A few general thoughts. This ramble is relevant to the idea of changing the Charter to allow joke threads in the BikeRacks - specifically, why I feel that this doesn't actually serve any point other than to make people feel that a compromise did occur. STILL intending to respond to your questions for me, Cerin. Really sorry about this delay.
Speaking as one of the two participants in the chess thread, and the one who originally pressed for it to continue...
The humor in the thread, such as it was, had a lot to do with the selection of forum combined with the content (mock dispute) being posted. It would not have had its intended effect in, say, Turf. We here on b77 do a lot of mock fighting - to the point where it seems like we never get tired of it. Examples are the m77ter thread, the Chess thread, the Retrograde thread, and numerous osgiliations in the Turf (e.g. Farawen's pie schtick) that feature posters breaking into mock fights. I'm not even sure WHY we find it so funny, but we obviously do, and I've participated in my fair share.
I was back at TORC recently looking for an old thread, and I came across a 4000-post congratulations thread that Rebecca started for Mammo in 2004. By that point, these threads were forbidden, so she did a tongue-in-cheek, "This has nothing to do with Mammo's post count, but the weather is great and let's talk about how fun the movies were, and by the way, Mammo's post count is totally irrelevant" sort of thing. It was bending a rule that said that such threads weren't allowed in the Movie forum. Other posters jumped in and started not!congratulating Mammo. If everyone created such threads, it would have cluttered the forum and destroyed its purpose. But, so long as it was one thread, it was amusing (to some) because it was pushing the rules slightly. Same with TDL's thread on which my Retrograde one here was based, as well as several other m00bies institutions on TORC.
Without the timing problem, the chess thread humor was of the same sort. "Look, this isn't the most kosher use imaginable for the BikeRacks, but it's a joke that's never been done before. We find it funny and so might some of the rest of you." On a one time basis, we were bending rules and pushing Charter boundaries. It was funny to us, it was funny to some other posters, and it would have been funny to even more had it been done at a different time. Start twenty threads in the BikeRacks about boardgames and mock disputes. Now they're not funny, they're tedious, and they've sabotaged the concept of the forum.
Given these thoughts, I have reservations about the proposal that I hastily threw together permitting light-hearted threads in the BR for two reasons:
(1) Actually permitting such threads under the Charter destroys whatever humor was in them to begin with - the humor in the boundary-pushing. It's funny. Lidless has often commented on how his banning from TORC was inevitable because his humor was destined to clash repeatedly with the rules. I wonder, though, if his humor was so well-loved on TORC because it rested right at that critical boundary between permissible and proscribed...because so many of us appreciate the hilarity that can result from toeing that line when the stakes are low, as they almost always are on a messageboard. Because there were mods at TORC responsible for enforcing rules, if they chose to let something slide, no other posters could create a thread with hundreds of posts to protest its inappropriateness. (Likewise when they didn't let things slide.) So, if boundary-pushing humor was allowed to stand, those of us who found it funny could sit back and enjoy it, and those who didn't essentially just had to deal with it, which caused no permanent scarring. Likewise, when it wasn't allowed to stand, those who didn't find it funny could have their way, and the rest of us would just have to deal with it, which also didn't cause permanent scarring. The problem is our lack of arbiter, which leaves some people still wanting to have their fun and push the boundaries, and leaves others fearful of the consequences of their doing so.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure how ever to resolve this within a democratic system. We can legislate all we want, but either people are going to feel stifled because the boundary-pushing they enjoy is NEVER permitted, or people are going to feel threatened because they are not comfortable with ANY boundary-pushing. As mutual respect goes (i.e. resolving without legislating), we are at a stalemate. The former group feels that mutual respect means that their sense of humor should be respected; the latter group feels that mutual respect means that their belief in strict and unwavering adherence to the rules should be respected.
(2) I defy anyone to create a thread in the BR that is actually funny to anyone, at this point, by virtue of its placement in the BR. I think the humor is gone, both because of this protracted dispute AND because of the fact that it was never going to be funny more than once, or at the very, very, VERY most twice.
[this is mostly a restatement of what Lidless said]
Lidless and hal - if either of you has suggestions on how to handle this amendment, particularly since the three of us share so many thoughts on the current Charter setup, I will make sure that the committee gives your suggestions equal consideration with Cerin's, as I am sure they would regardless.
hal - the first proposal is longer is because:
- it deals with the setup for two forums, not one
- it was written by me and is thus destined to be verbose
- I was trying to incorporate many people's suggestions in, whereas Cerin simply proposed the language she would like to see (as far as I could tell)
I promise that Cerin and I did not conspire to have her proposal be shorter and thus potentially more likely to be approved. Length is most likely not a deterrent to people, as they will probably make their decision based on very brief summaries of both proposals.
grammar edit/double negative