12:05 AM
IDK. It's just frustrating that when I suggest that we need to do more research and learn new skills, I get accused of being elitist.
In my mind, being elitist is thinking you can walk in on complicated issues and become an expert/write expert level content without doing reading or thinking.
Obviously, not everyone needs to do research. But if no one does research, then this site has a problem.
IDK. I feel like between BESW and I, there's an undergraduate degree in lit worth of material in this chat room alone.
Don't get me wrong: unlike at the private beta, this site is at a point where it is making the internet a better place. But... you can go backwards or forwards from here.
This has nothing to do with why I left. I left because I had less time for the site but I wasn't able to make myself reduce the time I spent on the site.
@Hamlet that's the same issue that faces nearly every site: folks think they can make it good by making enough rules about not tolerating crap. But even if enforced (which they aren't) that doesn't make a place good - it just limits how quickly it can become intolerably bad.
Not necessarily writing masterbatory essays to demonstrate their own knowledge... But definitely using that knowledge to ask and answer questions in a way that improves the sum of knowledge accessible to the world, and ideally doing the research necessary to increase their knowledge when it is insufficient to achieve the former.
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7:34 AM
Unfortunately, in my experience a significant number of Stack users are members of that part of the wider population which has not been trained in the difference between assertion and support.
This means most attempts to ask that support be added to an answer are interpreted as a challenge to the user's expertise, and that creates a defensive attitude which opposes the support-based culture underlying the best Stack content.
I've seen it on multiple Stacks, where opinion-based subjects are considered either free-for-all open game for unsupported speculation, or are considered impossible to answer within the Stack structure.
Literature can't succumb to that false dichotomy or it will crash and burn where some other Stacks can still survive with limited function.
Being elitist is thinking that only 'experts' can produce any worthwhile content. It's precisely the belief that random nobodies off the street can't write expert-level content.
Of course, they need training (not necessarily formal training like a degree in lit, but some form of learning about what they're talking about) in order to do so. The attitude you're describing is also silly; it's just at the opposite end of the scale from elitism.
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12:28 PM
An Important Message from Peter S. Beagle: http://supportpeterbeagle.com/wordpress2/2017/10/26/an-important-message-from-peter-s-beagle/
Tweeted by KurtBusiek on October 27, 2017 at 1:00 AM
I love our library’s 404 error page. #404error #dragons #nerd @FalveyLibrary
Tweeted by SgWingo on October 24, 2017 at 1:38 PM
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2:25 PM
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I was wondering if anyone here has some suggestion about good psychological horror novels. You know, that kind of stories where scary/disturbing stuff is not shown directly. Those stories where everything looks normal...except for some small details that make you realise there's something totally...
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5:41 PM
^ I saw this a few times, but only now learned who the artist is myjetpack.tumblr.com/post/166841754185/…
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10:44 PM
> I hear it a lot of times from writers of privilege: ‘Oh well I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.’ Well, if you feel this way then just don’t. That’s how I feel about people writing my experience. If you feel that way then pick the damned where I get to tell my story. –Nic Stone
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