Responses on the main list

[Steve]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Suzanne Chiles
<suzchiles at y...> wrote:
> Perhaps what we need is a canon-only, no-film-mention-at-all sublist.
> Personally, I was happier before we were allowed to discuss
film-related 
> issues on the main list. 
> 
> Suzanne


Asian_Lovr2:

Actually, we are not allowed to discuss the Films on the Main List
UNLESS we can tie what we are saying back to the books and to true canon. 

There were some hints that there may have been clues or implications
in the latest movie that foreshadowed what would happen in the future
books. Although, I think in their enthusiasm, most people took the
idea to the extreme, and admittedly the threads did tend to stray from
the posting rules. However, I suspect the Moderator were hoping that
the thread would eventually pull back on track. 

Personally, I thought some of them stray too far, but that's not my
judgement call to make.

The Moderators have recently moved several threads off the main list
because they were either too far off-topic, or because the strayed too
far from canon based discussions. So, the Mods aren't ignoring that
asspect. I think, though, that sometimes it's a difficult judgement
call as to whether to shut-down, or move a thread. 

In addition, Yahoo discussion forums are far from the most techically
sophisticated; in fact, it is a rather primitive forum with amazingly
stunningly poor search capability. But it is 'centerally located',
easy to access, easy to find, and easy to use, so it endures. 

In addition, for the most part, it is free. It is unlikely that you
would find another place as easy to assess that would allow the high
traffic volumes and high storage capacity for as low a price as Yahoo.

I remember when I first started and was under Moderated status, and
even after Moderated status, I once accused (although, I tried to be
polite) the Mods of being 'anally retentive and obssessed' (really, I
did it in a polite way) for demanding such ridged adherence to the
posting rules. 

I once had a long complex posted that responded to several different
authors on several different topics, and I thought I have a very
functional and novel way of separating the unrelated posts using
dividing lines made up of '=' equal signs and '-' minus signs. Equal
signs separated unrelated posts and topics, and Minus signs separate
my response from the post I was responding to. Lord, you would have
thought I tried to assasinate the Pope, the flurry and fury of emails
I got from the Mods. Yikes!

I admit that at the time I found the emphasis on form over substance
annoying, but in hindsight, perhaps that's what we need now. Maybe the
Mods just need to be hard asses, and force people to adhere to ridged
standards of posting.

Side note: 
Nothing annoyes me more than people who uses indents instead of full
blank line breaks for paragraph formating. For the record, indents
(leading spaces or TABS) will always be shrunk to nothing, so they are
pointless. 

It extremely difficult to read a post and follow the train of thought,
when it all looks like one huge paragraph. You will notice that */I/*
make a point of using short concise FULL LINE SPACED paragraphs. It's
much easier to take in people's thoughts in short bursts than in long
endless drones. It's also a lot harder to lose your place. But then,
that's just me.


Back to the central issue, someone suggested we go back to Post #1
(year 2000) and read the posts back then to compare the quality of the
past to the present. Really, you should all try it. I didn't find that
much around post #1 but up around #300 I found a great thread on
Percy, interesting stuff on speculative sex education in the Wizard
and the extent to which it would model our own real world experience,
and on magical contraception, and well as many others that I found
very intesting, and was eager to join in. Although, is there really
any point in reponding to a post that was made in 2000?

To the current state of affairs, another annoyance is the apparent
lack of understanding the difference between an Impulse and an Idea.
An impulse is any random thought that passes through your head. What
many people fail to see that the fact that a thought exists in their
head doesn't automatically validate it. 

An IMPULSE-
Ginny is really Crookshanks because Ginny and Hermione are such close
friends that Ginny wouldn't want to leave Hermione during the Summer
Holiday. And besides, Ginny is sooooooooooooo cute, and I think she is
secretly in love with Hermione.

An IDEA-
I think Ginny is really Crookshanks, and here is the evidence to back
it up, and here is how I explain the inconsistencies that this idea
appears to create. 

One opens the door to a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of antacids, the
other to an long, deep, and interesting discussion. You guess which
one is which.

Just a thought.

Steve/asian_lovr2