It's slippery slope, Schmoker. People here are many of them refugees from sites where discussion devolved into name-calling and pettiness, because the line between "don't be so sensitive" and ""I'll say what I please and don't care if I make many people uncomfortable" is a thin one, especially online. I think the cocktail party rule applies here. If I am chatting to a friend at a party and I inadvertantly offend them, I apologize to that person. I don't have to agree with them, but I do value their happiness and I want to keep the tone of the party easy and fun. We try to be as polite here as people are in real life--and sometimes, due to the flatness of posting we tend to be extra careful.

But I like being part of a community where respect for everyone's feelings and opinions one on one and not just in the aggregate is a cornerstone.

Heh. Scrappy said "cum" t /Butthead

edit: damn! She fixed it! I shoulda snagged it while I had the chance.

And, like I was saying before, the better you know someone, the easier it is to crack on them and have them not get offended. There's a lot that goes on in Natter that could seem terribly offensive, but everyone participating knows it's a joke. If you're not sure that everyone will get the joke, don't make it.

If you're not sure that everyone will get the joke, don't make it.

t I'm not sure it's possible to make a joke more sophisticated than a knock-knock joke and have 100% of the people get it.

I don't mean everyone in the world, I mean everyone in the conversation. There are things you'd say to some people and not others, right? In general, I mean.

And you don't think that equating killing your sister with having your feelings easily bruised might be a tad apples and oranges?

Well, no, that's an extreme example; but the same thing. I may like unpleasantness in fiction, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want unpleasantness in real life. In real life, I'd like to have everything go very nicely with minimal effort and maximal payoff and while I'm at it I'd like my toes to never be cold again. These things are not likely to happen for me. But if I can help it, I want my social interactions to make me happy (whether it's listening to and talking with people being clever, or flirty, or funny), rather than cross and cranky, because after all it's only social. I'm not being paid for it. And I want the people around me to be happy, too, because if I made them cross and cranky they'd leave and I'd have no one to be social with!

Those are my feelings on the subject.

Which is not, of course, to say that everything must enforcedly be all sweetness and light and no disagreement; that would be very boring. Instead, I mean, have some kind of consciousness of the people around you and how they feel; and if you accidentally offend someone I still think it's possible to apologize for their upset while you still feel you'd done nothing wrong, and it's possible to also politely continue talking with them about your different points of view on the world.

Ah fuck I'm not making sense anymore. I'm going to shut up.

Schmoker, I get the feeling that you have been put on the defensive, and that this fact is coloring your interactions. It takes everyone a while to get integrated into the community, but if you are truly interested in becoming a part of the community, it *will* happen.

Schmoker, this isn't so much about censoring oneself. I wasn't offended by you calling Buffy's audience limited, and it's not obvious that that's such an offensive remark.

It's about being civil to other Buffistas-- not only did you not take Rob's complaint seriously, whether or not you agreed, you've belittled him repeatedly since. That makes *me* uncomfortable and annoyed. That is not how it works around here. There are people here I don't care for, and wouldn't be bothered to offend them all damn day. But I don't, because I respect the community here, and no one wants that.

Every time someone here has politely responded to you asking why we're making a deal of it, you've argued and nit picked as if this is a trial. You are also complaining that "One person out of 600 gets offended, so speech is limited to accomodate the one over the many. That type of thing." Well, at this point you're the only one expressing dissatisfaction with our civil order.

Ah fuck I'm not making sense anymore. I'm going to shut up.

This is a private website, not public society. I'm a firm believer that private orginizations should be able to have any set of rules they please, and people who don't like the rules should split. That's why I plan to follow the rules here or leave.

You know, Buffistas.org has a right to admit people who won't do anything they find offensive, and kick people out that they do find offensive, just like Augusta National has the right to admit whom they please, or any private organization has a right to do about any damn thing they wish when it comes to membership.

I just was curious what people thought about the rules for behavior here vs. the behavior we all celebrate on the shows this board was founded upon. It is an interesting dichotomy to say the least. And I think it should be fairly obvious that I'm not talking about profane and offensive flames like you see on other websites, but about the witty & urbane, yet wicked and pointed, jibes we love each week on the shows.

You are also complaining that "One person out of 600 gets offended, so speech is limited to accomodate the one over the many. That type of thing."

Well, at this point you're the only one expressing dissatisfaction with our civil order.

Now don't get your panties in a bunch here, Shawn, but you are dead wrong. I'm not expressing disatisfaction. I'm just trying to have a discussion about something I find interesting and a little bit of a paradox. But you are definitely reading into and mischaraterizing the things I am saying, which I can't really help if you want to do.

I have said repeatedly that I will follow the rules, and that rules are made by the group, as they should be.