Blog Threads

[Ehelldame]

The policy of this forum that "what happens on the forum, stays on the forum" is meant to preserve that sense of community many of you appreciate.    The blog has its own community with regulars who weigh in every day and there is some cross over between the two communities.  The blog has almost no published rules so the dynamics are different than the forum.  There are people commenting in the blog who are banned from this forum and therefore cannot come here to defend their positions.   If blog topics have become a frequent source of commentary of the forum as has been brought to my attention, and particularly the comments people in the blog community have made, then I will have to rescind the forum policy to allow both communities to discuss each other's opinions.     Fair?   

Think long and hard about this.   I have been very tempted on a few occasions to use some posts in the forum as examples in blog posts but have not.  Conversely, some of those banned individuals who hang around the blog would probably LOVE a chance to comment in the blog about what comments made in the forum. 

[Wonderflonium]

What about this scenario: Someone notices an interesting story on the blog, posts it to the forum, and we discuss it separately from the blog post? If we are commenting ONLY on the story sent in by an anonymous source (as in one recently locked thread) and not on the comments on the blog, it's no different than commenting about the etiquette of a random news story. Is that not allowed, and if not, may I ask why?

[Yvaine]

What about this scenario: Someone notices an interesting story on the blog, posts it to the forum, and we discuss it separately from the blog post? If we are commenting ONLY on the story sent in by an anonymous source (as in one recently locked thread) and not on the comments on the blog, it's no different than commenting about the etiquette of a random news story. Is that not allowed, and if not, may I ask why?

Agreed. This is actually a long-running tradition at ehell--the Etiquette Hell Classics folder was created for this, before the main site posts were in blog format. It's comparable to when we discuss a Dear Prudence column.

[WillyNilly]

I think its redundant to have two conversations going on about the same thing.  Comments on the blog are comments on the blog - they are strictly moderated, and they are almost all always directed back to the original story, etc.  Whereas on the forum, its more of a discussion, with the topic often drifting, the OP participating, providing feedback & more info, etc, and comments moderated very differently.

I think its almost always impossible too, to keep from having the blog comments influence the conversation if we move a topic over to the forum.

And with the info that banned-from-the-forum folks are commenting on the blogs, it seems a bit unfair to essentially take their topics as our own.  Banned folks can still read what we are writing on the forums even if they can't participate, so it comes across as very "ha ha we could participate with you all but we'd rather have our own private conversation you can know about but that you can't participate in!  Oh but we might still butt into your conversation too, cause yours is public but ours is exclusive!" 

When we have duplicate threads on the forums one is generally shut down or left to die - like if someone reads an outrageous Dear Abby and posts it in Life in General and then someone else posts it in Entertaining, someone will say "there's already a thread on this" - well the same with blog posts being reposted - there's already a place to comment on this: the blog.

[Wonderflonium]

I think its almost always impossible too, to keep from having the blog comments influence the conversation if we move a topic over to the forum.

Well, we just recently had a thread about a blog post and not one person mentioned anything about the comments. Even when I read the blog, I tend not to read the comments, and I know some other people are that way as well. I certainly don't feel the blog comments are conducive to conversation; the delay in posting that results from moderation leads to heavy overlap.

And with the info that banned-from-the-forum folks are commenting on the blogs, it seems a bit unfair to essentially take their topics as our own.  Banned folks can still read what we are writing on the forums even if they can't participate, so it comes across as very "ha ha we could participate with you all but we'd rather have our own private conversation you can know about but that you can't participate in!  Oh but we might still butt into your conversation too, cause yours is public but ours is exclusive!" 

I... I don't even know what to say about this. Something like this would never occur to me in a million years, and I honestly can't believe other people would think it either. I guess I just don't think people are vindictive and exclusionary in general.

[Cat-Fu]

I think it's quite fair to put the kibosh on discussing the comments on the blog here. I admit, though, I haven't really seen anyone do so (not that I read every thread, lol!)

I do like to read the discussions here about the archives and blog posts—discussion on a forum has much more of a "community" feel than commenting on a blog. (Not to mention, blog comments in general have a tendency to be far too repetitive for my tastes.)

I imagine that those who were banned were banned for good reason, so I'm not really getting the "neener neener" vibe. It's their own fault that they can't join the "exclusive club," that is, post on the forum any more.

[MariaE]

I agree with Wonderflonium. I hardly ever comment on the blog because I simply don't think it's a forum that leads well to back-and-forth conversation, and honestly I'm just not interested in just leaving my opinion and then moving on. I love the conversations we have here, and haven't had any good experiences with that on most blogs. The thought that I would be excluding people by bringing it up here rather than on the blog would never in a million years cross my mind. I would post it here because I prefer the discussions on this site - end of story, no other reason.

I didn't see any difference between the locked thread and the hundreds of threads in the Etiquette Classics folder, and those all seem to be alright.

I completely agree that it's fair to put a ban on discussing comments though! It should be blog post and blog post only. The blog post may or may not include the admin's commentary though - that's still part of the blog post, even if it's not part of the submission. After all, when discussing Dear Abby etc. we discuss both the question and the answer.

I imagine that those who were banned were banned for good reason, so I'm not really getting the "neener neener" vibe. It's their own fault that they can't join the "exclusive club," that is, post on the forum any more.

Agreed.

[Yvaine]

I agree with Wonderflonium. I hardly ever comment on the blog because I simply don't think it's a forum that leads well to back-and-forth conversation, and honestly I'm just not interested in just leaving my opinion and then moving on. I love the conversations we have here, and haven't had any good experiences with that on most blogs. The thought that I would be excluding people by bringing it up here rather than on the blog would never in a million years cross my mind. I would post it here because I prefer the discussions on this site - end of story, no other reason.

I didn't see any difference between the locked thread and the hundreds of threads in the Etiquette Classics folder, and those all seem to be alright.

I completely agree that it's fair to put a ban on discussing comments though! It should be blog post and blog post only. The blog post may or may not include the admin's commentary though - that's still part of the blog post, even if it's not part of the submission. After all, when discussing Dear Abby etc. we discuss both the question and the answer.

True. And sometimes even disagree with it--I can think of threads where we thought Abby was off base or Prudie misunderstood the question.

I see the blog as kind of similar to an advice column--people write in anonymously to Ehelldame, she advises them or comments on the story, and just like a newspaper column, there are comments underneath, but the real "meat" of the post is the letter and the answer. The moderation, while I understand the need for it, leads to a lot of repetition in comments as everybody's posting the same thing without knowing there are 50 identical comments waiting in the queue.

[WillyNilly]

I just think the nature of the postings is different though. On the forum the original poster is around; its a dialog. On the blog people might just submitt and that's it. So to then discuss it (vs just commenting on it) I think is changing the nature of the type of submision the OP wanted when originally submitting the story.

[sourwolf]

I'm a little confused.  If people have been banned how are they able to comment on the blog posts? Doesn't that kind of negate the point of banning them?

[stargazer]

I just think the nature of the postings is different though. On the forum the original poster is around; its a dialog. On the blog people might just submitt and that's it. So to then discuss it (vs just commenting on it) I think is changing the nature of the type of submision the OP wanted when originally submitting the story.

But we do that all the time in the Classics folder. 

I totally agree with Yvaine and Wonderflonium.

[Wonderflonium]

I just think the nature of the postings is different though. On the forum the original poster is around; its a dialog. On the blog people might just submitt and that's it. So to then discuss it (vs just commenting on it) I think is changing the nature of the type of submision the OP wanted when originally submitting the story.

We do that with other advice columns all the time. If the forums aren't supposed to reference the blog and vice versa, why are they linked?

[Ehelldame]

I'm a little confused.  If people have been banned how are they able to comment on the blog posts? Doesn't that kind of negate the point of banning them?

Because the blog is a different environment that I personally manage all content and comments.  There tends to be a lot less interpersonal drama among the blog commentators and if there is, I nip it in the bud immediately.  They tend to stick to the subject of the discussion and do not typically deviate into other areas.   Each blog post is like a separate thread a day...just one as opposed to hundreds of new topics that appear every day here.

It might be an interesting blog topic to ask them what they think of topics on the blog being discussed in the forum, an area some of them choose not to participate in or cannot due to being banned. 

[Moray]

I guess that's why I don't understand the objections to discussing blog posts (not the comments) here. The comments on the blog are individually approved and therefore don't have the same "flow of discussion" as we have here in the forum. That flow of discussion is valuable. It's the reason we're here.

Discussing a blog post here is no different than discussing a Miss Manners, Dear Prudence, or other any other "etiquette maven's" column.

[sourwolf]

I'm a little confused.  If people have been banned how are they able to comment on the blog posts? Doesn't that kind of negate the point of banning them?

Because the blog is a different environment that I personally manage all content and comments.  There tends to be a lot less interpersonal drama among the blog commentators and if there is, I nip it in the bud immediately.  They tend to stick to the subject of the discussion and do not typically deviate into other areas.   Each blog post is like a separate thread a day...just one as opposed to hundreds of new topics that appear every day here.

It might be an interesting blog topic to ask them what they think of topics on the blog being discussed in the forum, an area some of them choose not to participate in or cannot due to being banned.

Thanks for the explanation.  I agree that could be an interesting blog post, I wonder if knowing some of the blog posts are discussed on the forum would be an impetus for them to join the forum? I admit that I haven't spent a lot of time reading the blog because I've found the forum to be so interesting but I will definitely have to check it out!