise nature of a post can help communicate your point. But not on the Escapist.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The LCP rule is not about the amount of words you post, it's what you say with them. It's true that it's not always been like that, but I've never moderated a post just because the word count was low. I have however done so for meaningless "this^" posts and the "I'll just leave this here:" posts Bob mentioned. However keep in mind that this is a grey area, for more information feel free to check the Moderation FAQ. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.309173-Moderation-FAQ]
 

Mischlings

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Feb 18, 2011
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Yes, a pony episode would be nice. Really, it's just a matter of time -- he's referenced it a lot at this point. Though it'd be really hard to match up with CR's video from TGWTG, especially only doing ~5 minute episodes, but we'll see (assuming that he ever makes it, that is).

On the actual topic of the pony thing, yes, leaving something there without any real explanation is quite lazy -- all it really takes is a small piece of text to show how the video or article you're linking to is related to the topic at hand. No more than a paragraph is needed.

Batman as a meme has never really bothered me too much, but I'm not a person who tries to completely surround myself with comic book culture, so I've never really been drowning in it, so to speak. Though I do find the subject of death matches like that interesting.

Long forum posts -- well, I'm guilty of those occasionally (this looks to be getting there). I just hate making a point without explaining as much of the logic as possible -- I guess that I just need to work on making all of this more succinct.

The bullying thing -- well, I've been on both sides of the bullying coin (and I regret that), and so I've realized that I can be one of the people who bullies others. It doesn't inform my entire life, but it does have its place at times.

That's all I have to say, really.
 

Rect Pola

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May 19, 2009
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Anyone ever think the Internet would be a nicer place without forums (or maybe just far less convenient to dive into)? They are in many ways the root of how The Internet forms a collective opinion and weaponizes it. What if people were forced to keep how they took news to themselves (or at least take a lot longer to let snap ideas gel into thoughts). Yes we'd lose the solidarity and boons from it, but we'd also go without the chaff that is being discussed by people in MovieBob's position.
 

Eternal_Lament

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Sep 23, 2010
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EverythingIncredible said:
Strain42 said:
That should apply just as much to the bronies as the people who don't like it. After all "it's just a show" so stop posting pics, videos and quotes from it, right?
It's not worth it to express immense hate for a show.

But it is definitely worth it to express love for one.

Call it a double standard all you want. But love should always get better precedence than hate.
I think there are several exceptions to that rule. Such as Creed or Justin Bieber, does the love for them really take precedence over the hate for them?

Anyways, to the video: Maybe it's just because I wasn't really bullied (trolled for sure, but not bullied), but I don't see the logic of comparing bad online behaviour to real-life school bulying. They are inherintly different on the one level that, unlike RL Bullying, online bullying can be ignored. Don't like a forum you're going to? Don't go to that forum. You get hateful or bullying emails? Get a new adress and switch over only the contacts you want. Somone bothers you on Facebook or Twitter? Block them. That's the difference here. For the most part regular bullying can't be ignored, barring certain extreme solutions (such as when Rebecca Black had to be taken out of school and is now home-schooled because of RL bullying going on at her school), and as such the few solutions available show how problamatic RL bullying can be. Online bullying, because it can be ignored easily, as such isn't as effective or as serious. Yeah, everyone can be a dick online, but I thought that's been generally accepted? I also thought that it's been generally accepted that the people who are likely to cause the biggest issues anyways are also the first ones to get banned, so why does it matter, clearly if one is going to such extremes that they get banned everywhere they go, they are either just doing it for attention (in which case you ignore them) or they are very young and are prbably just immature (in which case you ignore them). I'd say some more about the video, but it really doesn't need adressing at this point.
 

idodo35

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Jun 3, 2010
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one
but bob its batman!
two
yea console wars are stupid
three and four
totally agree
five
someone had to say that... you are right :)
 

Mikeyfell

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Aug 24, 2010
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GeorgW said:
I agree with your points, except for the long post one. There's a time and a place for them, sure, but there's always a place for them. If you don't want to read a long post, don't, but some people like to go through an argument in great detail and others like to poke through that big detailed mess and come with counter-points. Why is that "doing it wrong"?


I've said it before and I'll say it again. The LCP rule is not about the amount of words you post, it's what you say with them. It's true that it's not always been like that, but I've never moderated a post just because the word count was low. I have however done so for meaningless "this^" posts and the "I'll just leave this here:" posts Bob mentioned. However keep in mind that this is a grey area, for more information feel free to check the Moderation FAQ. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.309173-Moderation-FAQ]
That's not actually true.
If there was a way to view the history of posts I've reported you could tell that that wasn't the case.

I've read posts that were half a page of text where the entire post was "I fount a typo in your post, that means you're wrong."

That's low content, that's fluff, I call it negative content. but they never get moderated.
It is only word count and bad words the mods are looking for.


I'm sure you've seen threads where the OP asks a question with a binary answer. In that case people who answer in one or two words are being the most efficient and yet the first 3 pages of those threads are littered with unjust perma-bans.
Conversely you'll get people who answer the question then type "This is space filler so the mods don't ban me" which has no content, but they're always safe.

Either way the rules are broken and the mods are lazy, it has to stop.
 

SonOfVoorhees

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Aug 3, 2011
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Plus its easier for them to bully on the internet, no real fear of retaliation. Well, not physical retaliation anyway. Same reason kids talk shit online but never to your face.
 

Susan Arendt

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Jan 9, 2007
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EverythingIncredible said:
Susan Arendt said:
EverythingIncredible said:
I hate to say it, but you're doing it wrong.

I get that this is kind of your job right now. But you need to stop taking the internet culture so seriously. It's not meant to be taken seriously. Everything here is in good fun. Even if it can appear mean spirited to certain groups of people.
I disagree with the "it's the internet, so it doesn't mean anything" philosophy. It may have been true once upon a time when only a minority of people used the internet for fun or communication, but it's become so ubiquitous that it's simply unreasonable and unfair to expect people to just put up with mean-spirited or otherwise jerkish behavior.

Not everything is "in good fun." Some people enjoy the opportunity to be spiteful, cruel, and angry - and even those who don't actually mean any harm often don't think about how their words might impact the person reading them.
If you take what people say seriously, then you deserve it really. Because it's not hard to figure out the general facetiousness that goes on if you pay attention.
And I think you may be giving people too much credit for actually being facetious when they're being nasty. Tacking "just kidding!" on to the end of something doesn't make it a joke, necessarily.

You're certainly right that much of the genuine humor to be found in online circles is based in sarcasm and/or cynicism, but the idea that people "deserve it" when they feel hurt by someone attacking them is straight up bullying behavior.
 

jessegeek

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Oct 31, 2011
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Okay, as someone who is:
1) A Bat-fan to the point of owning the Batman Encyclopaedia (it exists and is awesome)
2) A massive nerd
3) Female
4) Mixed race

I agree with a lot of what MovieBob was saying. Yeah, Batman's amazing, and some of the Batman memes are really funny. However, if we make him a memetic 'code-for-awesome' one-note character we will spoil the actual awesome of the character by looking at all writers' interpretations of him as a serious character with wry netizen troll-faces and just take the piss.

Also, memes are hilarious, but if you don't use them judiciously they just become unfunny and can be used as a sort of get-out clause when debating online with someone you know belongs to a different background to you. Having an entire argument that comprises of 'get back in the kitchen ***** and make me a sammich' isn't funny, it's just moronic.

Cheers to MovieBob for being the voice of reason.