I notice that a very interesting,if somewhat controversial thread has just been deleted.I hate to say it but this has a nasty taste of censorship,not least because the issues raised there did not square with the moderator's view of the world and events therein.Not exactly democratic and upholding freedom of speech!

Lynn

Nikki et al,

OK,I agree-it was beginning to play a bit like a scratched record/faulty CD...........even though one or two people were beginning to show signs of thinking about the issues involved rather than following the simple,knee-jerk reactions of some others.

The odd thing was though, that whilst the thread was still up yesterday,the advertised latest posting from your goodself was not to be seen-had you posted advertising the suspension?


Lynn

Anne-Marie

thinking about it,after our reverred moderator went off in a hurr,the quality,the level of debate actually improved.The emotions had cooled down and the contributions were generally more serious and worthy of further debate.

You were right to start it and,without the information about the goings-on connected with the investigation and the trial ,it might well have been even nastier.I have absolutely no regrets about trying to introduce a degree of seriousness into the thread in an effort to counter some of the wilder reactions.


Lynn

NIKKI,why has my civil reply to Katies retort re 'Censorship on the web' not been shown-this looks very much like censorship to me! Nina Papillon.

Nikki,the thread was precipitated ,i think,into a 'Mud-slinging' match through the apostraphisation of the Scottish border region around Lockerbie as a 'Piece of dirt'. The swinish arrogance and braggart insolence of this,and from one of your moderators leaves me trembling with rage and astonishment,Nina Papillon.

The whole problem stems from the inability of some to understand tongue in cheek comments along with taking comments about paticular incidents as "personal" attacks when they were never intended that way in the first place. It became a lose lose situation when some took things personal and refused to see it any other way. I have no intention of apologizing because my comments were not made as personal attacks. I commend the patriotism by everyone supporting their nations. Several times I made it clear I was not against any nation, I was against how situations were handled within a nation. If you read anything else into it, that is your mistake, not mine.

And as far as mudslinging, Nina you are the only one in the thread that consistantly used foul language. So your personal attack of me with "the swinish arrogance and braggart insolence" along with the comment "A piece of dirt'-you only a Christian on Sundays/-shame on you! . I wont pretend to the 'Luvvie' stuff,Marsha-I find youre rants both bigotted and pedantic and I fear for you and my beloved country. ." makes little ole me shake my head about how you have worked yourself into a frenzy over this, enough for you to tremble with rage. Sorry I had to steal that line, you are so eloquent with words. All I can do is laugh at the whole thing because it was each of you that fed off of the other blowing the whole thing way out of proportion. Your continued posts after I stopped responding both in the original thread and this one prove that.

But just to answer some questions about moderators and my polly ticks forum. A moderator is suppose to try and keep forum activity going of which I must say my polly ticks and hormone forums have had some of the most participated in threads at TW. If we all agreed then there would be nothing to discuss so sometimes a moderator ends up being the devils advocate. I allowed everyone to comment no matter how against my opinion the comment was and I did not hide posts until they became personal attacks like the one I have now shown above and there is no question the posts by Nina were personal attacks. Enough said, bubble bath time, time to relax, give it a try.

Hugs,
Marsha

No Marsha. The problem is that we are dealing with prose,not with speech.Whereas in speech the intonation and the facial expressions indicate to us whether something is said 'tongue in cheek' or not,this is not possible in prose unless we make it clear through the use of extra text,with or without brackets(parentheses,if you prefer),for example... (tongue in cheek)...or..-tongue in cheek- ....Just read a good novel and you'll see what I mean.Oh,and yes,I know I'm not perfect in this respect-I was certainly mildly sarcastic in one or two postings and probably no-one realised.

Lynn

OMG, Is that what you thought I meant by "dirt"? Rae is quite right that I meant the land the plane came down on. I had no idea you associated that with unclean or dirty. I am sorry some of you interpretted it that way as that definitely was never my intention. Dirt is used interchangeably for land and soil where I live. My comment was not made to lessen the value of the lives lost on the ground but was made to put emphasis on the target of the bombing and Lockerbie just happened to be where the plane came down. Although we still disagree on original topic, which I think is fine, this is just one of those unfortunate circumstances that a word has multiple primary uses. It truly caught me by surprise the anger associated with that phrase because I thought it was a simple fact of what transpired. Definitely never meant it to be insulting. Thank you Rae for pointing that out.
Hugs,
Marsha

Luvvie,I speak the language of Shakespeare and Chaucer not some commodified and Supermarket 'Pidgin'-How dare you accuse me of using 'foul' language? By what criterion-the 'Daughters of the American Revolution' or your(AND OUR!) Murdoch press? I did not take your foul insinuations and innuendo 'personally'-I am English and some way south of 'the piece of dirt' in question.I think it foul that you use TW as a 'bully pulpit' for your vile and reactionary political ideas,your attitude sneaky and cowardly.If I have caused anybody any offence I apologise-I am not abusive -only to bullies and what I see as my countrie's enemies -if you apologise I WILL GLADLY SHAKE HANDS ON THE MATTER-if not then theres an end on it-I am sad for you and me both.

Karen,I dont want to fight and argue-in fact it grieves me to do so-I,m only trying to astick up for the underdog and my country-all the best and hugs'n stuff-xx

Actually Lynn, the thread was suspended and moved because it was felt that all the relevant points had been said, and that it was now in real danger of simply becoming a mud slinging match between members, which is not what the public forums are for. Up to the more recent posts it did indeed raise a very good debate, which was wonderful, however I have no doubt that another thread will shortly take it's place.

Also, it was not the forum moderator who removed it, it was me, after talking to Katie about it.

Nikki

Hi Nikki,

Thanks for clearing that up. It makes a big difference and no one should be blamed for what she didn't do.

As someone relatively new to TW, can you give me a short explanation of what the Moderator's role is?

(In high school and college I was on several "Cambridge style" debate clubs. In these cases the moderator was there to keep the debaters on topic, prevent personal attacks and stay impartial no matter what their personal view.
Later I moderated several discussion panels at Sci-Fi conventions. In one case, a panel about author Robert Heinlein, I removed myself because while he is one of my favorite authors, I abhorred his politics and felt I was too personally involved to be able to fairly moderate.)

Best,
Melody

Nikki you did the right thing in suspending the thread because it was getting decidedly nasty. I Started the thread as i believed it merited talking about & discussing. If I'm honest the forum moderators attitude was abrasive to say the least & thats why i suggested the thread be suspended before it got totally out of hand.


Lol xxxxxxxxxxxx
Anna-Marie

I think the confusion has arisen because Nikki hid the thread as well as suspending it. I think she did that by accident because after all, there's no point posting to the thread explaining why it's being suspended and then hiding it. So, I think that was just a bit of finger trouble.

Otherwise, I completely agree that the thread has run its course and was starting to get out of hand so Nikki was right to suspend it.

It is no longer hidden so now you can see Nikki's post.

Hugs,

Katie x

Hi Nina, your civil reply was not deleted or censored in any way. It simply didn't appear. I don't know why. Since my post there have only been three posts in this thread - one from Lynn Harvey and two from you.

I can confirm that nobody at Trannyweb has even seen the post you are referring to, let alone tampered with it in any way.

Please post it again.

Thanks,

Katie x

Sorry for the late reply but Katie has already answered the questions posed about the thread anyway. I did hide it by accident, a mistake made by me because I couldn't remember quite how to suspend it, which goes to show how few times we have to take such action. That's a credit to everyone here as differences are usually able to be resolved before it goes too far and gets out of hand.

I agree with Lynn's comments regarding prose vs speech, as humour and sarcasm can easily get lost in print and the reader takes the point made in a completely different manner to what was intended. I think this is particularly true when dealing with individuals from around the world, even if they have a shared language, so we should all be aware of that. For example, the way I deal with the British military here is very different from the way I deal with German nationals, and rightly so, as they are very unlike each other and it is important to approach them in a way they understand and are comfortable with. (Just try walking up to a German in the street and saying, 'Oi mate, got the time?' - a harmless question or an offensive remark?)

Finally, as a reminder to everyone, if you do have a particular point to make to someone that is personal, please use the PM's or email rather than the public forums.

Nikki

"Finally, as a reminder to everyone, if you do have a particular point to make to someone that is personal, please use the PM's or email rather than the public forums."

Just wanted to underline Nikki's excellent point. I'm sure I can't be alone in definately not liking to see the use of insults and bad language in any of the forums. As I don't, incidently, out in terra firma.

In my view nothing could turn people away from TW faster.

I did bring up a point that Marsha made and we did correspond privately on the matter to each's satisfaction. IMHO that's the way to do it. Whilst the debate got a little out of hand here and there, I certainly don't have any problem with Marsha's moderating of the thread.

Rae xx

Marsha it was YOU who used the phrase, " a piece of Dirt" to describe the town of Lockerbie & that was WELL out ot order.


Anna-Marie

AM, hunni,

I understand your sentiments.

On the surface, what Marsha posted did come across as insensitive. Hence my response to her highlighting that fact. However, please bear in mind my post in reply. I took what she said at face value. I corrected it and deliberately stated that I believed it was a misconception. I stand by that. Please bear in mind that not everyone in other countries will either remember or appreciate that Lockerbie was - actually, still is! - a town. And that 'dirt' in Americanese can just as easily mean 'land' in the Queens true language. Whereas to us 'dirt' means just that. Dirty, unclean etc. Hence 'piece of dirt' can be incredibly insulting to us but over the pond might just relate to what they call 'real estate'... [Yet to figure out what a false estate would be!]

And, of course, it could just as easily have been a turn of phrase, a quickly written keyboard response.

Several reasons for it to have been a completely unintended insult.

Personally I think this topic - if you'll excuse an incredibly bad and unintended (but unavoidable) pun - has been done to death.

Let's let it drop. If anyone has a need to come back on it please let it be Marsha to put the thing to rest.

Rae xxx

Nina,

Sometimes the Gremlins in the server double-post a post in the forums. Sometimes they do not post it at all. I have had this happen to me a few times and it was just a glitch. Fortunately it is not common. Sometimes the slightest lag can throw off a program which has a timing sequence in it. Please do not take it as a personal action against you or anyone else when this happens. In fact, taking actions on forum posts is sufficiently complex that we are sometimes criticized for NOT taking action soon enough. As Nikki pointed out, we use "delete" commands so little that we forget where they are. I am still trying to remember to do my posts on a WP and then copy them to the forum so that I do not lose them. It is always best to check that your post actually posted.

After reading Anna's post I can see we need to be carefull about jumping to conclusions about what was ment.
What Marsha said is a common phrase in the U.S. & I understood it fine. I couldn't understand what all the anger was about.
Now had she used the word "dirty" you would be right.

Wasn't it George Bernard Shaw who said famously that England and America are "two nations divided by a common language".

Looks like nothing's changed.

Hugs,

Katie

It was, he did, and how true.

Also to be considered:

"You guys are both saying the same thing. The only reason you're arguing is because you're using different words".
Attibuted to S.I. HayaKawa

and

"I know you know what I think I said, but I'm not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant".
Source unknown.

Amen!

Nikki

Nina your post say just one thing. You WANT to fight & argue. So have a good time with it.

To quote myself:

'Finally, as a reminder to everyone, if you do have a particular point to make to someone that is personal, please use the PM's or email rather than the public forums'

Please adhere to this ladies.

Nikki

Karen, i thnk in a way i did jump to conclusion here....but then i guess thats just me. write first & ask questions later. But it wasn't the smartest thing to do after a Wee Dram or 2.


Lol xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anna-Marie

At least the misunderstanding has now been clarified.

Nikki

I have to say it's very good to see the participants in the original thread 'owning up' to saying that they didn't mean to offend, or that yes, things may have been interpreted wrongly and perhaps over reacted on. Hat's off to you girls!

It does show how easily a harmless comment can be misconstrued and cause so much anguish and upset, unnecessarily. I'm sure many of us are guilty of it too. A witty response that is taken seriously, or a phrase that is not common outside of a particular country or region. How about the sarcastic and often dark humour that is seldom understood outside of the UK for example.

Nice to see we can make up and move on, life's too short to do otherwise.

Nikki