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Title Edits to "Annoying Things People Say" Threads


Lady Girl

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AVEN has several threads that are titled "Annoying things ___ say..." Due to the fact that these have caused many issues in the past, the admod team has decided that these threads will need to be edited.

 

Reasons for this include:

 

- These threads have at times encouraged insulting and making assumptions about entire groups 

- These threads have made various users feel unsafe and alienated

- While some threads have existed with few issues, others erupt in heated exchanges depending on the group singled out; If they can't exist for all groups, they should exist for none

 

 

We would find the following edits acceptable:

 

- Threads that allow for similar venting that don't single out a group (such as "annoying things I've heard today")

- Threads that focus on allowing a certain group to vent such as "Annoying things (group that wishes to vent) people hear," "(Group that wishes to vent) issues," or "Fill your (group that wishes to vent) bingo card!"; examples may include "Annoying things that trans people hear" or "Fill your trans bingo card here!" instead of "annoying things that cis people say".

 

Note: These are simply suggestions and examples, you are free to choose your own name as long as it does not negatively target any specific group.

 

For anyone who has started one of these threads, we will PM you to ask you to change the title of the thread. If you do not change the title within 48 hours, the admod team will change it for you. However you are free to change it again later on, as long as it follows our new expectations.
 

Note that any of these threads that currently exist can stay - they will just need to have their titles changed. 

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Psst, this sort of "problem" (as it were) isn't gonna be fixed by title edits.

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37 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

Psst, this sort of "problem" (as it were) isn't gonna be fixed by title edits.

No, but it will stop the somewhat blatant encouragement to insult the groups. It may not fix it, but hopefully the incidents can be reduced.

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At the very least, if the thread titles aren't so blatant about encouraging stereotyping, maybe potential posters won't feel empowered to join in.  

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2 hours ago, And Peggy said:

I'm not even going to put the energy in responding to this fully. This is a terrible rule.

I'm curious what your reasoning is for thinking it's a terrible rule.  I think it's a decent compromise between people who feel singled out and want the threads deleted, and people who want to vent about the annoying things they hear.  Nothing is changing about the content of the threads, it's just a change to the title so it doesnt incourage fighting between groups of people.

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If you want to stop alienating certain groups and prevent stereotyping you should really just shut down these forums all together and concentrate on the material on the sections of this website the public sees that hasn't been updated in something like 10 years. For an organization AVEN doesn't really do much visibility or education work. But I guess it's more important to create rules no one will ever read or follow. 

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1 hour ago, Just like Jughead said:

If you want to stop alienating certain groups and prevent stereotyping you should really just shut down these forums all together and concentrate on the material on the sections of this website the public sees that hasn't been updated in something like 10 years. For an organization AVEN doesn't really do much visibility or education work. But I guess it's more important to create rules no one will ever read or follow. 

I disagree on the lack of Vis/Ed work statement. For 2-4 hours every day, I personally work on authorizing research for these forums. I do a lot more behind the scenes as well for Asexual research. 

 

Last year, we presented an argument to to the ONS to get Asexuality represented on the UK census. 

 

Plus all of the interviews we undertake. 

 

I also am the Editor in Chief of Avenues. Haven't done much this month as I've been on LOA. 

 

If you want to read up on the great work the Project Team do every month, we have a Bulletin pinned in the Vis/Ed forum which every PT member posts their work in. 

 

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/148141-pt-monthly-bulletin/

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To everyone. The decision to introduce this policy wasn't taken lightly, or quickly. We're not closing threads, nor taking any action against thread creators or posters. We're just asking that they be titled in a less contentious manner. 

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I'm curious what your reasoning is for thinking it's a terrible rule.  I think it's a decent compromise between people who feel singled out and want the threads deleted, and people who want to vent about the annoying things they hear.

Anyone who reads a title saying "annoying things X people say" and has an immediate thought/response along the lines of "OMGZ I AM A X PERSON AND I NEVER SAY THAT STUFF AND I'M TOTALLY NOT ANNOYING" is a nutter lacking basic reading comprehension (and most likely actually is annoying, despite whatever they may think), and in all likelihood will just go find something else to be pissed off about.  Will you be catering to these people then, too?

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I've been moaning about these awful threads for well over a year now, glad you're finally doing something to deal with the more negative aspects of them :cake:

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ChillaKilla

The 'bingo card' suggestion seems like it's just glossing over the thread's purpose to preserve the feelings of those who lack the self awareness to know that *gasp* it's not about you personally <_< 

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butterflydreams

Are we taking suggestions for title edits?

 

If so, I move that the "annoying things cis people say" be changed to "shit trans people are tired of hearing". 

 

Because honestly that's how I've always treated that thread. Almost all of my friends are cis, I love the crap out of them. Plus, there have been some annoying things trans people have said to me, and a thread called "shit trans people are tired of hearing" would be able to include that. 

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ChillaKilla

@Hadley167 I PM'd Jayce suggesting "Annoying things said to trans people", how about that? :)

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butterflydreams
48 minutes ago, ChillaKilla said:

@Hadley167 I PM'd Jayce suggesting "Annoying things said to trans people", how about that? :)

 I was being a bit facetious with my title suggestion. I was mostly trying to demonstrate how I see those threads. I was honestly never super comfortable with the current wording because in fairness, what would be the argument against "annoying things black people say" or "annoying things Pollacks say"? I think the focus shift to what a demographic is hearing is much kinder and realistic. Like I said, some of the annoying shit I hear comes from other trans people. But it's not who's saying it that I care about. It's what they're saying. 

 

I like the idea to reword the threads because honestly, the title wasn't reflective of how I or most people were using it. I think as an actual, serious title suggestion "annoying things trans people hear" would be good. 

 

And I do find value in those threads. It helps me know I'm not alone and that others empathize with certain struggles. I'd never use it to bash cis people. 

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"Hope he's therapist can help him change things so he can feel sexual attraction (which is what he has said he wants), but I doubt it. Poor guy ..."

 

You allow people to say this kind of thing about asexuals scott free and even berated the aces who got upset instead of the allo poster but the "Shit ______ people say." thread titles are so so so bad right and problematic because it upsets ppl right? 

 

As long as there is outside ignorance by the majority towards certain groups, a title change will not magically will away the content (which seems to be the actual problem that people are offended by not the titles.) But good luck I guess.

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Sleepy Skeleton

I think this is a good rule to have.

 

Sure, we all know that if we're good cis/allo/romo/whatever people we shouldn't be offended, but that doesn't mean identities should be called out for things an individual might have never done. You can be annoyed all you want but there's no need to be overly bitter towards an entire group of people. Seriously, I love venting and drama and hating people more than anyone and I think this is a good rule.

 

13 hours ago, Saesha said:

As long as there is outside ignorance by the majority towards certain groups, a title change will not magically will away the content (which seems to be the actual problem that people are offended by not the titles.) But good luck I guess.

 I'm so lost here. Lady Girl literally says in the original post that the threads can still stay? Of course the title change won't magically erase the content, it's not supposed to.

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23 hours ago, Saesha said:

"Hope he's therapist can help him change things so he can feel sexual attraction (which is what he has said he wants), but I doubt it. Poor guy ..."

 

You allow people to say this kind of thing about asexuals scott free and even berated the aces who got upset instead of the allo poster but the "Shit ______ people say." thread titles are so so so bad right and problematic because it upsets ppl right? 

 

As long as there is outside ignorance by the majority towards certain groups, a title change will not magically will away the content (which seems to be the actual problem that people are offended by not the titles.) But good luck I guess.

Was the quoted post reported? If not, it could have been missed by admods. If so, you have no idea whether or not the person who posted the comment had any disciplinary action taken.

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Was the quoted post reported? If not, it could have been missed by admods. If so, you have no idea whether or not the person who posted the comment had any disciplinary action taken.

I don't know about this particular case (personally I don't feel the quote was offensive at all or merits any reporting, and therefore the situation goes back to what I said before about the real problem here being people here who are far too easily offended), but generally speaking, if someone who's been reported continues to stick around and continues to make troublesome posts, it can usually be safely assumed that no (meaningful) disciplinary action was taken.

 

That being said, if you want to prevent people from assuming, the situation could also be cleared up nicely if there weren't so many unnecessary confidentiality policies on the site, too.  This is a public forum, not a psychiatrist's office.

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I really like the idea of turning the titles around. It seems far more accurate regarding the particular issue.

 

Other than that, simply renaming threads won't change a thing. I immediately thought of a situation at work where a particular role wasn't very popular among the staff, so the company announced that this particular role would be abolished. And then they... just "rebranded" the role. Everything else remained as it was. Problem solved... or probably not.

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Just now, Homer said:

I really like the idea of turning the titles around. It seems far more accurate regarding the particular issue.

 

Other than that, simply renaming threads won't change a thing. I immediately thought of a situation at work where a particular role wasn't very popular among the staff, so the company announced that this particular role would be abolished. And then they... just "rebranded" the role. Everything else remained as it was. Problem solved... or probably not.

I see what you mean. I can't speak for the admod team, but for me, the issue with the titles stemmed not from the content (venting is good and necessary) but at the fact that the titles made the content seem more condemning than it actually was. That's why we aren't abolishing the threads, just renaming them.

 

It's like that little nursery rhyme "eenie meenie money moe, catch a tiger by it's toe...." It didn't used to say tiger, it said something much more offensive (if people don't know I can tell them, but I think it's well known what it used to be?). The rhyme as a whole wasn't a problem, it was just innocent fun. But that one word made it much more ostracizing than needed. So change that word, and the rhyme can stay in the lexicon of the culture with it's intended purpose intact. Same way, these get to stay with their intended purpose (to vent), they just get a new name.

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