Cordelia: I get it now. You're all spies. Probably all Russian. And you've brainwashed me, and want me to believe we're friends so I'll spill the beans about some nano-technology thingy that you want. Gunn: So I look Russian to you? Cordelia: Black Russian. Angel: That's a drink.

'Hell Bound'


Bureaucracy 2: Like Sartre, Only Longer  

A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.

Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych


P.M. Marc - Apr 14, 2003 8:36:59 pm PDT #44 of 10005
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

I don't think so.

Okay. One wee, small, I was gone all day thing...

Those of you who are so upset at someone honestly answering a question, well. That baffles me. Honestly. It just seems like questions were being asked, when the answer would be known, and you'd know you wouldn't like it.

Okay, maybe there's such a thing as too much honesty, but you know what? I think I find (and this goes for anyone, because I brought it up WRT to Zoe, and I brought it up WRT me, and I'll bring it up now) asking someone to apologize like that is, well... counterproductive. All it does for me is get my back up and make me even more stubborn or truculent. Fight or flight. It pushes all my buttons, and I find it kind of offensive, even if I've probably been guilty of it myself.

Just something to keep in mind.


Elena - Apr 14, 2003 8:44:18 pm PDT #45 of 10005
Thanks for all the fish.

There's a difference between asking for an apology (or saying that one is warranted) and expressing your own personal feelings of offense or affront. The first would get my back up - the second would distress me and likely make me want to apologise for hurt feelings, even if not for the initial statement.


P.M. Marc - Apr 14, 2003 8:46:15 pm PDT #46 of 10005
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

I was seeing a lot of the first.

Pinged my "grrr" instinct.


Nutty - Apr 14, 2003 8:48:26 pm PDT #47 of 10005
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

Allyson, I too am going to ask you to back down on this. You're not sorry? You don't have to feel sorry. We don't legislate feelings. But we do legislate actions, and your actions on this thread and the previous one make me uncomfortable, and I want you to stop.

I'm just not mincing words.

I know you like to claim that diplomacy's not for you, Allyson, but really. If you can't talk nice, don't say nothing at all. It's perfectly possible to make your point without resorting to trashtalk. I'm tired of it.


§ ita § - Apr 14, 2003 8:50:49 pm PDT #48 of 10005
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Back down on what?

People keep asking questions -- she's given the same answer pretty much every time -- an unrepentant one, but it's the same damned answer.

What new is going to happen here? Is it less rude for to ignore the questions?


Nutty - Apr 14, 2003 8:54:36 pm PDT #49 of 10005
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

ita, I can't speak for the others in this discussion, but my thinking is that I can't let rudeness like that go. Even if Allyson has no intention of apologizing to me, for making this thread ugly, I'd like the record to show that that kind of thing doesn't go unchallenged.

Allyson can argue her side all she likes, and I do understand what she's said so far. But I can't live with the way she's said it, not without chiding her for her tone.


P.M. Marc - Apr 14, 2003 8:54:42 pm PDT #50 of 10005
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Nutty, that's just the kind of thing that, were I Allyson, would be getting my back up and making me even more upset.

As you probably remember from the Go14 Debacle.

It shouldn't have been brought up in the first place, and fifty or a hundred posts like that aren't going to make Allyson change her mind about how she feels, for crying out loud.

It reads to me, and pretty much all of the posts directed after her statement read to me as the infamous pile-on. If someone says no, mind changing isn't going to happen, and I'm not going to apologize for answering the question honestly, then why the hell keep asking it/poking at it?


§ ita § - Apr 14, 2003 8:57:44 pm PDT #51 of 10005
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

So, if I read it correctly, you're saying "Allyson, let us challenge you, but ignore the question, since we don't want to hear the response?"

Because a) you state that it shouldn't go unchallenged that b) she shouldn't say anything if she can't say anything nice.

Did I miss anything?


Laura - Apr 14, 2003 9:00:42 pm PDT #52 of 10005
Our wings are not tired.

I read that Allyson did not regret her posts to Zoe, but that she did regret upsetting the community. She was pushed to say something she didn't feel. And she did say she would not behave in that manner in the future. I thought it was an honest open exchange. Just my view.


Nutty - Apr 14, 2003 9:04:18 pm PDT #53 of 10005
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

No! I am specifically not challenging Allyson on her intellectual content. I don't tend to agree with her drift, but that's not the problem I have.

If she cannot convey her intellectual content without resorting to rude words, I'd rather she waited a while and regained calm before trying to say anything. It's perfectly possible to argue -- even to argue unhappily -- without the use of rude words on either side.

By no means do I think Allyson's the only one who has gotten snide in Bureaucracy in the history of the world or even today, but she's doing it now (okay, sometime in the past 5 hours), and claiming that truth trumps politeness, a premise with which I disagree strenuously.