adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Got a suggestion how we can improve? Post it here.

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Grimstone » Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:58 pm

sunglasses wrote:Yeah, not everyone wants to debate. Some people just want to be like, OMG this kitten is so cute.


Image

But everyone already knows kittens are cute.. that's just like a basic fact so there wouldn't really be anything to discuss/chat about.
  • 0

"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."
User avatar
Grimstone
TCS Guerilla
 
Posts: 2160
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 11:52 am
Show rep
Title: Creature of the Night

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby sunglasses » Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:33 pm

Just an example of what used to happen on IRC

Person 1: blah blah blah and that's why I think we should just go ahead and kill all rapists

Person 2: Maybe this should go in the van

Person 1: Why? It's nothing that an adult can't handle.

Person 2: Because it's a pretty heavy topic and can rather intense

Person 3: inserts image to attempt to break up the conversation and get a different line of thinking going. It fails.

Person 1: Well, I don't think I need to move the conversation so I'm not going to.

Then no one chatted for like, hours. Meanwhile PMs are going about with people expressing a desire for the other person to just go to the van and stop but they don't say anything as they feel it's pointless to argue.

Just sayin'
  • 5

TCS Etiquette Guide

Rules and FAQs

Zevran wrote:Magic can kill. Knives can kill. Even small children launched at great speeds can kill.
User avatar
sunglasses
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 11541
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 2:52 pm
Show rep
Title: The Speaker of Horrors.

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Grimstone » Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:44 pm

I would think letting moderators handle this sort of problem would be a better solution than divvying the chat up into ever smaller sub channels.
  • 0

"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."
User avatar
Grimstone
TCS Guerilla
 
Posts: 2160
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 11:52 am
Show rep
Title: Creature of the Night

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby sunglasses » Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:18 pm

It was often mods asking people to go to the van, grim.

Edit: to be clear I am talking about irc back in the day. I am not talking about the discord channel.
  • 2

TCS Etiquette Guide

Rules and FAQs

Zevran wrote:Magic can kill. Knives can kill. Even small children launched at great speeds can kill.
User avatar
sunglasses
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 11541
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 2:52 pm
Show rep
Title: The Speaker of Horrors.

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby NathanLoiselle » Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:10 am

Why do I never get PM's telling me to go to the van? I ask heavy questions all the time. Like what weighs more? Lead or gold? And this rock is heavy, lemme tell you.
  • 2

User avatar
NathanLoiselle
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 4484
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:49 am
Location: You'll Never Know!
Show rep

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Kate » Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:22 am

aviel wrote:I'm going to try and get to the core of my point here in light of several replies, so I apologize in advance if anyone feels like I am ignoring something they said that they feel makes a good point. Anyway:

Kate wrote:In what way does this elevate anyone's feelings above your own?


Because other people get a channel free of topics they don't like, but I don't get a channel free of topics I don't like. Unless you are willing to make a channel for each set of topics that a user might not like, then you're giving more legitimacy to the preferences of people who don't like political discussion than you are to the preferences of people who don't like other kinds of discussion.

Well this is why I said it's not quite right to call it politics-free, and more accurate to say it's a non-confrontational place to relax. You *would* have a room to go to and say, "the conversation in main isn't interesting, anyone want to talk about something else?" Politics are not the only thing that people debate and argue about. It isn't elevating any preferences, except for the preference to not argue. Which, hey, I'm okay with that. I'm perfectly happy to say that people who don't want to argue should have a place to talk where they don't really need to worry about arguing. You can argue in main. Everyone would have access to their preferred mode of conversation! That's the great thing about technology.

Nathan, if you would stop blocking me, you'd get the PMs!
  • 7

JT's Art Thread - JamesT's awesome stuff.
User avatar
Kate
Gul DuKate
Gul DuKate
 
Posts: 2961
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:08 am
Location: Assembling Future Kate
Show rep
Title: Sheepwoman

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Learned Nand » Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:59 am

You've rephrased the inequality, but haven't really addressed it. The fact remains that if #chat is talking about something that doesn't interest me, I can't go to #SunshineLollipops to start discussing politics. There's still an inequality between topics, and no good reason why the topics I prefer are given the short end of that stick.
  • 0

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
User avatar
Learned Nand
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: Permanently in the wrong
Show rep
Title: Auditor of Reality

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Kate » Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:19 am

It is not inequality to have 1 room where people do not need to worry about arguing and 6 rooms where people can argue. No one is guaranteed that if they don't want to worry about arguing, they can go to the second room and it will be to their tastes. The only thing they know is that they won't have to worry about confrontation and argument. Except, I guess, having 6 rooms where you can argue and debate is a lot more than 1 where you're not supposed to, so it is unequal in that way.

If chat isn't interesting you and you want to discuss politics, you can, in main, even if the conversation is somewhere else. People cut in with their own conversations all the time. Anyone who wants to discuss it with you can. You are not being stopped from discussing what you want to discuss, in any way.

Though, all this said, it is possible for users to make their own group chats if they want a room like this, and they are of course free to do that. The disadvantage is that this is clunky, not as easy as just joining a channel, and it doesn't show up immediately so it would end up being selective.
  • 7

JT's Art Thread - JamesT's awesome stuff.
User avatar
Kate
Gul DuKate
Gul DuKate
 
Posts: 2961
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:08 am
Location: Assembling Future Kate
Show rep
Title: Sheepwoman

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Learned Nand » Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:28 am

Kate wrote:It is not inequality to have 1 room where people do not need to worry about arguing and 6 rooms where people can argue. No one is guaranteed that if they don't want to worry about arguing, they can go to the second room and it will be to their tastes. The only thing they know is that they won't have to worry about confrontation and argument. Except, I guess, having 6 rooms where you can argue and debate is a lot more than 1 where you're not supposed to, so it is unequal in that way.

Again, this rephrases but does not address the inequality. The problem isn't one room where you can't argue and six where you can; it's one room where some people's preferences are elevated to a rule and zero where other people's are.

If chat isn't interesting you and you want to discuss politics, you can, in main, even if the conversation is somewhere else. People cut in with their own conversations all the time. Anyone who wants to discuss it with you can. You are not being stopped from discussing what you want to discuss, in any way.

This is exactly why a separate room is unnecessary. This is true of every topic.
  • 0

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
User avatar
Learned Nand
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: Permanently in the wrong
Show rep
Title: Auditor of Reality

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Kate » Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:15 am

But it is not true that in main you can say "Hey guys, this is really upsetting me, I just want to hang out, can you stop?" I mean, you can, but no one needs to listen, because of course.

If it upsets you to see people arguing about Trump, gamergate, SJWs, feminists, youtube drama, etc., it's not like you can just turn that off while having your own conversation. You already have what you want, other people do not and we have the ability to provide it. You cannot have a non-confrontational environment in main chat unless we change the rules so that you can't argue there anymore, politely or otherwise. I'm assuming you don't prefer that, and hopefully that will never, ever come to TCS.

We have a problem where some people want to have a place where there's no arguing and debating and doom-and-glooming. We already have multiple spaces to argue and debate. Providing one space where there's no arguing and debating doesn't take away from those other spaces.

We are probably at an impasse here; I see this as expanding options, and you see it as limiting them because you do not value conflict-free conversation and do not see a need to provide a space for it. I'm not sure we can reconcile this particular difference of opinion.
  • 9

JT's Art Thread - JamesT's awesome stuff.
User avatar
Kate
Gul DuKate
Gul DuKate
 
Posts: 2961
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:08 am
Location: Assembling Future Kate
Show rep
Title: Sheepwoman

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Wed Aug 02, 2017 7:38 am

Screw happiness. We are but dust in the wind. The universe is a bleak void.
  • 1

Image
User avatar
Deathclaw_Puncher
Knight Writer
Knight Writer
 
Posts: 12452
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:42 pm
Location: Fair Oaks, CA
Show rep
Title: Queen of the Furrets

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:28 pm

Avi you're treating the channels and their allowed topics as static, nothing here suggests that the new channel is going to be #NoPolitics, it's just #NothingConfrontational, which in most cases is #NoPolitics, because it's very rare that people can get away from arguing against other people's politics, but it need not be.
It's functionally identical to a filter more than anything else because you don't have to turn one off to listen to the other. (Which people moving to discord did do for various reasons ranging from not wanting to split attention to not thinking IRC will ever have discussions on it again, to the completely unfounded belief that Esper was being unstable because their client was).

So yes, you're gonna get a channel without topics you don't like, if the topic you don't like is likely to bring out a confrontational response from you and you don't want to confront people. That's the purpose of the new channel.
  • 8



WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT -- A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT...
User avatar
A Combustible Lemon
TCS Regular
TCS Regular
 
Posts: 486
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:25 pm
Location: The Internet, India
Show rep
Title: Grenadier

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Learned Nand » Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:18 pm

Kate wrote:But it is not true that in main you can say "Hey guys, this is really upsetting me, I just want to hang out, can you stop?" I mean, you can, but no one needs to listen, because of course.

As best I can tell, this is true in #SunshineLollipops too so long as the topic is one considered appropriate by others. Are you suggesting that, no matter what, anyone can stop discussion on #SunshineLollipops at any time if it is bothering them? Because that seems like it would come with even more problems.

We are probably at an impasse here; I see this as expanding options, and you see it as limiting them because you do not value conflict-free conversation and do not see a need to provide a space for it. I'm not sure we can reconcile this particular difference of opinion.

I don't think this limits options. I just think it provides additional options to people with some topic preferences while failing to do so for people with other topic preferences.

A Combustible Lemon wrote:Avi you're treating the channels and their allowed topics as static

I don't think this is a premise of my argument, but in practice, it seems like you agree that they would be static. So what difference does it make if the channel is only de facto defined by a topic blacklist than informally by one?
  • 0

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
User avatar
Learned Nand
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: Permanently in the wrong
Show rep
Title: Auditor of Reality

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:35 pm

because it's not a topic blacklist, it's a topic-trait blacklist. The trait is that the topic causes conflict.

If two people are talking about, here's a completely random example that I made up and definitely didn't happen, intellectual property rights for 8 hours, and the mods don't kick them out, that topic goes into your blacklist for that day, so how is it static?
  • 4



WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT -- A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT...
User avatar
A Combustible Lemon
TCS Regular
TCS Regular
 
Posts: 486
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:25 pm
Location: The Internet, India
Show rep
Title: Grenadier

Re: adding a #nicehappythings channel to the Discord server

Postby Learned Nand » Thu Aug 03, 2017 10:11 pm

If the list of topics with that trait isn't generated statically, then how is it determined? If it's any time that someone says they would prefer people not talk about it, then that seems like it would trample discussion more than promote it.
  • 0

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
User avatar
Learned Nand
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: Permanently in the wrong
Show rep
Title: Auditor of Reality

PreviousNext

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

cron