The subconscious effect of "Critical Thinking"

[the_arch0wl]

I have had to answer to this request.. about two or three times on my site. When I originally said no, I had a theory of why I didn't want to add it and I would like to bring this up right now.

The idea is that if you have one forum that is, fundamentally, a "serious" forum, the rest of it becomes "nonserious" or "less serious". I don't think the inverse applies because I have seen many a forum with your standard "be a jackass" board leak out its ethics onto the rest of the site.

Many individuals would respond to this with quotes like "the internet is serious business" but I think that just makes my points more legitimate. On the internet, you have significantly more time to craft a reply, unless it is in a chatroom. You should conform to a higher standard of intelligence and thought, as opposed to what you would use in a real-life conversation, not lower. A side note, most of the people who utter comments like "INTERNET = SERIOUS BUSINESS" in a manner implying that the internet is to be taken with utmost disregard are usually people who spend a significant amount of time on the internet themselves. If they are going to treat virtual socialization with such a condescending tone, shouldn't they be doing it less? Anyways, enough of that..

A "serious board".. is much like putting on a certain "behavior mask" like children are forced to do at a young age, when their parents are meeting with someone important. I think that the concept of this infringes on the intelligence of normal forum conversation because instead of thinking at a particular standard all the time, they are thinking at a higher standard sometimes and a lower standard the majority of the time. While a "serious board" may produce a more thought-out post than normal... let me try to exemplify this. Let's say the average critical thinking topic makes a user think, on a thinking scale of 1-10, a 9 of how hard they thought about it. Let's say the average Garbage Bin Topic is a 3 and the average Chit-Chat topic is a 6. This is hypothetical. Would it not be better to have mostly 7.5 or 8s by removing behavior masks completely?

I subsconsciously feel that there are holes in my post that I did not cover, but I cannot think of them right now as I am exceedingly sleepy and wrote this thread on the spur of the moment. I am apologizing in advance.

[Tps222]

I agree in the fact that TGB behavior is leaking out onto the rest of the site, but it shouldn't be changed. Some people just want to use the internet to escape from the seriousness of real life. On here, you can act like a jackass, and have minimal consequences in return. In real life, a lot of bad things could happen. No one wants to be excluded, it's not fun and we would lose people that way. That is why we have forums for every style and intelligence level. I'll think more on this later,.

[nforcer06164]

Well, there's a reason for the separation. I mean, we have a place for the "garbage," hence being called "The Garbage Bin." It's just a place to goof off and have fun. Chit-Chat is for normal discussion, and Critical Thinking is for those "higher-thinking" topics. Removing the separation would flood all of it together. A lot of stuff that would otherwise get attention would be easily missed because of everything getting clumped together. You don't want FFR looking like DDRFreak, right?

[Neonatrias]

The only problem is that with a forum of this size, there has to be some kind of separation. If you watch the G-Bin for a day, there are sometimes two or three entire pages of new topics posted within that span of 24 hours. Since none of them are really of much significance, it works out fine.

Couple that with the topics in the Chit-Chat section. That adds another few posts per day, and not much. However, they do raise some serious issues at some times. The problem is that they'd be lost within the trash of the G-Bin posts.

Now add in the Critical Thinking. There are only maybe two or three topics every few days that are posted. These topics discuss issues affecting the world, or possibly individual people. They would be quickly lost.

On a more mature forum (By this, I mean age-wise...There are a lot of people posting on FFR who shouldn't be) it might work. But the normal impulse is to pay attention to the funny topics -- the ones which make you laugh and feel good about yourself. CT topics tend to be long, hypothetical, and sometimes very mundane.

[Pumble]

There are a lot of reasons why people use the internet. Some people like discussing important issues with others in an environment where you have plenty of time to think about what you're going to say, but a lot like to use it as a way to vent some frustration and forget about real life for a while. Most of the people who don't like to think a lot about their posts don't bother going into CT anyways, because while most of them can respect the people who do have an interest in the forum, they find it boring and too much effort to sit down, read a long topic, and post a response that contributes towards the thread.

There are plenty of people who act like idiots on the internet when they are actually pretty intelligent in real life, but like using the internet as a way to get away from being serious and have fun, and i think that they have the self-restraint not to invade and ruin the more serious forums. The Garbage Bin is a place where they can let off some steam without fear of being punished, so it dosen't spill into other boards.

[nforcer06164]

Originally Posted by Pumble

The Garbage Bin is a place where they can let off some steam without fear of being punished, so it dosen't spill into other boards.

Except now, with Fish, punishment currently exists in the GB.

[Pumble]

Banning people who agree to play a game where they know that could happen or people who make retarded posts dosen't count as punishment. Except the part about the retarded posts.

Unless something happened within the past two weeks that i don't know about.

ps unban me

[lord_carbo]

The fact that less and less people are posting in CT just proves that people don't really care about being serious here. Some of the best communities, in my opinion, are the ones that don't have the unserious places. It usually just unattracts unserious people. Without the GB, some people would hardly post, or would of just left by now.

Not going to name any communities, but there are quite a few impressive ones out there, and what they have in common is their lack of an "unserious forum" (or they just don't allow people under 18, but I'll exclude those because those are obviously better).

ps unban me, too

[esupin]

You guys all bring up really good points, especially Neonatrias. I've seen forums with too many threads to sift through, and I don't even bother coming back to those places. The number of sub-forums might seem a bit much, especially for a newb, but it definitely works well. Yeah, FFR isn't the most mature forum around, but there are controls and limits.

There are even mini-groups in the forums now(I don't know or care whether or not this is a good thing), like the g-bin group and the Stepmania people.

Edit- I for one would stick around if the g-bin disappeared.

[Grandiagod]

dont forget the brag board people

[Lightknight924]

I hate the Garbage bin in general. Expecially the new version. Fish is just handing out bans left and right as he abuses his power as a mod. It's just dumb and it's one of the most booming forums in FFR.


PS. Unban me Fish.

[Laharl]

Fish is probably the most mature guy on all of FFR. I trust his judgement. If you guys are managing to get yourselves banned FROM THE GARBAGE BIN, I think you guys might need to re-evaluate some things in your lives.

[Neonatrias]

Originally Posted by Lightknight924

I hate the Garbage bin in general. Expecially the new version. Fish is just handing out bans left and right as he abuses his power as a mod. It's just dumb and it's one of the most booming forums in FFR.


PS. Unban me Fish.

You know, I personally thought the same thing and posted a thread about it. I flamed the guy to death in like two sentences. I'm still not banned. In fact, Fish gave the most mature response I could have imagined and my respect for him increased quite a bit from that. Laharl is right for the most part -- A truly bad mod would have banned me without question. Possibly gotten me banned from the forum entirely.

But, back to my point earlier. On a large forum like this, there's bound to be problems, especially with new members. Some of them are valid mistakes and others are just idiots acting stupider than usual. In either case, it's necessary (with this forum having some 100,000 members) to moderate it in sections.

[Pumble]

Originally Posted by Laharl

Fish is probably the most mature guy on all of FFR. I trust his judgement. If you guys are managing to get yourselves banned FROM THE GARBAGE BIN, I think you guys might need to re-evaluate some things in your lives.

We were banned from the garbage bin from losing Fish's little ban games, not for acting like complete asses. Although you're right, Fish dosen't ban otherwise unless there's a good reason.

I'm just irritated because i should have been unbanned a week ago.

[Lightknight924]

I never said Fish isn't mature. He is, I just don't like the fact that you don't even have to do anything stupid to get banned. It's just pointless. Either, make TGB more fun or just get rid of it. Please.


Sup Arch.

[nforcer06164]

Lightknight, stop getting so uptight about the GBin. Nobody really likes you there (no offense), you got banned from it... STOP WHINING. The whole banning thing is for FUN. The Garbage Bin is pointless, and that is the point (no pun intended).

Your whining is unnecessarily throwing the whole discussion off topic. It is apparent that all you are worrying is yourself from your complete disregard of the points made, especially those of Neonatrias. Give up now before you make yourself look like more of a fool, please.

[the_arch0wl]

Originally Posted by nforcer06164

Your whining is unnecessarily throwing the whole discussion off topic.

So are replies to his whining.

The Garbage Bin is a place where they can let off some steam without fear of being punished, so it dosen't spill into other boards.

It does "spill out" though, that's the thing. Want to tell me it doesn't? How about the secondary discussion going on in this very topic?

The problem about using something like the GB to "vent" is that it directly effects other people. On my website, I have a "rants" forum. In that little section, people are basically obligated to care about what everyone else has to say. Rarely does anyone's rant get bashed, unless it's something like "I hate hard songs on Stepmania", which was actually done before. If someone needs to vent, they should be able to vent about the particular issue directly, to a friend/family member/journal/rant forum/whatever, instead of taking it out on other people via being a jackass, trolling, you name it.

[-Skooter-]

This topic aggrivates me. Here's why:
1. You're singling people out. You're creating a thread about things leaking out, which signifigantly makes them that much more important when they do leak out. Preferably in this particular thread.
2. Like it or not, organization is the key to life. If you're not organized, than you have no idea where anything is, or where anything goes, and it causes mass confusion. I don't mean nail polish remover, hairbrushes, or that t-shirt, I mean important things.
3. The facts are: you can't sterotype people, or judge their intelligence, by which part of the forums board they post in. This is the internet, cyberspace, the web, so like it or not, we know absolutely nothing about those people. Eventhough they may sound like idiots on the internet, that doesn't mean that's what they are, and we have to go off of what they tell us, or what we see.

This is the internet. How hard people think on FFR, or any forums board for that matter, no offense, doesn't really concern me. I could give two shits about how anyone else on here feels or what they think. I choose to come here, because I have found people, who I can discuss things with in a mature manner. I can choose, at any time, to discontinue coming. That's the freedom of a forums board.

Garbage Bin, Critical Thinking, Chit Chat. Even though they leak together here and there, or people misplace things occasionally, the fact is, those are minor minor occurances. If we were to attempt to completely run everything together, it would become on big cluster f*** and we all know it.

I like it the way it is, and as much as it may annoy some, I don't think the format of the forums board is going to change, nor do I think that it should.

[Tokzic]

Judging by the title, I'm sure you were going for something about how the mind seperates high-quality, thought-invoking topics into seperate forums and makes for lower-quality posts outside of that particular forum. You're talking about this as though it's a problem, but I wouldn't say it is.

Myself, I am very intelligent. When I need or want to, the products created by my brain fascinate me after I've churned them out. But thinking all the time is not what I live for - I live for entertainment, as that's what everything worth doing narrows down to for me. Thinking all the time is not entertaining to me, and combined with the fact that I probably have some deep-down trauma from being called a geek as a child before I learned I don't give a damn what anyone I don't give a damn about thinks, in a social setting, I do not think - I simply do. So the personality people see is simply my wits in cruise control, and people don't seem to mind (though they do get very surprised when they first learn I get mid-90 averages).

The Internet is more the same than it is different. You see the person that I have shaped myself into in reality, while at the same time, I get a minute where as I type, it may occur to me that there is a better way of saying what I am trying to. This alone seems to make quite a difference, as people I know in reality tell me, "Wow, you're pretty cool on the Internet." This probably means that I rock more when I think, which probably means I should think in real life.

But I veer from my point - I come onto the FFR Forums to have a good time with people that aren't idiots. Thinking excessively kills the fun of being with people for me, and so I don't do it. I post very rarely in CT, commonly in CC, and very much in TGB. As activeness in a forum provokes replies, myself and others like me are helping fuel the CT shortage and the GB boon.

Everything else I wanted to bring up was said adaquately by Neonatrias. Thanks for saving me five minutes, dude.

P.S.: A rant forum would definitely be a good addition to FFR. I rarely vent on the forum, and it'd probably be healthy for me.

[SotN]

The Garbage Bin. I'd didn't even know people posted in it until I read this topic. I assumed the joking in general chitchat was nothing more than that.

From what I've read so far, CT is a place for a philosophical dick-waving contest. GB is a place for a dickgirl waving contest.

Simple as that.