It's been done both ways, John. I wasn't one of the people that objected, so I might be mischaracterising it, but I'm pretty sure it was exchanges of context-free insents that were being complained about.

The backchannel issues were ones of etiquette and basically as ita described.

Sometimes you have to say "insent" but if two people are using a board as a work-around on some email deficiency then it kind of drains the board of content. I personally just asked that those little notices come with other (again) more content-ful posts that other people could respond to. The idea being that if you're using the board to facilitate an email exchange then you should also make an effort to contribute to the board itself in a way that everybody can participate in.

The other issue was alluding to backchannel exchanges on the board which made other people feel left out, and again excluded people from conversation.

It's not a hard and clean issue so much as a kind of sensitivity to the effect it has on the board. Just that it can feel exclusive. And that while sometimes it is necessary, you should also make an effort to be inclusive as you're doing it.

Nothing further to contribute, except that I just took a quick peek into Bitches to see who was there and found them discussing Gerard Manly Hopkins, Rice Pudding and Frank Zappa.

If we ever need a replacement for "corsets, duct tape and physics"...

If we ever need a replacement for "corsets, duct tape and physics"...

Yeah, but these are a constant on the order of the speed of light.

Just as long as we know that when we say "duct tape" we really mean Perl.

I like "What ita Said".

It performs a useful social function. "You may think that ita's opinion is unique. It is not. I share it completely. But I'm not going to waste your time restating what she said, because she said it very well. And you have better things to do than hear me blathering on. Unless you don't. "

Not to mention serving as a swift pat on the back to ita for the excellence of her phrasing.

Not to mention serving as a swift pat on the back to ita for the excellence of her phrasing.

What Betsy said.

If some aspect of board culture, in-joke or catchphrase or whatever, makes you annoyed, but not to the point where you want anything officially done about it, we think it's best to bring it up politely in the thread where it's occurring.

A big HELL YEAH to this. Not as a policy or whatever, but as a recommendation for us all to follow. There's really no point in letting little annoying things bother you until you're ready to go insane at the thought of them -- just bring them up as they come.

BTW, wrod, insent, and what Betsy said.

If some aspect of board culture, in-joke or catchphrase or whatever, makes you annoyed, but not to the point where you want anything officially done about it, we think it's best to bring it up politely in the thread where it's occurring.

I like this. Should I add it to the etiquette page?

Also, I've been thinking that the "Site etiquette" link on the left should go to the short-but-to-the-point version, with a link to the filky version. At present, it's the other way around. One - I think that our etiquette guidelines are important enough that they should be displayed in a clear and concise manner upon initial viewing. Two - Anytime something new is added (like I'm proposing above), I think it's unreasonable to expect someone to create a new section to the filk.

Comments?

I'm prejudiced, because I wrote the filk, but I vote no. The filk is intentionally quirky, and if people can't deal with our quirks, best they find out now.

Also, we carefully wrote the filk so that the text explaining each stanza can be edited and expanded without anybody's having to worry about meter or rhyme.