I think most understand why Barry is inveighing against a functional
Search feature: if there's an accessible record of past posts, it's
more difficult for him to lie with impunity
Of course, catching Barry in his many, many, many lies is hardly the
only use for Search on FFL and similar forums. He knows that, but
he's happy to sacrifice all other uses in the interests of being able
to lie without fear of rebuttal (especially about me, as he does in
this post). Lying is his M.O., his way of being-in-the-world; if he
can't lie, he feels exposed and defenseless. He's basically an
inadequate human being who needs to be able to lie to bolster his
fragile self-esteem.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <turquoiseb@...>
<mailto:turquoiseb@...> wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, "TurquoiseB" wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, Bhairitu wrote:
> >
> > Well, I went to the web site, logged in an posted a couple
pictures
of
> > what the Neo interface looks like on a mobile device for
those that
> > don't own one. Except that was a couple hours ago and it still
hasn't
> > shown up. Bad Yahoo!
>
> Yahoo is bug city, that's fersure. But when you think about it,
all of
> Judy's "criteria" for "discussion-oriented forums" are in fact
criteria
> for ARGUING.
>
> Most *discussions* could take place very easily with a few
top-posted
> lines in reply to someone else's post. It's only nitpicky, "my
ego is
> right and yours is wrong," line-by-line refutations that
require the
> kind of interface she wants. Same with Search. Who *needs* to
look up
a
> bunch of comments on a chat board, except for someone whose ego is
> heavily invested in "winning" some imaginary "battle" by arguing on
that
> forum?
Just to expand on this a bit, the very perceived *need for* a good
Search function on discussion boards strikes me as suspect, and
contributing to an atmosphere of argumentation. On *most* (by far!)
forums that I've participated in over the more-than-35-years I've been
in computing, no one would have ever felt that they "needed" a Search
function.
The reason, of course, is that for most people such forums are Here And
Now, and largely In The Moment. People say stuff, other people respond,
and on the whole within 24 hours any perceived affronts and
disagreements are forgotten, and folks have moved on to the next Here
And Now, In The Moment discussion.
Fairfield Life is not like that, and I firmly believe it's because one
person brought Living In An Eternal Past Of Grudges And
Never-To-Be-Forgotten Affronts to FFL with her from
alt.meditation.transcendental, where she ran the exact same routine for
years. For her -- and for those who have sadly tried to emulate her in
the time since -- the Search engine is a mechanism for Putting People
Down or Putting Their Enemies 'In Their Place.'
*She* doesn't like the Neo Search interface because it makes it harder
for her *to* live in the past, and to do anything and everything she can
think of to try to get other people to live there, too. *She* dives into
the Yahoo Search function to try to "get" the people she doesn't like,
and find something they said in the past that she can use to try to
convince other posters to dislike them in the present.
I think it's silly, and more than a little pathetic.
Being somewhat of a long-winded writer myself, I am *not* fond of the
real genesis of "top posting," which is the belief that Twitter and
Facebook and such media have trained people to have short attention
spans, and thus *only* write short posts or replies. I still think there
is a place for longer, well-considered posts. Or replies.
What I *don't* think there is a place for is the petty, vindictive flame
wars that seem to be de rigeur on many forums. promoted and encouraged
by social misfits who seem to feel "alive" only when they've either
enticed someone else into arguing with them, or enticed them into
putting down someone they dislike.
THAT -- the nastiness factor, and the pettiness factor -- is the aspect
of FFL that people have been complaining about recently, far more than
Neo and its shortcomings. Neo arrived at the same time that a few people
regained the ability to spew their argumentative, ego-driven crap here
non-stop. If Neo's limited Search capabilities have slowed that
crap-flood down in any way, I say good for Neo.