Is a discussion better in SL or the forums?

[kali Wylder]

I like both.  I have the advantage of being a pretty fast typist and I've learned to not worry about the typos.  We all speak and write typonese and can ask questions if we don't understand.  Personally, I think that for having a fun time, the in-world chats are better.  Wall of text communicators, don't do so well in world.  People get bored waiting and the conversation continues on it's merry way, and by the time the wall is done writing, nobody remembers what the point was. But for more serious group communication, the forums are somewhat more useful. It's a very different pace.

[Desiree Moonwinder]

11 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

This is made worse as people change over time - but a recorded medium does not. A very important part of human interaction both with the self and with others is the ability to forget. To move on. To change. After all, think about why do people find 'necroposting' to be in such bad form?

Well, the EU 'right to be forgotten' means that you should be able to delete your old posts. Apparently that law is not enforceable here. So we have an ethically challenged situation.

[Orwar]

24 minutes ago, Desiree Moonwinder said:

True. It is very foolish to discuss politics and social issues here.  Only wise use of forums is to discuss how to make SL work best.

   It's not the topics that are foolish, it's the people who discuss them with uninhibited idealism who tend to make the mistakes that one might want to remove once the heat of the moment has cooled down. I may have said things that have hurt people, or made them angry - but I have never regretted it. If a person is so simple as to judge a person by a single idea that they adhere to, or so simple as to only exist for a single idea, then a bit of regret may in fact be healthy for them.

   If our ideas are never questioned, and can not stand up to rational criticism, then we can not grow if we continue to hold onto them. It is in the process of expanding our views that we grow and mature.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Orwar
Plural-s added.

[Desiree Moonwinder]

2 minutes ago, Orwar said:

If our ideas are never questioned, and can not stand up to rational criticism, then we can not grow if we continue to hold onto them. It is in the process of expanding our views that we grow and mature.

The are plenty of political forums to choose among. This one is obstensibly about SL. 

[Beth Macbain]

14 minutes ago, Desiree Moonwinder said:

Well, the EU 'right to be forgotten' means that you should be able to delete your old posts. Apparently that law is not enforceable here. So we have an ethically challenged situation.

I'm no expert on the GDPR, but I just gave it a look and saw this right off the bat - "A right to be forgotten was replaced by a more limited right of erasure in the version of the GDPR that was adopted by the European Parliament in March 2014."

I'm sure you could request LL erase your presence, though. 

[Desiree Moonwinder]

13 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

I'm sure you could request LL erase your presence, though. 

Charming

[Orwar]

16 minutes ago, Desiree Moonwinder said:

The are plenty of political forums to choose among. This one is obstensibly about SL. 

   And Second Life is largely (if not 'mainly') about the people in Second Life, people of different ages, cultures and ideas that sometimes clash. If we filter away our ideals, our opinions and our desires, what remains of us to engage with?

   I'm not disputing the fact that many politically loaded conversations in the forums tend to derail (but then, what doesn't get derailed around here?); but we need to be able to see the differences between cause and effect. Usually, the reason for the political discussions derailing, is that people let passion drive them - but that's not always the case, and there are times where the discussion actually contains intellectual exchanges which serve to enrich the participants. Besides, there's nothing in the ToS that says that we can not discuss politics - it's when people can't argue their points any further, and chose to instead verbally assault those who disagree with them, that the moderators swoop in to lock the threads.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Orwar

[Beth Macbain]

2 minutes ago, Desiree Moonwinder said:

Charming

Thank you!

Or is this one of those previously discussed cases where it's impossible to read the body language or tone so it's left up to the interpretation of all who are reading it and what you really meant to say was "up yours" because I know you don't like me?

[Maryanne Solo]

It's not hard to bypass something that could be interpreted in a different way. It's when you log off that you start thinking... huh?  ;o  Now just hang on a minute~! 
Don't know what happened to that transparent background .png piccy. Oh wait! LL sabotaged it  grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! 😄

Edited December 9, 2019 by Maryanne Solo

[Pussycat Catnap]

30 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   It's not the topics that are foolish, it's the people who discuss them with uninhibited idealism who tend to make the mistakes that one might want to remove once the heat of the moment has cooled down.

That. But even more so.

There have been many times in such kinds of topics where I and the other party did not START OUT as opposed to each other as we ended up. But you state 'a', and then they state 'z', so you come back with 'A'... and within a few posts you've reached 'AAA'...
- The medium can make you end up with a result similar to idealism. You radicalize your own stance because of the distance and the ability for each side to make every single post into a manifesto...

In person... I get partway through 'a' and they; not wanting to 'cause a scene', come back with 't'... so I come over with 'g'... and while we might never reach the middle of the alphabet... we've made progress.

And because it's in there in permanent print... years later your 'ZZZ' and my 'AAA' can be quoted at each of us 'ad nauseum'...

 

There was a point not too long ago when I and a RL sibling were basically sending each other articles from opposing political viewpoints for about 2 years... and getting increasingly bitter... basically the social media version of this. Eventually we both just realized we needed to pick up the phone and talk... and then we realized our actual perspectives were pretty close to the middle of that alphabet... Thank goodness neither of us is a Facebook or Instagram user or all that article sending would have been matched with bitter words we would not be able to walk back from...

 

I think you can do political debate stuff online... and I think inworld is actually a POTENTIALLY good place for it... better even than something like a Discord text channel... because it's less likely to be permanent. Yes we all have our chat logs... but those don't tend to be as 'sticky' and the very TOS here helps us by making it an offense to go sharing them.

 

Edited December 9, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[Pussycat Catnap]

An observant reader might notice that my own posts in this very thread are moving themselves from 'a' to 'aa' and within a page or two if I don't exit... might hit 'A'...
I'm certainly seeing it in my own writing... which scares me...

[Orwar]

3 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

There have been many times in such kinds of topics where I and the other party did not START OUT as opposed to each other as we ended up. But you state 'a', and then they state 'z', so you come back with 'A'... and within a few posts you've reached 'AAA'...
- The medium can make you end up with a result similar to idealism. You radicalize your own stance because of the distance and the ability for each side to make every single post into a manifesto...

In person... I get partway through 'a' and they; not wanting to 'cause a scene', come back with 't'... so I come over with 'g'... and while we might never reach the middle of the alphabet... we've made progress.

And because it's in there in permanent print... years later your 'ZZZ' and my 'AAA' can be quoted at each of us 'ad nauseum'...

   It's true, that even people who agree with each other (more or less) sometimes feel a need to express and rationalize their opinions; in my world, that's just healthy discourse. And it's also true that a misunderstanding can spiral out of control pretty fast, and that in the format of a forum, where plenty of people can participate in the same discussion, the yarn that is the red thread tends to be dropped and make a mess of things.

   But as for the 'years later' part, I don't think that there's anything wrong with, when met with that, simply saying that "Look, you're quoting something from X years ago; the context in which that was said doesn't apply right here and now. If you want to discuss an issue, do so with what I say now.". Besides, we're not 'professional politicians' here, no one can force us to take a stand (as if there were any honest, responsible politicians in this day and age, hah) - heck, if the rhetoric becomes bad enough, I'll just stop responding to the thread. If whoever disagreed with me thinks that's a 'victory', well, let them revel in their misguided fantasy world; that's none of my concern.

[Beth Macbain]

Just now, Pussycat Catnap said:

An observant reader might notice that my own posts in this very thread are moving themselves from 'a' to 'aa' and within a page or two if I don't exit... might hit 'A'...
I'm certainly seeing it in my own writing... which scares me...

When it comes to political, social, religion, etc., what I've found is that it takes a certain type of person to be able to argue it without taking it all horribly personally. I've had disagreements with several people on here, some of them extremely heated, but out of all of them there is only one that I actually dislike, and that's only because she tends to follow me around a certain thread and tries to bait me. I've long since forgotten what our original tiff was about, but she's still... out to get me or something. If she knew what I knew, she'd stop, but... meh. But the others? I mostly have a lot of affection and respect for them even though we butted heads on some topic. 

I can be absolutely spitting mad furious at someone for something on here, and then forget about it within a couple of days. There are quite a few people that I've put on "ignore" but that's mostly due to just not really being interested in what they post than anything else. The "When did you last see a Bellisseria home" thread is a vast wasteland of "you have chosen to ignore..." for me. 

And as others know, I like a good heated debate. I love the back and forth and will often keep it going as long as possible because I'm enjoying myself, while forgetting that others aren't as weird as I am, and actually don't enjoy the fight. I subscribe to the "don't put it out there if you don't want it debated and picked apart" school of thought when it comes to social media and message boards.  

I really should be more thoughtful and back down more often, I guess, but where's the fun in that?! 😋

[Desiree Moonwinder]

8 minutes ago, Orwar said:

I'll just stop responding to the thread. If whoever disagreed with me thinks that's a 'victory', well, let them revel in their misguided fantasy world; that's none of my concern.

Amen to that. 

[BelindaN]

At the Forum breakfast Club meeting each week, local chat is runaway.  It runs fast and you have to focus if you want to get a word in edge ways. 

If we all now moved to the Cartel Hangout to continue chatting, the first issue is that it's a single chat stream. If you try to introduce a second topic it will be within the general chat. Like talking in a crowded bar. So in world, in a group, drift will be way worse than here.

Here is way more structured.

[Selene Gregoire]

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

7 hours ago, janetosilio said:

over analyze or nitpick more often than in real time

But I love nits!

And at least we don't have spammy gestures here on the forum. Signatures get close, but at least they're disabled by default.

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

   For me, and my own needs, it depends on the context and the number of people in the discussion.

   Here in the forum(s) I can read posts one at a time, consider what to say, consider if I have anything valuable to add, or consider whether there's anything deserving of a reply in the first place. It's like a learn at your own pace thing. AND I can appear to be witty. If I see someone cover a base on which I was thinking of commenting, I dust off my hands and call it done, feeling no need to say anything.

   In-world discussions are completely different. They can be fast paced, crowded affairs, or they can be smaller, slower and more intimate encounters. In large groups of people, anything larger than a typical breakfast club meeting, everyone can be talking about disparate things. Too much of that and I can't cope, having to focus on a few little parts. I have to concentrate on a smaller scope, or I will quickly become overwhelmed.

   Today I had a lovely catch-up chat with my oldest SL friend, with whom I have recently re-connected. She is returning on a part-time limited basis. The discussion was mundane and concerned all the new things in SL she has to learn. But it was like we were picking up right where we left off. It was so much fun. And she was there. That in-world, one and one experience has no equal.

   

Edited December 10, 2019 by Ivanova Shostakovich
to fix something I'd thought already fixed.

[Akane Nacht]

9 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I guess you're writing this because of the large number of threads in which discussions have become heated recently?

Back when Combat Samurai Island (combat game) was big in SL, we wannabe samurais would show up at our favourite place, run up to someone we saw idling and say "wanna spar?" then we'd whip out our blades and go to it. When the battle was over we'd always end with "good fight!" We were a very polite, bloodthirsty little group. That's pretty much how I approach debates on forum; at the end of the day it's all in good fun. Maybe I just need to say "good fight" more often. 😀

[Velk Kerang]

In my own personal opinion I find that the discussions in the forums while I have had some really decent ones do have a bit more of a better chance of becoming polluted with toxic and rude comments which is why I don't frequent them very often except in short bursts if at all. I mean you could say I like vanilla ice cream and five other die hard chocolate ice cream fans may have a go at you about it. lol I definitely have better intellectual conversations just simply meeting people in world in SL. So for me personally I would have to say in SL hands down is the better experience.

 

12 minutes ago, Akane Nacht said:

Back when Combat Samurai Island (combat game) was big in SL, we wannabe samurais would show up at our favourite place, run up to someone we saw idling and say "wanna spar?" then we'd whip out our blades and go to it. When the battle was over we'd always end with "good fight!" We were a very polite, bloodthirsty little group. That's pretty much how I approach debates on forum; at the end of the day it's all in good fun. Maybe I just need to say "good fight" more often. 😀

I actually have a gesture we all used to use back from my boxing days after a match that says that. lol It does a bow too so your welcome to it if ya want it. Feel free to ht me up in world next time your on and I'll hook you up. lol

[Akane Nacht]

2 hours ago, Velk Kerang said:

I actually have a gesture we all used to use back from my boxing days after a match that says that. lol It does a bow too so your welcome to it if ya want it. Feel free to ht me up in world next time your on and I'll hook you up. lol

hehe thanks. I hung up my katana long ago, but I do have gestures we used for fights. Mine was a cute curtsy with accompanying text in English and Japanese. If I can find it in my inventory we can swap. 😉 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

5 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

But I love nits!

And at least we don't have spammy gestures here on the forum. Signatures get close, but at least they're disabled by default.

And far better then FakeBook.

[sceneris]

i think the discussion is better in forums than in world,

forums u can take your time to make your statements constructive while in world u may another distractions going on, unless a planned discussion in world, forums will be much easier

[Tolya Ugajin]

17 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

Do you think a discussion is better in SL (real-time typing in a 3d virtual world with body/face emotes, sounds, animations) or the forums (typing in a 2d web page with attachments and no time constraints)? 

Just thinking of the early idea that SL was the future of the internet and if it really can't compete with even a web forum. Is it just apples and oranges? Perhaps a hybrid of the two having the strengths of both that could be made into a new feature for SL.

It's really the same as comparing emailing a coworker to walking down the hall and talking to them in person.  If you want to put a large amount of detailed information or convey a carefully crafted point, without interruption, then email (forums) is a more efficient and effective medium.  If you want to convey more emotion and nuanced meaning in a fluid discussion, then in person (inworld, preferably on voice) is better.  But, you also have to throw in that inworld you can control who is participating in the conversation, whereas here anyone can pile on.

[Talligurl]

This topic has gone on 18 hours so far, people come and go, new people can see what has been said, and respond to that. This sort of thing does not happen in SL, or even in RL.