Venty, ranty, blow off the steam posts

[Scuba_Dog]

Honestly, I really can't stand the sagas. Those seem MUCH more like rants to me than posting about a random encounter that made you angry. A random encounter could be excused with the heat of the moment or posting while upset, but these sagas show that the person is setting out to find instances where the person acted incorrectly so that they can gleefully go tattle about them on Ehell. Now, all sagas don't fall under this heading for me. The poster with the PM stories (I'm sorry, I'm blanking on which "Mom" it is Tongue) was facing a problem she was actually involved in and truly needed advice, even though it was a repeat character. However, some poster have weekly or biweekly stories that are simply "Person X did this!" or "The tale of Person X and the whatever". There's no question and there's no advice sought or needed. Sometimes, the poster isn't even INVOLVED in the story. They're simply tattling about someone else's behaviour for pure entertainment reasons and to laugh at someone's else antics. I find it often crosses the line into highschool-ism (to completely fabricate a word).

ITA, well said.  I feel the same way.

[cass2591]

I also fail to see that happening with some of the threads on this forum. For instance, the repeat ones of a certain person who always acts wrong. The threads don't seem to be started for any other reason than to vent about the latest indiscretion the person committed, and no etiquette question is asked.

I agree with Kingsrings.  Those ongoing sagas with no related etiquette question seem to be tacitly sanctioned -- yet other threads pointing out foibles and faux pas are summarily locked as rants or vents.  How is the distinction made?  Often it seems to depend on the popularity of the OP rather than the validity of the initial post.  

Not saying that I mind reading the sagas but perhaps the forum folders should be more finely distinguished between those seeking an actual etiquette discussion and those who simply desire rel@tionship/marital/interpersonal advice or a place to blow off steam about personal woes.

BD, your implication that there is favoritism on this board is extremely insulting. We will and have banned people regardless of their popularity.

I often wonder why you continue to post here since you seem to have so much antipathy toward the moderation.

[Nannerdoman]

Some of the "sagas" are continuing, such as Roe's situation with her husband's SIL.  The etiquette dilemmas change as the situation continues.

Besides, some posters get emotionally attached to the people caught in these situations and want to continue to offer advice and support.

And some posters with very long-running sagas--the one who was dealing with her mother's estate and her two sisters--get banned.  In that case, it was for an unrelated infraction of the E-Hell rules.  So I don't see that any favoritism is involved.

[kingsrings]

I don’t think the mods are practicing any favoritism at all with certain posters. I think we are all moderated the same way and nobody has any pull over anyone else.

I just don’t see that some of these venty threads are about etiquette at all, they’re just: “Now look what ____ has done!!”, with no etiquette question or advice asked. And then they turn into a thread where everyone is just insulting and dumping on the subject of the thread. Yet these threads are allowed.

[Marietta]

I'm rather new here, so take my perspective with a large block of salt.

The purpose of this forum can be a little confusingly torn between entertainment and education/self-improvement in that, as far as I can tell and most commentary I've seen around the Internet seems to interpret it, the main site is essentially about entertainment. One can certainly learn a lot and gain comfort in one's relative fortunes or etiquette skills, but a lot of it is simply a collection of humorous stories that people are getting off their chests in a way that might entertain or amuse others.

While I do find that essentially posting things for communal pointing and laughing tends to come off in a harsher manner in a forum than in a blog/webpage format, most people haven't initially come to Ehell for edification, and the forum certainly contains plenty of serious etiquette debate and commentary (and heaps of fabulous advice! Thanks, Ehell! ), but it's a spinoff of a site with only a small explicit advice component and seems to have developed as a more in-depth adjunct to it rather than a strictly instructional source.

[Ehelldame]

Those ongoing sagas with no related etiquette question seem to be tacitly sanctioned -- yet other threads pointing out foibles and faux pas are summarily locked as rants or vents.  How is the distinction made?  Often it seems to depend on the popularity of the OP rather than the validity of the initial post.  

With as many as 1700+ posts a day to this forum, the moderation is only as good as the reporting of potential problem threads and posts by concerned members.  If there is any favoritism, the culpability for it first lies directly with people who fail to bring these issues to moderator attention via the report link yet who publicly whine of the moderation being flawed in some way. 

[Shores]

Those ongoing sagas with no related etiquette question seem to be tacitly sanctioned -- yet other threads pointing out foibles and faux pas are summarily locked as rants or vents.  How is the distinction made?  Often it seems to depend on the popularity of the OP rather than the validity of the initial post.  

With as many as 1700+ posts a day to this forum, the moderation is only as good as the reporting of potential problem threads and posts by concerned members.  If there is any favoritism, the culpability for it first lies directly with people who fail to bring these issues to moderator attention via the report link yet who publicly whine of the moderation being flawed in some way. 

May I ask what the official ruling is on these types of sagas? Where there is clearly no question (or REAL question, I've seen some people throw a "so, what do I say next time?" or that "Was I really rude to say 'please don't eat my dog'" type "questions" at the end) and the person is simply posting repeated stories to point out a certain person's issues?

[GertrudeMcFuzz]

I don’t think the mods are practicing any favoritism at all with certain posters. I think we are all moderated the same way and nobody has any pull over anyone else.
 

It is human nature to favor the known over the unknown, and believe it does occasionally happen on this board. A current example is a new-ish member who posted in the I Need a Hug folder and used the word "rant" in her title. It was locked after just one reply, but the post was no different than other posts in that folder with "So Angry!!" and similar titles from more established members.

[DottyG]

Is that what happened?  I was wondering what the sticking point on that one was.

[The Opinionator]

I don’t think the mods are practicing any favoritism at all with certain posters. I think we are all moderated the same way and nobody has any pull over anyone else.
 

It is human nature to favor the known over the unknown, and believe it does occasionally happen on this board. A current example is a new-ish member who posted in the I Need a Hug folder and used the word "rant" in her title. It was locked after just one reply, but the post was no different than other posts in that folder with "So Angry!!" and similar titles from more established members.

This has been discussed before and cass addressed it in this thread: http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=58506.0 . I don't believe it was an example of the mods being unfair to a new poster, just of them trying to enforce a rule that has been up for a long time. 

[Drunken Housewife]

The sagas usually drive me crazy, because they do, to me, seem like gossip and not like etiquette issues.  (Of course, there are exceptions to that).

I personally am not a fan of them in general.  I find it especially irritating when people start them out saying something like, "Person X struck again!  I'm not going to bother telling you the backstory--- look it up."  We haven't all memorized all these characters, and some of them are not really all that compelling ("Dresser Queen" stuck out as a memorable character, and I did love those stories, but most of the others seem pretty unmemorable.  I have a vivid mental picture, complete with voice & accent, for Dresser Queen). 

I feel like a lot of people here want to have the success of having a character like Dresser Queen or the "racist bagels" HOA neighbor whose exploits of rudeness will be legendary and who will be asked after.  Sometimes though the person they are serially complaining about just isn't that interesting or spectacularly rude, and it just comes across as venting.

All this is just my personal opinion, of course.

[T'Mar of Vulcan]

I personally am not a fan of them in general.  I find it especially irritating when people start them out saying something like, "Person X struck again!  I'm not going to bother telling you the backstory--- look it up."  We haven't all memorized all these characters, and some of them are not really all that compelling ...
I feel like a lot of people here want to have the success of having a character like Dresser Queen ... Sometimes though the person they are serially complaining about just isn't that interesting or spectacularly rude, and it just comes across as venting.
All this is just my personal opinion, of course.

I don't mind them if the person posts links to the other posts they've made. But when they start off like in your example without providing links or any background, then I think to myself, "Why should I go and try to find your old posts? If you want people to read your thread, you need to provide them with all the pertinent information." Then I don't read that thread again.

I sometimes wonder if the idea of the success of having a character like Dresser Queen won't compell some people to make up characters just so they can have people hanging on to their every word and posting one line messages ("Just posting for the updates! Me too!") that keep the thread going. I'm not saying anyone has done this - I'm saying it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone might do it. Actually, wasn't there a thread last year (?) in which someone posted about a co-worker switching her drink to try and kill her? I think that was found out to be false.

[wordgirl]

I believe characters like StoneCold, K'nnihave, Daisy and DQ - to name a few obvious examples - are extremely rare in this world, and that is a very good thing. It's a special combination of rude plus self-deluded/downright crazy that makes these stories memorable and believable, and reading about them is both entertaining and IMO, germane to the purposes of this forum, because while most of us may not have people like these in our lives every day, it's good to see how they can be dealt with when we encounter them fleetingly.

In the context of an extremely stressful family situation, I met someone recently who - if I were in constant contact with her for the rest of my life - could very well be a recurring character here. She was that overwhelmingly clueless, overbearing and devoid of understanding of the basic rules of human interaction.  Knock wood, I will never see this person again - but I was better prepared to recognize her quickly for what she was and set firm boundaries because I read about people just like her.

I do think DrunkenHousewife has a very good point when she says that many posters here would like to have a "recurring character" to post about. What they aren't picking up on is the very real frustration, insult and pain these characters inflict, on an ongoing basis. I remember Balletmom posting about her daughter's former best friend and it was just so clear to me that this young woman was inflicting enormous pain on Balletmom's daughter and, of course, that hurt Balletmom as well. I hope posting about it helped Balletmom deal with that pain a little while helping us too ... but I don't want to have that kind of stress in my life, nor do I want to work for an insane person (Yarnspinner) have a clueless, vain MIL (Aeris) or an openly hostile neighbor (Marina).

And then I think, I could very easily turn one (or both) of my bosses into a recurring character on EHell by recording every foible and misdeed. But the overarching reality is they are both pretty loyal, fair and upstanding people ... who happen to have a few quirks. In other words, they're human beings. I think it is important to keep that in mind and not "sacrifice" someone who really doesn't deserve it for the sake of gaining followers on a message board ... and a few times, posts (not the ones I mentioned above)  have come across as so ranty that I wonder how they could possibly be fair.

[Aeris]

I'm very hesitant to speak up in this debate, for what may be obvious reasons... I'll say right out that if sagas are considered against the forum rules, then I'll stop posting about my MIL and SIL - I will certainly abide by whatever the rules of the forum are.

But I'm not entirely sure I understand the problem. If the point is that *some* saga posts can potentially fall afoul of the pre-existing rule against vents/rants, then I can understand that. But surely the saga posts are no more guilty of that than others? It doesnt seem to be that it being part of a recurrent character is what would make it problematic (any more than it being part of a recurrent character saves it from being problematic).

I will point out that, a few times, I have thought my bias on my own recurrents was getting the best of me, and tried to post anonymously and mask the relationships. I few times I got away with it, and got good discussion, and a few times I actually got called on the carpet by people, and pretty directly by at least one very senior/respected member of this board for being 'secretive' about who the post was really about. So then I worried that if the story did happen to be about Daisy, or Princess Sunshine, and I didn't say that at the beginning, I'd be doing something wrong.

I will admit though, that I do know that in the past there have been times when I've been in a hysterical mindframe regarding Princess Sunshine. People on this forum have been extremely helpful in helping me get my head straight when I feel like I'm really losing it about her, even telling me that I'm being way too involved, way to emotional, way too invested, and way too worried about her eventually happiness. I've been given numerous, EXTREMELY helpful, 'bobs on the nose', so to speak, that have really helped me realign my thought patterns to a high degree. It usually seems to follow a pattern of "Ack - SIL did amazing rude, hurtful thing and I'm LOSING MY MIND" "<BOP> Straighten up! Don't her have that power over you. Take the high road, be the adult here, and walk with your head held high." It *is* etiquette advice, because what I want to do is strangle her in front of 22 witness, but it's far more polite to smile faintly and bean dip.

I don't know... I would be very interested to see the mods and the Dame's take on this.

[wordgirl]

I will admit though, that I do know that in the past there have been times when I've been in a hysterical mindframe regarding Princess Sunshine. People on this forum have been extremely helpful in helping me get my head straight when I feel like I'm really losing it about her, even telling me that I'm being way too involved, way to emotional, way too invested, and way too worried about her eventually happiness. I've been given numerous, EXTREMELY helpful, 'bobs on the nose', so to speak, that have really helped me realign my thought patterns to a high degree. It usually seems to follow a pattern of "Ack - SIL did amazing rude, hurtful thing and I'm LOSING MY MIND" "<BOP> Straighten up! Don't her have that power over you. Take the high road, be the adult here, and walk with your head held high." It *is* etiquette advice, because what I want to do is strangle her in front of 22 witness, but it's far more polite to smile faintly and bean dip.

Yep, this is exactly what I was trying to say from the other side. (I used Daisy 'cause I couldn't remember Princess Sunshine.)

Your posts were entertaining because you are a very good writer and you are able to keep a certain detachment even when you're being driven insane. At the same time, I never got the idea that you were "playing it" for entertainment value. You were genuinely frustrated, listened to the advice people had to offer and gave feedback on what you did and how it worked - which pushed your posts beyond entertaining into the realm of useful and informative.