bandit1200 wrote:
Well, I guess no one should do anything for fear of offending a couple of people. It seems to be the way the whole world these days.
What amazes me is that members of this forum, where intelligence seems to be higher than average - I don't include myself in that generalisation - should take offence, or be annoyed, at something they read on a monitor. If something bothers you, move on. How easy can it be? High blood pressure isn't something you need. Believe me, I speak from experience.
As for those it annoys making their point, I am in total agreement. As long as those it doesn't bother can make their point too.
I wonder who the majority are, those annoyed or those not annoyed? I vote for having a vote about pre-announcements. 
In my defence, I posted my posts last night, whilst revising for a 2 hour test-type thing involving looking at prosections of parts of the body and identifying what we're looking at (the test had 160 single-answer questions, and possibly only covered about 30-50% of the material we've learned so far). So, I was quite tired and a bit stressed, which kind of affected what I was actually meaning to say. I also kind of get the impression that negative replies towards my posts are suggesting I am in some way being selfish intentionally towards people to reduce their "
fun"
or "
publicity"
for no reason. So, I just want to state that this, if it really is what anyone is thinking, isn't the case at all (and in case that people are not entirely convinced I am in control of my blood pressure, I'd just like to say that I am
supposed to know about hypertension
).
What my point was was that the whole preannouncements thing wasn't necessarily
annoying (that was too strong a word to use in this context), but kind of not as appropriate for certain kinds of projects as maybe some of the other boards we have. Now, I'm not saying I'm totally against preannouncements, but I do think we need to consider if we want to turn the General board into an advertisement board as well as a general discussion board. I don't want to see this happen particularly, but if people do want it, I'm not going to complain; I just want to state my opinion on the matter now, since it hasn't really come up before.
The other thing I was also trying to say was that I think the preannouncements thing, if it is generally encouraged or allowed, should be open to all people to use, regardless of Forum status or project completion. Otherwise, if we start "
selecting"
people either through a criterion (e.g. having a hold pre-released already) or through some kind of stigmatism (e.g. unreasonable downmodding, negative feedback or ignoring of some preannouncements compared to others), we risk setting up a kind of elitism, since the General board is free to read, but under this system, restricted in posting. Also, posting a thread is simply beginning a discussion, whereas posting a preannouncement implies that you have something that people
ought to know about in advance (otherwise there is no point in posting it, right?), so the two things are not the same.
Of course, I'm not saying that we as a
forum community are unintelligent, intentionally hurtful or in some other way malicious towards towards each other for personal gain. It's just that I think we've got to be careful with the way we handle this kind of social situation, since it is volatile, affects most of us (even if some people try to be indifferent to it) and is reasonably vulnerable to personality clashing or bias. Otherwise, it could lead to certain consequences that might cause a rift in our community or damage our generally friendly and neutral atmosphere.
Edit: (I almost forgot to add this)
eytanz wrote:
But this isn't, and shouldn't be, about handing out blame for things done in the past. Chaco posted a pre-announcement, obviously with good intentions. He had the misfortune of also being the point in the ever-growing tide of pre-announcements where some people in the forums have had enough of them. Some things that are fine, or even amusing, in small amounts, just become very tiring very soon. That's not Chaco's fault; he did nothing wrong. He couldn't have anticipated this effect.
My original post was not directed at anyone personally. It just so happened (by unfortunate coincidence) that someone mentioned my comment in this thread, which sparked off the discussion.
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Resident Medic/Mycologist
[Last edited by agaricus5 at 11-10-2006 05:45 PM]
But what's there is there, and it'll stay. I personally am not annoyed by preannouncements, it gives something for you to look forward to.
to go off. Luckily, only the detonator went off last time.