The State of the List Questionaire - Oct 2007

[dumbledore11214]

Annemehr: 
> What really perplexes me is why some people are so upset to see the 
> negative analyses.  It's almost as though they themselves *know* 
> there are plenty of flaws in plot and theme and they desperately 
want 
> everyone to shut up about them so they can go on ignoring them as 
> best they can.  Okay, I can't say that for a fact, but it really 
> seems so if, as they say, such posts are going to "ruin" DH for 
> them.  Otherwise, why not refute those posts, or pass them by and 
> post something to their own taste?  How could a post panning DH 
that 
> has no truth in it *ruin* the book for them?  It'd be like allowing 
> the book-burning, anti-witchcraft loonies ruin the series for you - 
> which certainly never happened to any of us before.
> 
> In other words, methinks they do protest too much!  Not that I want 
> to stop them from protesting, really, but my point is I don't want 
> the list censored to make them more comfortable.  And the fact that 
> this questionnaire is here at all makes me guess that this issue is 
> one of the reasons behind it. <SNIP>

Alla:

Hmmm, I want to respond only to this part of your post right now.
I can speak only for myself, not for the team, but to the best of my 
knowledge nobody is planning on limiting the list from discussing ANY 
aspects of **the books**, positive OR negative, which both are 
definitely legitimate, how could they be not?

Whether negative analysis will ruin the books for me? LOL, of course 
not. How can the interpretation that I EITHER cannot see for the life 
of me OR see the facts but arrive to different conclusions ruin the 
books for me?
What can ruin the pleasure of great discussion for me though is the 
condescending tone - as in how people that like the books are missing 
all that REALLY hate filled and bad writing picture of DH and of 
course JKR being crazy, etc. And I had read posts like that (luckily 
now not as many).

And no, I cannot always ignore posts like that, although when I can, 
trust me that I do - on the regular basis.

Of course this goes both ways. I also saw that folks who hated the 
books should reread them and they would see the error of their ways, 
etc. I find it obnoxious as well.

So, to make a long story short, to me it all boils down to respecting 
one another.

It is all to me in how you say it, if you phrase your interpretation 
in respectful language, I am totally cool reading it, be it positive 
or negative.


There is of course another thing, but that has not much to do with 
being annoyed over negative analyses either, I think.

As you said, canon is closed and nothing more to speculate, etc. We 
inferred what we could from the books and as a large picture, we are 
not going to change our minds, I think.


I AM upset that I lost several discussion buddies, with whom I had 
quite a few book related issues in common and with whom I could 
discuss it, NOT debate as in fight, but discuss, enrich each other, 
find some answers, new possibilities.

Several of those folks are now seem to be very dissapointed in the 
books and does not look like we have much in common anymore ( BOOKS 
WISE obviously), I mean, I do not see what much they can give me and 
I am sure they do not see it from me as well.


Does that make sense?  I do not see discussion possible unless once 
in a while we **see each other point**, not agree, not convinced, but 
see each other points. 
If you ( generic you) just hate the books now, I do not think you 
will ever see my ( generic me) POV anymore.

Sure, we can debate and fight ( nicely, LOL), but I am getting more 
and more interested in discussion as opposite to debate these days 
and yeah, I am upset that the amount of people I can do it with 
decreased in number.

Although, heeeee, now I found some more things in common with other 
people, so I guess one thing bounces off another.

Again, Anne please bear in mind that last couple of paragraphs have 
NOTHING to do with being upset over negative analyses or the 
violation of the list rules or anything like that. It is me as a list 
member talking about my specific experiences.

I can live with that, it is just I loved talking to those folks 
sooooo much.

Alla.