After Hours and serious threads

That_Guy

Recently in AH there's been many threads started about serious topics like autism and that Pixar thread.

I know AH is a forum where people have a laugh etc but these are not the threads to be doing in them in. It's not funny to make fun of anyone with autism or make "funny" posts about these type of topics.

Some posters have that whole "ah sure it's AH, what do you expect?" attitude and it really pisses me off no end.
Post in light hearted topics but to completely derail a serious thread and turn it into a joke is just ridiculous. Some posters don't seem to realise that some issues affect a lot of people deeply and these posters have no regard for these people.

The Air France thread should have been handled a lot better and I know a mod (forgot the name) said they should've policed it better.

Before AH turns into a complete cesspool of complete sh*t I think a new rule should be put in place.

For those starting threads with a serious topic involved then that poster should write in brackets that it is a serious thread. E.g "Air France Tragedy (Serious topic)".
Those posting who feel the need to make a stupid comment should do so at the risk of a banning.

There's plenty of threads in AH to act the clown but just because it's AH doesn't mean that serious discussions can't happen in it.

Just my 2 cents.

mike65

Tend to agree, that its often a bear baiting-pit of a forum shouldn't mean its impossible to have a serious balanced thread on serious matters. The mods will be in for busy time
but some intensive "muppet handling" should get the message though.

That_Guy

mike65 wrote: »

Tend to agree, that its often a bear baiting-pit of a forum shouldn't mean its impossible to have a serious balanced thread on serious matters. The mods will be in for busy time
but some intensive "muppet handling" should get the message though.

Well hopefully some people on the forum will help make the mod's job somewhat easier by reporting posts.

Tristram

Do serious threads not belong in serious forums?

Latchy

I agree OP .

If it's serious topic thread then keep it that way .


I dont think some posters deliberately set out to poke fun but a light hearted comment buy one poster in a serious topic thread ,can sometimes open the floodgates for the posters who cant tell the difference between sensitivity and stupidity .

My name is URL

What I try to do is stay out of topics of a serious nature unless I have something to add to the discussion, rather than commenting simply for the sake of making a joke.

Topics can be serious in AH, but at the same time I understand why people see it as a double standard when stuff is censored.

Fysh

Tristram wrote: »

Do serious threads not belong in serious forums?

Considering that AH was home to this thread (with the first post containing the phrase "Ouch!!!! No more rape for me", and plenty of posters repeatedly making the same 'joke' about how anal rape rates would rise as a result of the introduction of the device), I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of posters on After Hours view it as a forum where pretty much anything is fair game.

Given that we have a huge number of fora under the Soc category for more serious discussion I'm not sure there's any benefit to trying to introduce an option for exclusively serious discussion in AH; the only benefit would be the theoretically higher degree of traffic that would see those threads, but given the general tone of AH I'm not sure what percentage of that traffic would want to respond to such a change.

Rabies

I'll say it once again.

Its all about the first couple of posts in the thread. That sets the out come. SOmetimes it can be a user, as more recently a mod (me).

AH isn't the troll fest some people think it is. We do have morals and standards.

To 'police' or maintain the serious threads we'd need a few mods on non stop 24/7/365. AH users churn out a crazy amount of threads and posts.

That_Guy

Rabies wrote: »

I'll say it once again.

Its all about the first couple of posts in the thread. That sets the out come. SOmetimes it can be a user, as more recently a mod (me).

AH isn't the troll fest some people think it is. We do have morals and standards.

To 'police' or maintain the serious threads we'd need a few mods on non stop 24/7/365. AH users churn out a crazy amount of threads and posts.

Then make people more aware that a "report post" option is there to make life that bit easier for ye.

I know a few posts by mods in some threads say that if you make a joke in this thread you'll be banned. I just wish mods would go through with it instead of letting an argument happen over 3 or 4 pages and then a banning.

Some new rules really have to be put in place. I know there's a double standards thread here but I definitely think AH needs a bit of sprucing up.

Sarky

Clone Monty? That'll put the fear into the "hur hur hur you said bum and willy" masses. Christ, I'm faint just thinking about it.

kumate_champ07

Rabies wrote: »

I'll say it once again.

Its all about the first couple of posts in the thread. That sets the out come. SOmetimes it can be a user, as more recently a mod (me).

AH isn't the troll fest some people think it is. We do have morals and standards.

To 'police' or maintain the serious threads we'd need a few mods on non stop 24/7/365. AH users churn out a crazy amount of threads and posts.

i still think you were wrong and wont admit it. you made a mistake with how you handled the pixar thread. anyone who had something cynical to say was a bad guy. i think it was a great PR move by pixar. there are many people who voluntee alot of their time around the world helping those who are less well off.

what basically happened was a guy leant a dvd to a little girl for a day. big deal, serious business. nobody is allowed say anything negative or make jokes

the movie has been available for at least 3months to download online. the dvd the girl watched if uploaded could be traced back to her family anyway. pixar took no risk whatsover. it was a win win situation for them. plenty of kids die of cancer all around the world. are they gonna set up a program of lending dvd's of current pixar movies to all of them too?

eagle eye

Surely if AH is all about a bit of fun then serious threads should be in other forums.

To me this all sounds like guys that have made AH their internet home and now they want to change it to a touchy, feely, wooly hat brigade forum.

You want to talk seriously about something sad would it not be better to have a forum for that kind of thing.

I don't post in AH by the way, often read it for a laugh though.

stovelid

I'm not really sure I see the logic behind starting a serious thread in a generally non-serious forum - and ignoring the serious forums already created for this purpose - before moaning that your serious thread is not being taken seriously in the non-serious forum and then trying to whinge the non-serious forum around to being a serious forum when many serious forums exist for your serious thread.

Latchy

Which only adds to any confusion that already existed about serious threads not be taken serious and hijacked by non serious posters .

Terry

AH is a general discussion forum with more relaxed rules on most things.
It is not 4chan or something awful.
If you want to make rape jokes, then **** off to those places.

Fysh

Currently, the AH charter includes this:

"most of the time After Hours is used to discuss more "light-hearted" issues and topics such as celebrities, interesting websites, non-serious events, general questions and advice on trivial issues, light-hearted or interesting news."

The use of light-hearted/trivial/non-serious suggests to me that it's not generally expected to be a home to serious discussion or debate. My general impression was that serious discussion or debate should be taken to one of the Soc category fora, usually Politics or Humanities.

It might be worth clarifying this, and providing some guidance on how to distinguish between serious and non-serious topics to avoid this kind of thing in future...

kumate_champ07

Terry wrote: »

AH is a general discussion forum with more relaxed rules on most things.
It is not 4chan or something awful.
If you want to make rape jokes, then **** off to those places.

its nothing like 4chan.
have the rape joke people been banned?
what about the guy who is hoping for margaret thatcher to die? and all the other people who thanked his post?

i got banned and i didnt say i wanted anyone to die or was happy for anyone to be dead. i replaced nemo with chemo. what a big fuking crime.

i havent seen any mod justify how the thread was handled. a warning doesnt mean anything because u cant change how the forum works when u feel like it. what if a mod said ill ban anyone who says anything bad about cricket in a thread about how great the irish cricked team are?

Terry

Fysh wrote: »

Currently, the AH charter includes this:

"most of the time After Hours is used to discuss more "light-hearted" issues and topics such as celebrities, interesting websites, non-serious events, general questions and advice on trivial issues, light-hearted or interesting news."

The use of light-hearted/trivial/non-serious suggests to me that it's not generally expected to be a home to serious discussion or debate. My general impression was that serious discussion or debate should be taken to one of the Soc category fora, usually Politics or Humanities.

It might be worth clarifying this, and providing some guidance on how to distinguish between serious and non-serious topics to avoid this kind of thing in future...

The charter is under review and will be rewritten tomorrow if I'm not working.

eagle eye

Terry wrote: »

The charter is under review and will be rewritten tomorrow if I'm not working.

So you are rewriting the charter.
Why not just add a sub-forum for more serious subjects. As I've said I don't post there but I like to read the funny stuff.

If you change the charter and have serious threads in that forum its going to make people feel uncomfortable as to whats allowed and might affect the humour thats been such a great part of that forum for so long.

Terry

You do realise that you do not have to read or post in any serious threads, don't you?

eagle eye

Terry wrote: »

You do realise that you do not have to read or post in any serious threads, don't you?

I don't post there but I do read there. I'm just suggesting what would be imo a simpler solution. Do you not think it would be better for all concerned?

Lets say a guy goes in on page 4 of a thread and makes a smart comment. There are plenty of people who do not read the whole thead you know thereby missing a moderator warning about not joking in the thread.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Tristram wrote: »

Do serious threads not belong in serious forums?

That's a moot point . With the sprawl of forums to all things specific there's the odd time certain threads don't fit anywhere.

AH has a flexible charter from what I can tell. I think there's almost a charter for each thread, sometimes you can post about about you want to boil babies* most efficently whereas othertimes you've to watch yourself and what you say.

I think it's still the only general forum there is outside of the "social forums" where people just chat. After Hours still allows "current affairs" type of threads , ie stuff in the news and that. Someone suggested a current affairs forum before but I think it was shot down.

Someone once said that AH is like the type of place you go in, stick yr feet up on the table without worrying about dirtying it. It's a bit off the cuff I suppose. But if you want to have a bit of a "pub-style" discussion on something that happened in Dublin say , it'll be moved to the Dublin forum which is dead and doesn't allow "this is how I like to boil my babies*"

Edit: Forum requests for Current Affairs forums - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52046776
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=238838
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58278244

As I said here , Humanities is a bit of a dumping ground for threads no one wants. No offense to anyone who's put effort into it but it doesn't seem like a very "happening" forum.

* just using that as an extreme example. I don't think anyone actually said they were going to boil babies.

Fysh

eagle eye wrote: »

Lets say a guy goes in on page 4 of a thread and makes a smart comment. There are plenty of people who do not read the whole thead you know thereby missing a moderator warning about not joking in the thread.

I don't really see how that's a loss to anyone - if you haven't read the whole thread, chances are that what you want to say based on the first post has already been said and the discussion has moved on from it. Since this also means that multiple people post the same not-particularly-funny joke because none of them could be arsed to read the thread which they were blessing with their contribution.

javaboy

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

a warning doesnt mean anything because u cant change how the forum works when u feel like it. what if a mod said ill ban anyone who says anything bad about cricket in a thread about how great the irish cricked team are?

Actually a warning does mean something. If a mod issues a warning "If you do X you will be banned" and you do X, you will be banned.

If you object to the warning, that's ok. You can object by PM, Feedback or Help Desk. Ignoring the warning, no matter how much you disagree with it, is not the right way to go about it.

WhiteWashMan

Perhaps the AH mods feel that while it is a little more loose than other forums, there is still a level of decorum some times.

Its not all hard and fast rules, and avoidence of bans on technicalities.

If I thought there was a reason not to ban the user, Id let the mods know in private. In this case, the user has been banned about 6 times in the last few months. I think its fair enough that someone is banned if they continue to show behaviour that is disruptive to the other users (the other users, not the mods)

With regards what constitutes the level of decorum in the forum, well, thats between the users and the moderators. If the vast majority are happy with the way it is, then there is no reason to change it simply because 2 or 3 people feel the need to post negativity towards any complaint that pops up on this forum.

In fact, there seems to be a few people who do nothing except take cheap shots at people on this forumand complain about how awful it is here. Im surprised they are still here quite frankly.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to continually hate something, and yet, still hang around? Me, Id rather be looking at porn.

tbh

why do people take such offense? For every person who thinks a topic should be treated seriously, there's another who feels that AH is for piss-taking threads ONLY. And who's to say who's right and who's wrong? There are plenty of people who'd complain about spurious posts in a thread that affects them personally, but have no problem making a flippant remark in a thread that doesn't.

the only solution?

Post what you like, and ignore those posts you don't. If you thought pixar (for example) did the right thing, then by all means say it, but don't get offended if someone disagrees. So what if they do? Does it undermine your point? Not a bit.

Rabies

Disagreeing with what Pixar did is fine. The jokes were not.

tbh

so are we to assume that the precedent here states that any bad-taste jokes, within the charter, are fine unless the mods have stated on the thread that any such jokes are not allowed in the thread?

Seems pretty black and white to me, I know that probably sounds sarcastic, but it's not

Fink Goddie

Rabies wrote: »

Disagreeing with what Pixar did is fine. The jokes were not.

What jokes did Johnny K make about the kid??????????

Rabies

Fink Goddie wrote: »

What jokes did Johnny K make about the kid??????????

I can't remember if it was Johnny K or handsomecake I banned. Who ever it was, the ban was for 10 days and it was for the chemo joke. It will be over soon
Ban still stands


Having two threads in Feedback and one in Help Desk. Is this a new record

Fink Goddie

Rabies wrote: »

I can't remember if it was Johnny K or handsomecake I banned. Who ever it was, the ban was for 10 days and it was for the chemo joke. It will be over soon
Ban still stands


Having two threads in Feedback and one in Help Desk. Is this a new record

It was handsomecake that got banned for that joke. Johnny K on the other hand didnt make a joke of the kid but still got banned.