The Cellar - View Single Post

Clodfobble · 04-22-2004, 03:22 PM

Tomas, I won’t try this in Spanish, but I’m going to give it the ol’ college try in English, because I still have a hope that you might really be confused, and that you're willing to try to post in a coherent manner if only you understood what you were doing wrong.

Think of it as a large party, with people mingling around and having many conversations in small groups. Each conversation is kept in a spot in the room, and people can join or leave the conversations as they wish, and still know what part of the room the conversation is happening in, in case they want to wander back later.

When you start a new thread, it’s the equivalent of standing on a chair in the middle of the room and shouting what you’re saying to everyone. For a brand new topic this is fine (like your Passion of the Christ thread), and then you get off the chair and people may choose to join you and talk about it, or not. But a specific message to one person (you’ve created several threads like this) is not a conversation that everyone can join in on, so it’s annoying when you “stand on the chair” and make everyone listen while you yell something to that one person.

The rule of thumb is that a thread should be able to be read and understood all on its own, without having to read another thread to know what’s going on. So if your post can’t be understood unless someone has been reading another thread (or “listening” to the specific conversation you were having in your corner of the room,) then it belongs as a reply, not a new conversation topic (because, in fact, it is NOT a new topic, it is still on the old topic—you are still talking to the same people about the same thing.)

Your mistake was a simple enough one, and you only had your thread-starting privileges taken away because you blatantly ignored it when people tried to explain what you were doing wrong. So far you haven’t really posted your thoughts on anyone else’s topics at all, which makes it look like all you really want is the attention you get when you start a new thread, not to genuinely talk with people. Try reading some of the other threads and commenting on them (not addressing the people themselves but just giving your thoughts on what everyone else is already talking about), and I think you’ll start to understand the way this works.

04-22-2004, 03:22 PM	#14
Clodfobble UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 20,012	Tomas, I won’t try this in Spanish, but I’m going to give it the ol’ college try in English, because I still have a hope that you might really be confused, and that you're willing to try to post in a coherent manner if only you understood what you were doing wrong. Think of it as a large party, with people mingling around and having many conversations in small groups. Each conversation is kept in a spot in the room, and people can join or leave the conversations as they wish, and still know what part of the room the conversation is happening in, in case they want to wander back later. When you start a new thread, it’s the equivalent of standing on a chair in the middle of the room and shouting what you’re saying to everyone. For a brand new topic this is fine (like your Passion of the Christ thread), and then you get off the chair and people may choose to join you and talk about it, or not. But a specific message to one person (you’ve created several threads like this) is not a conversation that everyone can join in on, so it’s annoying when you “stand on the chair” and make everyone listen while you yell something to that one person. The rule of thumb is that a thread should be able to be read and understood all on its own, without having to read another thread to know what’s going on. So if your post can’t be understood unless someone has been reading another thread (or “listening” to the specific conversation you were having in your corner of the room,) then it belongs as a reply, not a new conversation topic (because, in fact, it is NOT a new topic, it is still on the old topic—you are still talking to the same people about the same thing.) Your mistake was a simple enough one, and you only had your thread-starting privileges taken away because you blatantly ignored it when people tried to explain what you were doing wrong. So far you haven’t really posted your thoughts on anyone else’s topics at all, which makes it look like all you really want is the attention you get when you start a new thread, not to genuinely talk with people. Try reading some of the other threads and commenting on them (not addressing the people themselves but just giving your thoughts on what everyone else is already talking about), and I think you’ll start to understand the way this works.