What do we want from this forum?

[Refus de Sejour]

Hey! I just split my own thread! In the "Splitting threads" thread, Eric said he disliked when

right in the middle of a serious discussion, someone asks an awkward but interesting question, and the henhouse goes all aflutter and people who don't want to answer start a sort of "cootchy-coo, aren't you lovely, have you got a big one, I don't half fancy you (though I've never seen you)" type of quasi-hilarious thread-spoiler dialogue. (Actually, as the ladies tend to behave themselves in this respect, I should term it a "cockhouse".)

Does anyone else object to irrelevant chit-chat in the midst of a thread? I personally find it unobtrusive, and suspect it adds to many people's sense of this this being a 'social' forum.


I think it'd be a good idea if people said exactly what they want from this forum. A while back Colette Jones complained about, I think it was something along the lines of "penis measuring contests." Colette, does that mean you dislike any kind of disagreement in a thread, or a certain debating style?

Personally, I'm pretty happy here at the moment. If we get into a habit of splitting threads when new topics arrive (or having Stewart split them, which preserves the chain of comments), I'll be even happier.

Thoughts?

 

[Bubba]

I presume Eric is referring to Liam here. Liam and whoever else, usually Mirabell, he can suck, so to speak, into such exchanges. I find that cockhouse clucking annoying, but it's easy enough to disregard.

 

[Mirabell]

Hey! I just split my own thread! In the "Splitting threads" thread, Eric said he disliked when



Does anyone else object to irrelevant chit-chat in the midst of a thread? I personally find it unobtrusive, and suspect it adds to many people's sense of this this being a 'social' forum.


I think it'd be a good idea if people said exactly what they want from this forum. A while back Colette Jones complained about, I think it was something along the lines of "penis measuring contests." Colette, does that mean you dislike any kind of disagreement in a thread, or a certain debating style?

Personally, I'm pretty happy here at the moment. If we get into a habit of splitting threads when new topics arrive (or having Stewart split them, which preserves the chain of comments), I'll be even happier.

Thoughts?

Cock.




Definitely.

 

[Colette Jones]

I think it'd be a good idea if people said exactly what they want from this forum. A while back Colette Jones complained about, I think it was something along the lines of "penis measuring contests." Colette, does that mean you dislike any kind of disagreement in a thread, or a certain debating style?

Disagreement is fine, debate is fine. What I object to is people drawing attention to themselves rather than the books. e.g. people who explain repeatedly and at length how they argue and why; people who think their studies make their opinions more valid than others'; people who gush at certain people's posts (every time) and then decide they have something against them and snipe at certain people's posts (every time); people who offer personal advice at every turn; people who turn opinion into superiority.

When I last spoke up about this, someone wrote that their grandmother liked a particular book and said something like "(sorry Colette if that is too personal)". Of course it isn't - that's not what I'm getting at.

Maybe some of the things above which annoy me about this forum have gotten better, I don't know. Some of what I have seen is what I would consider trolling, and we're feeding the trolls so they get bigger.

 

[Manuel76]

When I last spoke up about this, someone wrote that their grandmother liked a particular book and said something like "(sorry Colette if that is too personal)". Of course it isn't - that's not what I'm getting at.

I knew it wasn't, Colette. I was only joking and I think I understand what you're talking about.

But I like the "social" side of the forum, some people have a funny and somewhat perverted sense of humour I enjoy a lot. Without it, it would be better to take an encyclopedia. This is a forum! I like to have the impression I'm talking with people about books, not just talking about books.

About penis measuring contests (which I find irrelevant, at least in a web forum), I too noticed that some comments are sometimes a little agressive and end in arguments (in which I took part , by the way. And I'm a reasonably calm person, for a Spaniard).

So the moral can be "let's be more polite and talk only about literature?". I don't think so. But "try to avoid comments which can seriously bother other people" or maybe even better "try not to look constantly for an argument" would be fine. At least try to talk as if you were personally meeting the other people and not take refuge in the fact that you're talking through a computer.

 

[Eric]

Let me make it clear. I love to say the silliest things and provoke people when they get shirty and snide. But it strikes me that some people have concentration span problems, so, as I tried to say as facetiously as possible to make it funny, if you're going take the piss on a particular thread, it is better if you take the piss within the framework of what that thread was set up to discuss.

As far as I know, Liam is a serious person at heart, and while he indulges in a bit of flirting and wackiness, this is all within the life of our threads. However, if a thread about a particular solidly literary subject goes into a two-person, ten-posts exchange of silly-billy-willy quips, it lowers the whole tone.

Mirabell has exemplified perfectly what I criticise him for.

I find it intriguing that the female of the species tends not to go off at a girly tangent on these threads, while the almost post-adolescent macho literati do a lot of jostling for position.

I will gladly discuss literature - but only with people who have more to say than huh, wow, and stunning. I am particularly allergic to eulogistically oozing superlatives, which are used for one book in attempt to browbeat the opposition into abject submission, when the same trick is then used a week later by the same person about another book that is the best in the world. They can't all be so good.

Another thing I find odd is the obsession with reading as many books as possible within a short space of time and listing the 27 for this month, standing back, and expecting applause. "Wow, you are a quick reader. You must have a brain like an octopus!"

Bolstering your own self-confidence as the Reich-Ranicki of these threads is not quite the same as an ?sthetic analysis that holds water like a bucket, rather than like an origami'ed box.

 

[Amoxcalli]

But I like the "social" side of the forum, some people have a funny and somewhat perverted sense of humour I enjoy a lot. Without it, it would be better to take an encyclopedia. This is a forum! I like to have the impression I'm talking with people about books, not just talking about books.

Seconded.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

Stewart seems happy to split threads if he deems it necessary, so I'd suggest anyone feeling guilty and/or annoyed over a shift in topic send him a pm.

 

[Beth]

I think it's refreshing to peek into the forum and read all of the different "voices". In my thinking, the forum isn't so much about books as it is about people, as Manuel suggests. I enjoy all of the posters here, and I miss some of the ones who are away or have left. It's a good group. It's ironic, but healthy discussion always seems to have some chaotic elements and plenty of room for agreement or disagreement, rendered either with a softer tone or some piss 'n vinegar. If there were any exclusions made, it might be easier to read, but the forum would be dead. Does it really matter, as long as there's satisfaction in making a point or two and using those posts to sharpen our individual thinking? After all, when we turn away from the brain box to interact with other people, only a little bit of this or that has come home to roost. Maybe that's all this reader needs. I don't need to read every word in order to pull what's relevant from the conversation...

Delightfully absent here is any sense of contempt for/fear of the divserse membership on the part of Stewart/Bjorn. It seems that each poster is regarded simply as an end in himself/herself, a source of enjoyment if you will, never a potential means.

What do I want? A place to read about reading and to play a bit. Would any of us really insist in a strictly linear narrative or that posts be made under any but the most sensible and broad guidelines? That only this or that person can participate and that they must post by proscription? That would be intellectual fascism and there isn't a smidgen of that here.

 

[Eric]

To pick up on Paul Dorell's point, there is a fundamental problem in that we have a tremendously fragmented readership of books of many sorts from many different countries. Because this is intrinsically a British forum by origin, there will inevitably be an Anglo-American bias. But there are plenty of books from further afield than Anglophonia that are discussed here.

So when you bring up your pet author, whether English-speaking or translated into English, you cannot necessarily expect that everyone here will even have heard of them, let alone read anything by them.

I think, like Paul Dorell, that I only read about a book a month, and feel, quite frankly, that there is something manic about reading what I, for reasons of rhetoric, called 27 books in one month. I like to savour a book, and do indeed break off and have two or three books "on the boil" at the same time. I am not going to be writing a dissertation or thesis on anything. Apart from my work as a literary translator, I am free to read what I like.

Usually, the books I read vary a good deal. For instance, the fact that I'm reading Wodehouse at present does not mean that I've abandoned other more serious literature. But when you're translating about 2,000 words a day of a pretty sophisticated novel, you do sometimes need a break in the evening. Though recently, I have been inspired to translate a number of poems by a Swedish and an ?landic poet. Even after the day's translation slog. That too is part of literary activity. And I've been reading a very readable introduction to ?sthetics on the side, too.

I feel that the word "book" should not become synonymous with "novel" which it often is. Non-fiction is an absolutely vital part of our literature. Even if we do not stray outside the humanities to technical and scientific literature, there are hosts of historical, sociological, biographical, psychological, literary critical, and other books that can give fascinating glimpses of our world.

Perhaps like Beth and her "voices", I like to be triggered by others here into examining new authors, or re-examining ones I've half-read. For instance, I was enthusiastic about Peter Weiss for a short while, wondering why I abandoned him in the late 1970s (!). But then I realised that his paragraphless pages are very off-putting. His life is more digestible than this huge epos. I also realised that I'm more interested in the authors who actually lived in, for instance, the GDR, than those, like Weiss, who built a semi-artistic, semi-political, fantasy around ?stheticised life. I've nothing against postmodernism (having translated two postmodernist novels), but the author must make a number of concessions to the reader, such as punctuation and pacing.

Nor have I anything against a bit of banter as long as, as I said, it doesn't turn a thread suddenly and irrevocably into a game of giggling and quips, when there are books to be discussed. Let the gigglers and innuendo merchants start a new thread.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

T
I think, like Paul Dorell, that I only read about a book a month, and feel, quite frankly, that there is something manic about reading what I, for reasons of rhetoric, called 27 books in one month.

I'd probably average a fortnight for an average sized novel. While I'd never want to sacrifice reading-pleasure for speed, I do wish I could read faster without any decrease in pleasure; there are a lot of books out there I want to read, and their number increases daily.

Some of my best friends are manic - they have the certificates to prove it. Reading books rapidly seems a harmless enough type of mania .

 

[Refus de Sejour]

I think it's refreshing to peek into the forum and read all of the different "voices". In my thinking, the forum isn't so much about books as it is about people, as Manuel suggests. I enjoy all of the posters here, and I miss some of the ones who are away or have left. It's a good group. It's ironic, but healthy discussion always seems to have some chaotic elements and plenty of room for agreement or disagreement, rendered either with a softer tone or some piss 'n vinegar. If there were any exclusions made, it might be easier to read, but the forum would be dead. Does it really matter, as long as there's satisfaction in making a point or two and using those posts to sharpen our individual thinking? After all, when we turn away from the brain box to interact with other people, only a little bit of this or that has come home to roost. Maybe that's all this reader needs. I don't need to read every word in order to pull what's relevant from the conversation...

Delightfully absent here is any sense of contempt for/fear of the divserse membership on the part of Stewart/Bjorn. It seems that each poster is regarded simply as an end in himself/herself, a source of enjoyment if you will, never a potential means.

What do I want? A place to read about reading and to play a bit. Would any of us really insist in a strictly linear narrative or that posts be made under any but the most sensible and broad guidelines? That only this or that person can participate and that they must post by proscription? That would be intellectual fascism and there isn't a smidgen of that here.

Great post

 

[Beth]

Thanks, Refus, it's a great place.

 

[Liam]

As far as I know, Liam is a serious person at heart

Thanks, man. Love you too--.


L.

 

[Eric]

My simple message is: let's stop cuddling one another, let's read a few books selectively, and let's try to encourage others to read them. But on the strength of quality, not by way of browbeating, smarm, or fits of the giggles.

 

[lionel]

My simple message is: let's stop cuddling one another,

And hate each other instead?

let's read a few books selectively, and let's try to encourage others to read them. But on the strength of quality [...]

Why, first up? There are mountains of books out there that are (often very) interesting, but why should they be judged by er, quality, that animal that has never had, and never shall have, a definition? So some books have quality, and others don't? OK, we both know what I'm talking about, I think, but such a meaningless term as 'quality' merely clouds the issue, and suggests a kind of elitism.

BLOG

 

[peter_d]

Nor have I anything against a bit of banter as long as, as I said, it doesn't turn a thread suddenly and irrevocably into a game of giggling and quips, when there are books to be discussed. Let the gigglers and innuendo merchants start a new thread.

This sums it up for me. For reasons of poor internet connection, I visit this place only once or twice a week nowadays. That means I often have a lot of catch up reading to do and then I find quite interesting threads having digressed into directions that have nothing to do with the original idea of the thread anymore.
Any member can create a new thread anytime in the off topic section of this forum. This has nothing to do with censuring things, it's just about keeping it a bit orderly.