[HPFGU-Feedback] Re: We'd like to pick your brains about TBAY

[Shaun Hately]

On 5 Dec 2003 at 7:17, erinellii wrote:

> Shaun Hately said:
> > The point is, the presence of TBAY posts on the main list IMHO, do 
> *exlude* people. Injokes (and TBAY is, IMHO, full of injokes) serve 
> to exclude anyone who isn't in on the joke.
> 
> Erin:
> Well, yes, I would have to say that was a true definition of the word 
> injoke. The thing is, anyone who wants to be in on the joke can be!  
> I am a case in point.  I joined HPfGU in April, posted enough to get 
> off moderated status, and then ignored the group for months until the 
> end of August.  So I would say I've only been an active poster for 
> about four months.  Yet I had no problem comprehending TBAY or the 
> injokes. I simply used the archives and Hypothetic Alley to look up 
> what I didn't recognize.  So no one has to be excluded- if they 
> choose not to take the time to look these things up, that is their 
> choice, and a perfectly valid one.  But no one is preventing them 
> from doing so except themselves.

Yes, but that is not the point I was trying to make here. I was responding to a 
statement by a TBAYer that TBAY doesn't exclude anyone. I believe it does. The 
fact that a person can choose to do some extra work to avoid that exclusion does 
not change that fact.

TBAY is exclusive - and that can be OK. But let's acknowledge it, not deny it.

Erin: 
> Yes, TBAY *is* full of references to past theories and acronyms. But 
> is that a bad thing?  Not in my opinion.  I included several in my 
> Evil!Bill posts purposely, in hopes that it would make people curious 
> enough that they would *want* to go and look up these great old 
> theories and see some of the best writing ever done on this list.  I 
> included message numbers specifically in order to make it easier for 
> the people who were interested in doing so. I think it enriches the 
> whole HPfGU experience for posters to have a working knowledge of the 
> more basic theories here.

And I have a working knowledge of what the most basic theories are, and that 
absolutely nothing to do with TBAY in my opinion. The fact that TBAY gives 
theories nice neat labels doesn't mean people need those labels to understand 
the theories.
 
> Shaun Hately:
> > Yet, I'm having to deal with people who insist that the canonicity 
> of TBAY posts is a proven fact. I don't think it is. And I don't 
> think it easily can be shown to be one.
> 
> Erin:
> You have had to- er- "deal" with some over-enthusiastic TBAY 
> defenders, I agree.  But I think there's a reason for that.  You took 
> a post that basically asked us for our opinions on how to make TBAY 
> more accessable to newbies and started, out of nowhere, talking about 
> kicking it off the list altogether.  So I think it understandable 
> that many people who love it felt compelled to leap to its support.

No, I didn't.

In fact the very words I wrote in this thread were:

"Please realise that nothing I am saying here should be 
interpreted as a suggestion TBAY shouldn't be on the list. I 
fully understand on a list with over 10,000 members there 
will be posts I don't like, and I don't expect people to 
stop posting - however, I do wonder if a separate list
for TBAY might be a good idea."

I did not 'out of nowhere' start talking about kicking it off the list.

I was responding to a specific question asked: "We'd like to know how you 
perceive TBAY."

The post that I responded to did not, as you claim, just ask for our opinions on 
how to make TBAY more accessible. It asked a lot more than that.

"1. We'd like to know how you perceive TBAY. How would you describe TBAY 
messages? What do you feel is the most important aspect of a TBAY message? 
What does the term 'TBAY theory' mean to you? What, if any, is the difference 
between a TBAY theory and a regular HPfGU theory?"

That was the first series of questions asked and none of those have anything to 
do with making TBAY more accessible. We weren't asked about accessibility until 
the third group of questions.  

I suggest if you think that was all the thread was about, you need to go back and 
read the original post. There were 16 questions asked in that original post, only 4 
of which were aimed at 'accessibility'. And I answered those as well. Just nobody 
seems to have taken exception to those answers.

But please before you accuse me of having taken a post that only asked about 
accessibility, and having changed it to something else, please go back and check 
the original posts, where you will see we were asked questions about our 
perceptions of TBAY in general, not just what we thought could make it more 
accessible.

And before you start accusing me of 'out of nowhere' talking about kicking TBAY 
off list, go back and read my first paragraph where I explicitly said I wasn't talking 
about that. My suggestion at the end of that paragraph that I wondered if a 
separate list for TBAY might be a good idea was actually mostly out of concern for 
TBAY and TBAYers. When I joined the list TBAY posts seemed a lot more 
common than they are now, and I thought that part of the reason why they are 
diminishing could be because they were being lost on the main list. My original 
suggestion that TBAY could be better off on its own list was intended to be 'TBAY-
positive'. A way of helping TBAY to flourish for those who enjoy it.

As my posts have gone on, yes, I've made other suggestions. But that's been as a 
reaction to my perception as this thread has gone on that some TBAY posters feel 
TBAY is worthy of special treatment. I don't believe it is worthy of special 
treatment. I think TBAY posts should be held to the same standards as other 
posts - and if TBAY posters expect more than that, I think they should start their 
own list. And, unfortunately, at the moment, I remain unconvinced that TBAY 
posts are held to the same standard.

Erin:
> I'm with those who think it would be a death sentence to the Bay.  We 
> need newbies to be able to see the style and participate in order to 
> generate fresh new ideas.  And on its own list, there just wouldn't 
> be enough traffic to attract newbies.  In November, there were maybe 
> 15 TBAY messages, most of them responses to Evil!Bill from people I'd 
> basically begged offlist to respond.  (mind you, I *have* gotten 
> quite a few unsolicited offlist emails from posters telling me 
> they've loved reading it) And that was a HEAVY Tbay month.

Well, if TBAY is only surviving because people are *begging* other people other 
people offlist to post, I'm not sure that its really viable on the main list anymore. I 
think the death sentence has already been passed. That's a pity - but I wonder if 
it's true.

Erin: 
> So to people who see it as I do, you haven't just proposed moving 
> TBAY offlist, you've proposed KILLING this style they love.  I think 
> I understand where the snipiness comes from.  So please forgive me 
> for any touches of it you may sense in this post of mine.

I can forgive snipiness, but I really wish people would read what I said in my 
original post, before they accuse me of 'out of nowhere' suggesting TBAY be 
banned.

My original suggestion was made partly because I believed it would *BENEFIT* 
TBAY. Now I could be wrong about that - but what you've said in this post 
indicates to me that TBAY is dying now. Maybe a new list wouldn't save it. But I'm 
wondering if anything would - if the only way you're getting TBAY posts is by 
begging off list for them, I don't see how it's going to last.

Erin: 
> As for showing the canonicity of TBAYs, the only problem I could see 
> would be if your definition of canon was very different from my 
> definition of it.  If not, we just go and count the Tbays that focus 
> on canon.  I'm willing to do this after Christmas if you'd like.  
> It's really not so hard.

I have never said that there are *no* TBAY posts based on canon, or that contain 
canon. I am very well aware that most do.

What I've objected to is claims by some people that seem to be that *ALL* TBAY 
posts are canon, and that is an automatic fact. TBAY posts, like any posts, can be 
offtopic. The only way that wouldn't be so if someone in authority declared all 
TBAY posts are automatically canonical for list purposes - which would be clear 
evidence of special treatment.

Secondly, I am not convinced that the fact that a 40 line post contains 2 lines of 
canon makes the whole post a canonical post. I do not believe HPFGU imposes a 
standard that a post is automatically ontopic if it contains any canon points at all, 
among a mass of other material.

If it did, many MOVIE posts (not all) would be ontopic because they mentioned 
canonical characters.

The standard is, I believe, higher than just containing a piece of canon.

My view (and this is personal) is that a post should be viewed as on-topic if it 
*substantially* contains canon material *and material intended to illuminate the 
canon*. TBAY posts *can* and *often do* meet that criteria.

But they do not automatically do so. I have rarely seen a TBAY post I would 
consider *completely* off-topic - but I have seen quite a number where I think the 
'noise to signal' ratio (the proportion of fluff as compared to canon based 
substance) is higher than I think would be likely to be tolerated in other posts.
 
> Shaun Hately said: 
> > I'm seeing an attitude from some people that their opinions are 
> facts - and therefore are somehow more important than other people's 
> opinions. Well, I happen to think everybody's opinion and perception 
> is just as important as everyone elses.
> 
> Erin:
> Do you seriously think that?  If, for instance, I started spouting 
> out my opinion that everyone who ate peanut butter was an evil green 
> Satan-worshipping alien from Hell and must be destroyed, would you 
> count my opinion as important as that of the guy next to me whose 
> opinion was "that lady is crazy"?  Somehow, I think not.

OK, I'll be more precise. I think everybody's opinion and perception on any 
particular discrete issue is just as important as everyone elses and is just as likely 
to be factual as anyone elses in the absence of objective evidence.

I could be this precise with everything I say if you want (sometimes I have to be at 
work) but I really don't think most people want to wade through all that.

Erin:
> I agree that opinions, by definition, are not facts.  But perceptions 
> can be wrong. That is why we have the word "misperception". Because 
> sometimes people do have wrong perceptions, wrong first impressions 
> based on wrong facts.  I'm not trying to say yours are wrong, just 
> that it *is* possible for a perception to be wrong.

Yes, perceptions can be wrong.

Go back to my second post: "That's my perception, and it may be 
wrong".

The point is, I've been quite open about the fact that I'm giving my opinions and 
my perceptions and I know they may be wrong.

Some other people have simply been stating that their unproven assertions are 
facts - and acting as if the fact that they say they have a fact, and I say have an 
opinion, automatically elevates their views over mine.
 
> Shaun Hately: 
> > The number of lines concerns me only because I don't think a post 
> that takes 40 lines as a lead up to a 2 line piece of canon is 
> particularly canon based. And I personally think that quite a number 
> of TBAY posts fall into that type of category - yes, they may contain 
> canon - but 95% of what they contain has nothing to do with canon.
>  
> Erin:
> I'm not sure how well percentages go with opinions.  Some might think 
> you're sort of blurring the line there.  Can you really have an 
> opinion on a percentage?  I've always seen them as cold hard facts.  
> And I don't see the percentages you're speaking of reflected in the 
> TBAY posts at all.  Perhaps you're thinking of one particular post?  
> Maybe the one you read that soured you on TBAY in the first place?  
> After Christmas is over, I'd be perfectly willing to count up the 
> lines of, say, the last 50 Tbays and get you some real percentages 
> instead of ones you have to make up yourself.

I read a bunch of TBAY posts last night -  I was at work on an uneventful night 
shift and I ran out of anything else to do, so I decided to check my perceptions 
and see if I still felt the same way. I'd have checked even more TBAY posts 
except the archives started giving me an error.

Please note what I said: "I personally think that quite a number of TBAY posts fall 
into that type of category - yes, they may contain canon - but 95% of what they 
contain has nothing to do with canon."

I didn't say all, I said 'quite a number'. That distinction is very important because I 
don't think most TBAY posts are anywhere near 95% fluff. Most seem to me to be 
around 50/50, and that's pretty much what I saw last night. A couple were much 
higher.

Now this is perception - someone else looking at the same post might well come 
up with a different answer because sometimes things were borderline.

When I say 95% I'm not being particularly precise. If I was being precise I would 
say 94.72% or something similar to that. Maybe percentages don't go with 
opinions for you - but they do for me, because of the nature of my work. I'm 
required to analyse a *lot* of numbers, probabilities, etc, and I'm used to being 
very precise. If I use something so crude as 95%, that really is an estimate for me 
(-8

No one post has soured me on TBAY. Quite the contrary - there's a few extremely 
well written posts that have softened my view on TBAY.
 
> Shaun Hately: 
> > Some TBAYers seem to take the view that if a TBAY post contains 
> even the most minute piece of canon, that makes it acceptable. Well, 
> by that criteria, I suspect virtually every single MOVIE post 
> contains at least a tiny piece of canon.
> > 
> > Yet, movie posts have been moved to another list. 
> 
> Erin:  
> And have you actually *read* the movie list?  Half the time people 
> post just to say "OOOh, Alan Rickman is so hot!"  or  "The movie 
> comes out in June! Yay! I can't wait!"  That is not the same as TBAY.

Yes, I do read the movie list - and there are some posts that are that lacking in 
substance. But there's a great deal of posts that contain book Canon as well.

Yes, I probably overstated by saying 'virtually every single MOVIE post' contains 
some canon - but a lot do. But that's not enough for them to be acceptable on the 
main list.

Erin:
> Some of the movie posters haven't even read the books. Whereas most 
> TBAY posters are ones who have actually obsessively researched the 
> books.  And I really don't get how anyone could argue that movie 
> posts contain canon.  Movie canon, perhaps.  But not book canon.  
> They are two different canons completely. Only if you were comparing 
> movie canon to book canon could the post be said to contain real 
> canon; that is, book canon.  

Um - "Harry Potter is a wizard."

That's Book Canon and Movie Canon.

There's a great deal of overlap between the two. There are important differences 
as well - but there's plenty of canon that apllies in both, so if the standard on 
HPFGU was solely that posts should contain some book canon, that should be 
enough.

But that isn't the standard applied. As best I can see, the standard applied is 
something like that posts should be *substantially* based on the book canon, 
without too much extraneous material being included.

Erin: 
>  Someone wrote (And Shaun, please attribute these, cause I'm replying 
> to your post and can't find it on there, which makes it impossible 
> for me to quote without looking through 50 messages and it's already 
> 12 midnight here and I have school in the morning): 

I'm sorry - but I honestly can't see the reason to attribute every paragraph in posts 
where I am only replying to *one* person. I can understand the need to do so in 
cases where you're replying to more than one person but that isn't what I have 
done here.  

> >Shaun Hately wrote: 
> > Actually those who like TBAY are asking for something. They are 
> asking people who receive their messages via e-mail to download mail 
> they are not interested in. 
> > They are asking people who prefer to discuss matters in a 
> straightforward fashion to accept that at any moment, somebody might 
> decided to take one of their messages and fork the thread into one 
> they don't feel comfortable with.
> > 
> > What they are asking may be totally reasonable - but the suggestion 
> that that they  don't ask anything is simply wrong, in my opinion.
> 
> Erin:
> I think you guys pretty much said the same thing, except the first 
> person said it was "nothing" for someone to push the delete button, 
> and Shaun makes like it's a big deal to push the delete button.

No, I don't make it a big deal. In fact, I explicitly say and you have *quoted* me 
sayting that what is being asked for may be totally reasonable.

I find it rather strange to be having views assigned to me less than two lines after 
someone has quoted me saying something quite different.

I'd also point out that for the (I would assume) fairly substantial number of people 
who receive the list via digest, there is no delete button for particular posts.

There is at least one blind person on the list who 'reads' their e-mail by running it 
through a speech synthesiser. I know him. He doesn't have the option to easily 
delete TBAY posts.

People should bear in mind, IMHO, that not everybody uses the net the way they 
do. And what may seem like a minor inconvenience to you because of the way 
you use the net may be a major one for other people.

There's only a limited amount anybody can do about that - but please don't forget 
the fact.
 
Erin:
> Me, I push the delete button for a lot of things.  Any message 
> with "Dumbledore's Gleam" or "Mark Evans" in the title, for instance. 
> But I'm not proposing a seperate "Dumbledore's Gleam" list (though on 
> reflection, that might not be such a bad idea...)because deleting 
> does not seriously inconvience me. Any group as big as HPfGU is gonna 
> have some stuff that doesn't interest everyone. But I don't think 
> maybe 5 messages a month are gonna cause you finger cramps or 
> anything.
> 
> And come on, Shaun, do you really live in fear that (gasp!) someone 
> might put one of your theories into a TBAY?  Do you honestly think 
> anyone else does?  This is a list for adults, everyone on here should 
> be able to deal with reading a little bit of roleplaying without 
> flipping out. Yes, I agree that it is roleplaying.  But whereas other 
> roleplayers make up their own fanfiction as they roleplay, TBAYers do 
> so in order to discuss canon.

Where on earth do you get the idea I live in fear that someone might put one of 
my theories into a TBAY? In fact, I'd be rather flattered if that every happened, I 
certainly don't fear the idea.

*But* it would probably take me out of the discussion. Now I freely admit that 
that's largely due to me, not them - but I think it's a reality for quite a number of 
people, and I think that makes TBAY divisive.

I wouldn't be offended if someone started discussing one of my ideas in Turkish - I 
wouldn't be afraid of the fact either.

But I wouldn't be involved in the discussion from then on - and a split would have 
occurred.

Multiple discourses, whatever form they take, tend to create division. Now you 
may think that's acceptable, and that's OK. But I think people should at least 
acknowledge it.  
 
> Erin:
> Well, the status quo must be doing something right, because we have 
> one of the largest memberships for any Harry Potter group online.  
> And certainly the most well-informed one, IMO.  I really don't see 
> the need to change.  But when you ask that the list be split, by 
> putting TBAYs on another list altogether, don't fool yourself, that 
> *is* asking for change.

And initially I didn't ask for that. I explicitly didn't ask for that. I only started to 
suggest it seriously when I started being attacked by TBAYers for daring to 
express an opinion they didn't agree with.

Erin:
> And you know, I think the very reason TBAY is good for the list is 
> that it shakes up the staus quo a bit, makes you think about the 
> theories in ways you normally wouldn't.  Sort of turns canon inside 
> out in an oftentimes nearly subversive way.  If you like shaking up 
> the status quo so much, logically you should like TBAY. Unless you 
> only like change you've instigated yourself.  Gaah, here I am making 
> my own character attacks-- I'm leaving it in as an example of just 
> how easy it is to get overworked about something and stick in these 
> little snipy bits- that one just rolled off my fingers before I 
> thought how it sounded- but I don't really mean it, ok Shaun?  And 
> anyone else should be aware that that sort of thing is bad.  I'm 
> closing my ears in the oven right now.

(-8

Seriously - I don't have any problem with 'shaking up the status quo' but honestly I 
don't really think TBAY does that anymore. It's become part of the status quo 
itself.

That happens over time. In the 1950s a black man sitting down at a lunch counter 
shook up the status quo. Today, in most places at least, it doesn't. TBAY, IMHO, 
doesn't do much to shake up the list because it's become something people 
basically either participate in, or ignore.

> Shaun Hately: 
> > If TBAY remains on the list, that will be fine with me. I'll accept 
> that a decision has been taken by those in authority on the list that 
> it should remain.
> 
> Erin:
> The way I see it, that decision has already been made.  It was made a 
> year and a half ago when TBAY first started showing up on the list 
> and they had some of the same dicussions we're having now.  I for one 
> was pretty flabbergasted when you came out of the blue and proposed 
> axing it altogether.  I'm with Eileen when she says TBAY is not here 
> on sufference.  What was being asked of us was how to improve TBAY, 
> not whether or not it should be on the list at all.

First of all, just because a decision was made a year and a half ago, doesn't mean 
it should never be revisited.

Second of all, go back and read the message that started this thread. It wasn't just 
about 'improving' TBAY. We were asked for our perceptions of TBAY. I answered 
that question honestly and have found myself attacked over and over and over 
again, by people who seem to think that everybody should agree with them, or 
shut up. And who also seem to have totally missed the very first paragraph I 
wrote.

> Shaun Hately: 
> > Virtually every post I have made in this thread has included 
> phrases like 'I think'.  'That's my opinion', 'And personally I 
> think', 'My personal view', 'That's not my perception.', 'That's my 
> perception, and it may be wrong', and the ubiquitous 'IMHO'.
> 
> Erin:
> I'm aware that sometimes I don't do this... it runs contrary to all 
> my instincts.  I'm just trying to finish up a college education, and 
> before that a high school one, where the phrase "In my opinion" could 
> get you a zero on a big paper.  I've had countless teachers tell me 
> to NEVER EVER use this phrase, because "everyone knows it's your 
> opinion already, it's your paper, isn't it?"  So I tend to translate 
> that into "it's my post, so of course everyone knows that my opinion 
> is the one being expressed".  I've tried very hard to drop the phrase 
> from my vocabulary after being told it is unprofessional, and even 
> that it is one that women use more frequently, and that men in the 
> business world won't take a woman as seriously if her remarks begin 
> with "I think" or "In my opinion".  

There are times when it is inappropriate to refer to things as your opinions, and 
some academic papers meet that test. My style of writing has developed in a 
different context where I am paid to give my opinions - but where if someone 
mistook one of my opinions for a hard fact, people could die (that's unusual and 
unlikely, but it is possible). So I tend to be very careful to make the distinction.

As I said, I don't expect most people to be this careful - it wouldn't be reasonable. 
But given the fact I do do it, I found the suggestion that I "generally state (my) 
opinion pretty flatly (as if they were fact)" very odd indeed. Because that's about 
the last thing I've been doing in this thread.  



Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at ... | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia