Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Forum Guidelines Working Group

LOL - I'm not going anywhere. But I do think that there is a difference between disagreeing with someone diplomatically and lovingly and a spontaneous shot from the hip that would likely hurt someone else's feelings for no reason.

Search 'Snark' for more details. I'm calling on all of us to behave ourselves with party manners here. We are in public even if it doesn't feel like it, and we'll never know more than 10% of the true full picture of anyone's post.

I think of this forum as a sort of social experiment. Can adult gifties who grew up without enough peers to really practice their full inheritance of social skills grow to the point where they can disagree without being disagreeable? What about disagreeing with total love? (I say things to people that they don't want to hear on a pretty frequent basis, right?)

Some of us didn't get much chance to develop our intellect, some did. Parenting is an opportunity to develop our 'hearts' - which believe me are as gifted as our intellects. We are making the transition from pouring all that love into our children to being able to pour that love towards everyone we meet. So yes, I do consider this place as a social experiment, as much as a place to share about giftedness. In my mind the two are inseparable.

I can't go to any other Public Gifted Forum - too much talking without listening, too much 'regular life.' So of course I worry that as we grow, this will become like any other place on the Internet.

Maybe we need 'traditions' instead of rules?

If we learn, then so much is worth it, but if we just repeat our habits, then it's going to get hard. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, but I hope I am.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Sometimes there's no way to disagree with someone without hurting feelings. It's the nature of being disagreed with. Sorry, I don't know what you mean by having to disagree "lovingly." Does this mean that from now on, we'll have to couch everything we say in cautious language?

I feel like this thread is an attempt to regulate free speech here, and I just don't like that idea.

Must go.

Maybe we wouldn't have to use cautious language, just up the love quotient in each message. "I disagree with your self-promotion on this board. <3"

I'm generally in favor of free speech. If we have to be loving, which would very likely be nebulously defined, that means we can't even use a touch of sarcasm or risk breaking the rules. Healthy discussion or debate on a topic where people disagree leads naturally IMHO to observations of perceived absurd results of someone else's ideas. One thinks through the implications of what someone else has said, looking for weaknesses one can use to rebut what they've said. Sarcasm in and of itself is wry, not malicious.

I still think a good addition might be a strong suggestion or rule that if you have a problem with someone's conduct on the forum you would ordinarily start with a PM, which need not necessarily be to the moderator. In the recent hullaballoo, I continue to think it's obvious that a poster was promoting her blog. I've gotten agreement via PMs from multiple people who agreed completely with my assessment of the situation, and who thanked me for saying what they were too polite to say. To me this is confirmation that I'm not factually wrong in what I say, but also that others with the same belief were more restrained for a reason: not fear of the moderators here, as it might be on another site, but because they couldn't find a way to address the issue without singling the person out, using language that might be perceived as harsh, etc. They couldn't bring it up openly without risking reproach, or at least the perception that they were in the wrong in some way, by some of the people here. That to me means that a PM was probably in order, as the simplest way to smooth things over and restore order. I don't think anything I said was really wrong in terms of message, but it was wrong because its method of presentation was destined to cause an unnecessary ruckus.

I think my motivation in posting publicly was partly an aversion to using PMs for such things (which I'm rethinking), but also partly because I felt like giving voice to what I thought others must be feeling (as they were). In retrospect it doesn't really help the situation to do that, though; any remediation should be able to be achieved via PM.

And in a PM to a single person whom one perceives to be in the wrong, one might naturally use a bit tamer language for a few reasons (no words chosen in an attempt to openly vent group frustration, convince others to agree, etc.). In a PM including a moderator, one would obviously tend to use toned-down language.

I remain of course wholeheartedly in support of an anti-spam/anti-solicitation rule.

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....th_Skills_Practice_for_4.html#Post107707
I'm such a gossip! Here's the first I heard of it.
I vote free speech. I'm sticking with my hideous analogy of this place as a watering hole. I'm going to quote the "Harvard killed rhetoric" article that I read here lately. Apparently ancient Rome had great debates and great thinkers and great public arguments because people had to find a way to make a better government and a better future. America, was apparently founded so well and so cleverly, that we have not NEEDed great thinkers or arguing, just needed people to implement the plan, so much so that families walk away from arguing over what to watch on tv even.
OTOH, I like that this forum is not crude or crass but it's also for adult conversation, not children. That's a rare combo and I'm digging it. Oy. I can't say what we've lost with Dottie. You say this is for "the public", but the non-regulars that come here are mostly for advice because their kid gotta test and they want a better reading of what it means personally about the kid and their life. There's books and articles for advocacy, acceleration, websites for philosophies and education styles. But who publicly responds to iq letters? Nobody even talks about iq tests and iq numbers like it's a taboo secret. Dottie was a heroic grass-roots effort.

Thank you for posting that link, La Texican.

As someone who is unable to spend as much time on the computer over the summer, I felt like I had walked in on the middle of a conversation when I read the various posts last night. That link explained a lot.

Though I read much more than I post, I have found this forum to be a life line in many ways over the past few years. I'm glad that so many people are thoughtfully considering ways to keep it the welcoming, supportive place I have nearly always found it to be.

I know you are trying to be humerous here, Lucounu, but actually this gets your original point across and it works for me on the level of 'here's what I think, I'm not here to attack anyone.'

I think humor and sarcasm is fine for many of the discussion here, but not all of them. If - for example - a newbie was posting about her child's problems, or about the difficulties of raising toddlers, and it can be percieved that the parent is concerned, then sarcasm doesn't belong in the mix, and humor must be gentle indeed, You've always acted very kind towards OP with a personal question.

In the thread that bothers me the most, a personal appeal drifted into a question of parenting style, and the unspoken rules for a 'general freewheeling - we finally get to talk about this- what a relief- topic' were starting to be followed - in a way that was perceived by the OP as an attack on her parenting style. I think we need to be 'squeaky clean' about starting new threads when a personal appeal drifts into a 'let's spar!' kind of topic.

Maybe that needs to be the tradition - checking to be sure that a personal appeal topic stays closer to the OP's question and the any 'let's spar!' topics that come off of that start their own thread in the Discussion Forum? I think it's ok to mention 'hey! let's talk about thumbsucking' or 'hey, let's talk about teaching kids to apologize of in Discussion Forum!'

I did actually disagree with OP about the thembsucking, but I tried to do it with love, and gentleness. If anyone things that I want a 'only the kind of support where one never disagrees' forum then what does that say about all the 'Trin-Slapping' I do around here?

(Dottie and I call it Trin-Slapping when I lovingly disagree out in the open.) Consistent with my female socialization, I get highly uncomfortable when I disagree openly with someone who has presented themselves in a vulnerable position, but I do have a horror of 'group-think' and the dangers people go blindly into because 'the group' thinks there is no danger, so if I feel it must be done, then I do it.


Isn't that interesting? I agree with your observation Lucounu...but what would be so terrible if we used that same 'toned down' quality on the board? That's basically what I'm asking for.

Lucounu - I think you've shown tremendous grace and lack of defensiveness during these last few days. I often feel as though I've grown as a person while reading your posts - and that's about the highest compliment my mind has!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I personally have noticed there just seems to be more aggressiveness here lately than I remember before. I'm not refering to any one thread, just a general tone.

I agree that making it a tradition to start a new topic for these kinds of side shoots that arise is a good idea. That would also allow those of us who wish to avoid those arguments to do so. I also think that gentle criticism is more likely to be accepted, to be more helpful to the person, than a full-on attack.

Would having it a rule make it easier for people to follow long after this particular thread has been consigned to the depths of cyberspace?

I'm not sure, just putting it out there.

What would you tell somebody they couldn't say? Does it really bother you when people talk about their kids and their families? Obviously other people cringe when posters present themselves like they have an agenda. I cringe when people shut other people up. I cringe when someone posts their story and isn't received how they wanted to be. I also cringe when I feel I've said too much. I cringe when I say the wrong thing, but then I cringe so hard I immediately say something to make it better. A cringe-list ban consideration column has been started on one side of the paper.
On the other side is a vision for the future of the forum. What do you want it to grow into? Endangered are the days when people posted live iq scores, probably the only place it ever happens, just acknowlegement of something that's real. It seems like there's a strong support system for educational advocacy for an appropriate fit from BTDT mothers and archives of articles and studies. I think there's some professors and professionals and others, so, it's nice to talk. There's a lot of nature vs nurture discussions, and interest in discussing designing a better educational structure for the whole country, and biological or emotional gifted traits talks. Maybe that could go in an adult conversation area. Young adults drift through wanting to share their tale, but they don't need a section. They just tell their story once and take off. That's the thing, if you make an adult conversation area they would come here when they should be going to gifted haven. This place is for the parents.

(hanging out with cricket3 over on the sensitive tail of the curve here...)

I registered here nearly three years ago, having lurked for several months at that point; I couldn't believe what I had found here. Nowhere else had I ever seen a online community so warm, so generous, so courteous, so kind--and where people were sensitive enough to each other to step away from areas where hurt might be caused (I only remember two locked threads from the whole first year I was here--just to reaffirm the old cliche about what not to discuss with strangers, one was about religion, and one was about politics!).

For me, it's no longer the same here as it once was (although it still has its wonderful moments), and I neither visit nor post nearly as much as I once did; so many threads go south so quickly. Of course people move on or decide to limit their comments for many different reasons, but I have been for several months missing the voices of so many here who once were regular posters and who were also reliably kind and helpful contributors.

I don't know how useful it is to say how much I miss the good old days, but I do.

peace
minnie

I meant really what would you say? Like, make a list. I almost think instead of the rules saying, "don't compare kid's and brag too much", "don't push an agenda", and "don't try to shut somebody up", maybe it's better to make a clear vision statement of what we do want to create. That's why I mentioned one thing that makes this board completely different than any other is the live posting of test results. It was my first impression and probably most of yours, the list on the side saying s-b 5 results, another Wisc IV question... Now the topic titles look more conversational. Maybe a great place to start would be to more clearly define the topics that are thread-worthy. That would get more milage than micro-managing responses.

For a personal code of conduct rule I know a good compromise. K, I stole it from lucounu and Grinnity before it gets burried. I think it would work for everybody, the sensitive bleeding hearts and Val. Maybe it's because I have small kids but I'm imagining the results can be comical. Maybe, since we're gifted, we could shoot for the moon and make a 100% nobody gets offended consensus rule. It would be a rule that says if somebody sees something cringeworthy in your post they type "Rephrase", then you think for a minute and make another post worded differently. If your heart's softened one or two re-writes will still make your point and concede the others feelings. If it's "one of those things" you might have two people take up 3pgs. on the rephrase rule. It's got potential.