Feedback

Ahoi Hoi!

As many of you know I've been an active contributor to the OP from its conception and though I've taken a few hiatuses from the site, I still find this place to be one to the best discussion boards for otherkin theory. I just wanted to give a little feedback since that's the title of this forum.

I am absolutely appauled at Freetha's behaviour on the "So What About Them Deities" thread in the Otherkin General forum. Calling people 'twats' and 'assholes' (whether they deserve the monikers or not) is not something I enjoy seeing on a board that prides itself on mature and conscious discussion. I am completely offended by her attitude and I wanted to point it out for whatever means because I think its disgusting, and that it shows a complete lack of respect towards the members of the OP. Freetha is entitled to her opinions but this is not an R rated forum and there are younger members here to explore their kinside. This type of judgemental and vulgar language sets a bad example for this site and I personally do not want to be associated with those types of statements.

On a different note, I think the website is looking really good and I hope that we get some more articles up there soon! Maybe even some new art! *waggles eyebrows*

Anyway, that's my feedback.

Viva la OP,
TaiTai

thank you for your feedback! please report offending posts, the mods don't see everything. <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s -->

Taiaka Wrote:I am absolutely appauled at Freetha's behaviour on the "So What About Them Deities" thread in the Otherkin General forum. Calling people 'twats' and 'assholes' (whether they deserve the monikers or not) is not something I enjoy seeing on a board that prides itself on mature and conscious discussion.

Before anyone discusses the nitty gritty . . . I just (unfortunately!) read through the whole topic again in the process of replying to it, and I noticed that I did not see Freetha call anyone twats or assholes. In case I missed it I hit the search and I don't see the term "asshole" in there anywhere. Regarding "twats", he didn't use this to insult anyone either - in fact the only comment was:

Quote:And claiming that you're claiming not to be awesome in the same post as you claim to be "an" incarnation of a god seems like a right piece of purposely constructed countradiction trying to make yourself look like a little less than the usual "look at how special I am!!!" nutbar that walks into the otherkin circles. It makes you come off as a right twat.

Now this may be a matter of culture and vocabulary, and pure subjective opinion, BUT - it seems to me in this, Freetha is not saying "you are a twat" but rather, "if you behave in this way it seems like you are trying to moderate people's opinions of you, which in turn makes you look like a twat."

"Twat" as used in British English is, depending on context, a slang noun that means "idiot" ("That guy is a complete twat") or a slang verb meaning "hit" ("I say we get out there and twat it!"). Freetha is not a native English speaker and I don't know what brand of English he speaks, but in context, it seems to me that "idiot" makes a lot more sense for the meaning than "female genitals", which would just be . . . strange.

Now - from what I can gather your complaint is that Freetha called people twats and assholes and this is not appropriate. I want to hasten to point out that this has not actually been discussed yet, and as such all I am doing is asking for some clarification. First of all, where did Freetha call someone an asshole? I can't find it in the thread you mentioned. Second of all, where did Freetha call someone a twat (as all he said was, paraphrased "If you do this it makes you look like a twat" - which is very different). Finally, when you complain about the use of "twat" is it in the sense of "idiot" (and as such it would be synonymous with prat, and possibly eejit or buckeejit) or another sense?

Thanks for your time.

Two side notes though: 1) "fanny", I gather, means "backside" in American English. In the UK, to put it mildly, it does not. This caused hilarity for us all over here in an episode of Galactica 1980 in which one (male) hick threatens another (female) hick by saying he will "Kick your fanny!" Even as a small child I thought that was extremely criminal <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt=":P" title="Razz" /><!-- s -->

2) Aren't you all so glad I'm back and more than that, can type again <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s -->

Guess who Archer has brought back with her <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s -->

Regardless, a quick response to this. On a personal note, it comes off as bad form to me to start off one's argument against another member by promoting one's involvement within the community, especially since the level of involvement one has in a community tends to be self evident. To make the point clear with an extreme example: "Hi, I'm from one the chief contributors to your political campaign - and I do not agree with this current law up to be passed.." It gives the impression (connotation, not denotation) that one expects different treatment depending on their level of involvement within the community.

Second is that I do not feel that this tread is in the proper area of the forum, yes it says "Feedback" but in the description of the subforum,it states it is about bugs and general feedback on the site/forum has a whole, but of it's members, or it's people. In fact, they have a system in which one can report offensive posts to the proper people (as I have done), without needing to drag it out into the public for all to see (violation of rule 4?), one would think a high contributor to the community to be familiar with the little ! button.

Third, as I touched on in the previous post, I find this rather (read very) offensive, that one feels the need to target a member, then start a thread targeting that member and drawing attention how the poster feels appalled about the behaviour of this person, even by name. I've caught some flak about how I post from some, but I wouldn't even do this.

While I am inclined to leave the post be and let it resolve itself I do think I should clarify a couple of points.

-I made a point out of using terms and words that which, in my understanding, are pg-13.
-I didn't "call" anyone an "asshole" nor a twat, I pointed out that the choice in behavior and words were contradictory and gave off the impression that the person choosing to behave and word themselves in that manner was indeed doing it for rather underhanded or unintelligent reasons.

I'll admit that I chose to be a bit more harsh than I previously have been. I've recently become entirely fed up with the common otherkin behavior of choosing to accept whatever claim they are faced with, all in the name of keeping the piece. In my opinion it is far more disrespectful towards all otherkin to dumb us down to a conglamoration of sycophants who won't stand up and point out that the information offered seems innately flawed due to the fear of ruffling people's feathers. I've mentioned that behavioral problem before and recently it's gotten me to the point where I don't feel bothered to add a "no offense" clause to every word I write down.

I feel, yet again, that people have been choosing to decide "how" I mean what I write down instead of reading what I wrote as what I mean.
I will thus say it again. I write what I mean, as I mean it. If I meant to be sarcastic, I'd add a (/sarcasm) at the end. I would appreciate it if people stopped putting words in my mouth.

And in case you decide to imply or even state that that's what I'm doing here, then you should know, there's a difference between stating that X looks like he's behaving in a Y manner and stating that X is being Y.

I thank you all for your feedback of my feedback. Its just one woman's opinion; means nothing in the grand scheme of things. I didn't start out by assuming any sort of different treatment by saying I'm a long time contributor, simply stating a fact. I'm glad there are conflicting opinions and walls of defence going up. I got nothing against Freetha, I didn't call her out, I called out my opinion of her. Pick it apart as you see fit, honestly, it doesn't change the fact that its just one woman's opinion. I have no intention of stressing out over this, you shouldn't either.

Speaking for myself, I'm not "stressing" at all - but I would quite like a response to the points I raised.

This section here, in case you missed it in my wall of text:

Quote:Now - from what I can gather your complaint is that Freetha called people twats and assholes and this is not appropriate. I want to hasten to point out that this has not actually been discussed yet, and as such all I am doing is asking for some clarification. First of all, where did Freetha call someone an asshole? I can't find it in the thread you mentioned. Second of all, where did Freetha call someone a twat (as all he said was, paraphrased "If you do this it makes you look like a twat" - which is very different). Finally, when you complain about the use of "twat" is it in the sense of "idiot" (and as such it would be synonymous with prat, and possibly eejit or buckeejit) or another sense?

Yeah, the old "I said you are acting like an idiot, not that you are an idiot." I'm married, I've had the argument about a million times. And, unfortunately, this is an English speaking board so that whole, "oh, she may not know what twat means." is not an excuse. The rules say be respectful, to do unto others. Well, I would not like to be done unto by Freetha. That was my point. And I'm not going to go surfing through the thread to find the exact point where she used the word asshole, if she even did. Let's stick to twat, asshole I can deal with- hell, you're a mod and you hurl it around freely. *shrugs* And just remember, I'm not on trial here, Arch.

Taiaka Wrote:Yeah, the old "I said you are acting like an idiot, not that you are an idiot." I'm married, I've had the argument about a million times.

I'm not sure what point you're making. Regardless, saying "you are an idiot" and "you are acting like an idiot" are two very different things. Roughly, one characterises a person, the other characterises behaviour.

Everyone is capable of acting like an idiot and everyone is capable of acting in a very wise manner - it doesn't say anything about the nature of the person to say that one behaviour has a negative characteristic.

Quote:And, unfortunately, this is an English speaking board so that whole, "oh, she may not know what twat means." is not an excuse.

Nor was that excuse used by me, Freetha, or anyone else. I clearly said that in British English, "twat" is not obscene or vulgar and is a very mild term. I am aware that in the USA it is a slang term for female genitals and as such somewhat offensive - but in British English the term is not swearing or rude. I don't know what category of English Freetha speaks, but I do know that in context "idiot" is a much more likely translation than "female genitals". As such it makes sense to believe that Freetha was using the term "twat" in the British English sense of "idiot", and not the offensive American English sense.

This is indeed an English speaking site. It is not, however, an American English speaking site - I do not believe there is a specification anywhere as to which dialect of English is the "official" one. Some terms mean something different in American English, British English, Indian English, Australian English . . . I don't think it makes sense to either hold everyone to standards of American English, regardless of which brand of English they speak, or alternatively to assume that every word with more than one meaning is being used in the most offensive sense.

Quote:The rules say be respectful, to do unto others. Well, I would not like to be done unto by Freetha. That was my point. And I'm not going to go surfing through the thread to find the exact point where she used the word asshole, if she even did. Let's stick to twat, asshole I can deal with- hell, you're a mod and you hurl it around freely. *shrugs* And just remember, I'm not on trial here, Arch.

Hold on . . . you made a public post in which you accuse Freetha of calling people "twats" and "assholes" in a specific topic. You say you are appalled at this. Are you now saying you agree that Freetha did *not* call anyone an "asshole" in that topic, and as such your accusation was just . . . false?

Re me hurling around "asshole" freely, I just did a quick search. Aside from this thread, where I have used the term only in context of referring to what people have said on the forum (I have not used it to describe anyone), do I hurl the term around?

In the public parts of this forum, and not including this thread, I see the word "asshole" used in only seven posts.

Vantalus uses it twice in one post to refer to asshole guys v nice guys. There is nothing offensive about the term there that I can see, and he does not refer to any specific person as an asshole.

In the same thread BlissfulIsis uses the word again, in the same context of a "nice guy who knows how to be a complete asshole".

In one thread, Chaitea quotes a description of the comic book series that includes a character believing God is an asshole. This is closer to offensive because it is directed at a specific person, but even then it is not Chaitea's opinion - rather a blurb-writer's rendering of a fictional character's opinion.

In one thread - NOT the one you complained about here - Freetha says that if he was Lucifer, he would not publically admit it, because people would think he was an asshole. Again, he is not calling anyone an asshole - rather saying that in a hypothetical situation, he would seem like an asshole. Nothing offensive.

In one thread I use the term once, relating to what might motivate a potential internet predator. The term is directed at a specific person but a hypothetical one - in an "if he does X for Y reason, he's an asshole" kind of manner. Is it offensive, vulgar, or over the top to use a very slightly graphical insult to describe an internet predator? I don't think so.

In another thread I use the term again, referring to general people I know, in the sense of "someone I trust didn't like people X Y and Z, but it later turned out they were in some way assholes". This is not an insult directed at the individuals, and the moderating clause "in some way" makes it clear that the term is not absolute anyway. If you want to know whether or not the term was appropriate (as opposed to excessive), then let me know and I will gladly PM you a one line outline of each person I referred to.

Which leaves us to your use of the term, from the monster Community Notice thread: "You can't make someone respect you but you can hope they respect themselves enough not to come off as an asshole." Again I do not consider this excessive or vulgar, but simply that you thought it was a concise term to describe a (parly hypothetical) subset of users.




So to summarise . . . you accuse Freetha of calling people "assholes" in a specific thread. A quick perusal of the thread shows that Freetha did no such thing, and in fact used the term only once, and referring to himself, not to other people. You refer to me hurling the word around, but in fact I have used it in public threads other than this one (which obviously skews the statistics) only twice, compared to your once. Hardly hurling it around freely.

Freetha has just now confirmed to me that he used the term "twat" in the British English sense of the word and as such it is no more offensive than "chump" or "eejit". Is there anything more to answer there? I mean your complaints were that he called people twats (which simply means "idiot" and nothing more offensive than that) and assholes (which he clearly didn't), so why in the world are we even having this conversation?



You are quite right to say you are not on trial, but if you want to invoke a legal metaphor, you are the complaining witness: in other words someone who accuses someone else of some wrongdoing. For you to assume Freetha's use of "twat" was offensive is probably nothing more than believing your dialect of English is universal - but for you to accuse Freetha of calling people an "asshole" in a specific thread, when he did not call anyone an asshole anywhere, would in fact be perjury.

Archer Wrote:

Taiaka Wrote:I am absolutely appauled at Freetha's behaviour on the "So What About Them Deities" thread in the Otherkin General forum. Calling people 'twats' and 'assholes' (whether they deserve the monikers or not) is not something I enjoy seeing on a board that prides itself on mature and conscious discussion.

Before anyone discusses the nitty gritty . . . I just (unfortunately!) read through the whole topic again in the process of replying to it, and I noticed that I did not see Freetha call anyone twats or assholes. In case I missed it I hit the search and I don't see the term "asshole" in there anywhere.

You need to be more creative with your searches as a very similar term was used by the aforementioned individual (presumably a compound word starting with s, ending with d and I'm sure you can fill in the rest). It just wasn't used in the method that it was claimed (at least when taken out of context). Given the context of the thread, I can understand how this would be construed this way upon quickly skimming the thread.

Just giving my two cents since the mods left this thread open for us all to comment on.