@BKlassen that question feels like a much friendlier sports club environment, and the question was focused on communicating with a known party. Here, there is no known party, and the other advanced players have opted for an anti-social method of dealing with the issue. — Ed Grimm 21 secs ago

@Tinkeringbell done — Ed Grimm 11 secs ago

This may be a question better suited for money.stackexchange.com, if formulated differently, maybe along the lines of "What are the best ways to financially help my struggling cousin with my charity savings ?" — breversa 57 secs ago

What goal/good is retaining information ("but not what I've heard") supposed to achieve ? — breversa 1 min ago

@breversa : if you tell them exactly what people are gossiping about, then, you become "part of the game", and this means that, in case it's just BS, then, you do more harm to your friend. In this case, a warning is enough IMO. — OldPadawan 48 secs ago

So retaining information is to preserve you from becoming "part of the game". Alright. But what good will it do to your friend ? Either he won't care (= no good/bad done), or he will, in case he'll spend time, effort and stress infering things, trying to interrogate the right people, risking asking the wrong ones, which in turn will keep the rumor mill going (hence making you part of the game). IMO, it's different to tell you friend that "Alice and Bob talk about Ophelia being pregnant" (that's a fact) than "Hey, did you know that Ophelia is pregnant ?" — breversa 1 min ago

@breversa : your point is good and valuable, I agree. It's just that I really hate when this happens (gossiping). On this, we seem to have a different POV. I just make a huge difference on this point: "retaining information"? No, it's not, because it's NOT information unless proven right, so I don't retain anything but BS at the moment ;) — OldPadawan just now

of course no one likes it when it happens. But I'd like to stress one critical point : information is what you know is true (i.e. that Alice and Bob talk about Ophelia, because you saw/heard them personnaly do it). Gossip is what you don't know is true (i.e. that Ophelia might be pregnant, because you have no idea about it). So giving your friend the information you have is helpful. It's spreading the gossip to others that keeps the rumor mill going (sorry for getting overboard with italics here ^^) — breversa 1 min ago

@Taladris I am from Belgium (next to France), and I'll second this approach. Although greeting one another with a kiss is the norm, saying hi and waving or something like that is OK, it isn't seen as an insult.That's also what I do with shy kids. — MlleMei 1 min ago

What is your goal here, do you want to avoid being rude? What have you tried in the past and why do you feel it failed? — Ælis 53 secs ago

@MlleMei: yes, saying hi and waving is fine. I never said it was an insult. My comments was only about blowing kisses which is not usual at all in my experience. — Taladris 38 secs ago

The workload necessary isn't that important IMO, there are a lot of questions tagged as conversational. Do you have any numbers that would approve this point of view? — avazula 25 secs ago

(FWIW, it's like 583 questions :p ) — avazula 31 secs ago

@avazula I was only talking about retagging that only have the "conversations" tag ^^ (no more than 30 retag necessary) — Ælis 1 min ago

@nomadictype: Could you build an answer on it anyways? AFAIK non interpersonal solutions can still solve interpersonal problems. Especially if a question is asked on the wrong stack. I really would love to read your answer to this and would appreciate the effort. — dhein 1 min ago

Especially when you then learn they've been trying for a child for months and just didn't want to tell anyone :-S — Marianne013 21 secs ago

@Ælis Rainbacon: You 2 are right on this. But in the end, OP failed to clarify important requests for clarification as A J already asked months ago. And while this question generally would fit for this stack, it is in this form not clear enough to be interpersonally answered. While in theory I think it could be answered in the form it is at workplace. So either way, at least it should be closed, as it is now. — dhein 1 min ago

Could you give any feedback for the last paragraph? This sounds like a very interesting technique, but I never really heard of it and can't quite get an idea of how that should make a difference. Would love to read more about the reasons why this actually could work. — dhein 18 secs ago

Hey, I know this is an old answer but I just wanted to inform you that the question was edited (a long time ago) to ask "how to ask for back up" and that your answer is (IMO) no longer answering the question. — Ælis 1 min ago

Nice. Short comment: What if the kid did not notice the advice from the stranger? — Santiago 45 secs ago

In this case, why not allowing people to not put tags at all? If we have a system saying "every question should have tag", why allowing people to bypass it by using a very broad tag that works (almost) every question? What is the point in that? — Ælis 1 min ago

Hi 10 Replies! Wow, a question from the earliest days of IPS. Since then, we've changed standards a bit, and now we expect more from a question than this currently is. Here's a short list of things we've since decided are good to have in a question. Sadly, this is likely to be closed as too broad/open-ended when held against current standards. Feel free to try and edit (would be great, as that way your question might help more people), or leave it if you don't feel like putting effort into an old post, no hard feelings either way. — Tinkeringbell ♦ 41 secs ago

@Ælis Ehm.... I dont see what of your comment isnt already covered by my answer. Except for the „no tags at all“. But you should consider a seperate meta post for that. — dhein 2 mins ago

I probably wasn't clear then (sorry). The thing is that I'm troubled by your suggesting to bypass the system and I'm not sure this would be considered good practice on the SE network. — Ælis 53 secs ago

What is grossly missing from all considerations here is that if Hamlet wouldn't be willing to have sex with Ophelia without contraception, than... he has been raped. — M i ech 47 secs ago

@Ælis I don't see how it changes anything. You don't make someone look foolish. — The Wraith 1 min ago

Do you have an example of such a question? — Ælis 1 min ago

@Ælis Of which type of question? — Upper_Case 1 min ago

I'm not convinced by your advice to just 'suck it up'. Having a disorder of this sort doesn't excuse you from following reasonable rules & expectations for the place you're in. If your disorder prevents everyone else from using & enjoying this space in the way it's intended (and a 'quiet zone' in a library is not unreasonable), then unfortunately for you, you can't be there. As an example - if I, as a noob at skiing, jumped onto a black diamond slope and promptly fell a**-over-t**s and blocked it for all the experienced skiers I would be told to evacuate myself from the area... — brhans 15 secs ago

@brhans : I didn't say "do it" or "you'll have to do it" (suck it up), but I mean that you'd better be prepared to suck it up. Why ? because libraries and places where education is the main purprose often have rules to "protect / help" people with disabilities. If the throat clearing disorder is such a pathology, OP may find that staff won't do anything because they may not be allowed to do. — OldPadawan 1 min ago

@brhans : Addendum: I think your example about skiing is off-topic on this, because you weren't allowed to use the harder slope (in many ski parks, you can use only the ones according to your rating). In a library, everybody can access to knowledge, with almost no restriction (in many countries) — OldPadawan 16 secs ago

Since Upper_Case bring a very interesting point (IMO) what do you think of how the tag is currently used? Do you think its use respect your definition (and thus the case where it should be used)? — Ælis 14 secs ago

Sorry for being too vague, I meant: do you have an example of question(s) who, in your opinion, makes legitimate use of the "conversation" tag? — Ælis 1 min ago

@Ælis I haven't really taken a look at how it's being used. It seems like your arguments for the burnination are "it's used very often and doesn't add information." My answer is focusing mostly on "It's not a bad thing that it's used this often and it does add useful information." — scohe001 8 secs ago

I'm not in a good position to go digging right now, but any that include "tactfully" in the question title or ask how to broach difficult topics would probably fit. This recent question (interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/21173/…) seems like that was the intended focus. But regardless, whether or not people use the tag well isn't the issue I see. Eliminating the tag destroys all possible information it could ever convey, and I do not believe that that information is inherently expressed in any and all IPS questions. — Upper_Case 18 secs ago

I would argue that it doesn't add valuable information when it's used wrongly (maybe I should have asked if the tag is correctly used before asking for its burnination ^^) — Ælis 1 min ago

Thanks for your help, I will post it in money.stackexchange.com instead. (: — KinIcy Net 29 secs ago

I think that this is a good and valuable question, but I'm not sure it's a great fit for the IPS structure. Asking "why" doesn't suggest a goal, and while it's about interpersonal skills it doesn't use them. Could the question be narrowed a bit? — Upper_Case 1 min ago

@Upper_Case From the help center: "understanding social norms as they relate to interpersonal interactions - why do we interact the way we do?". So I would say that (IMO) the question is on-topic — Ælis 1 min ago

@Ælis I didn't vote to close, but I do think that this question will be extremely difficult to answer while being consistent with guidelines for answers. — Upper_Case 6 secs ago

This seems to be very, very broad. It's not clear to me how this could ever be answered. — DaveG 5 secs ago

I just added the "academic-research" tag as I don't see how this question could be answered by other form of backup. Let me know if you diseagree with my choice. — Ælis 1 min ago

Hey RockPaperLizard, I edited your title in an attempt to match your actual question. Feel free to change it if you don't feel like it's accurate! — scohe001 37 secs ago

@scohe001 Thanks. There are really 2 questions, but I didn't want to double-post. The first question is "Are conversations with friends private?" and they second is summarized by the title you wrote. Which do you think is a better title? — RockPaperLizard 1 min ago

Hmm the "first question" seems primarily opinion based/too broad to me. Perhaps you could ask "In what situations is it implied that a conversation with a friend should be kept private?" but then that's pretty much the same as asking "How can I make it clear that a conversation should be kept private?" in my opinion. — scohe001 22 secs ago

@scohe001 Thanks again. I shared your concern about the original title, which is why I have left your title in place. Thank you! — RockPaperLizard 55 secs ago

Thanks Anilla. I agree with you. On the other hand, when I confronted my friend about this, he said that one-on-one conversations aren't private unless one person says "don't share this with others". In other words, he doesn't view this as a breach of trust. In other words, he may be trustworthy, but have very different views of what you and I consider to be private information. After talking with him, I started to wonder what is the norm. — RockPaperLizard 1 min ago

Thanks Anilla. I agree with you. On the other hand, when I confronted my friend about this, he said that one-on-one conversations aren't private unless one person says "don't share this with others". In other words, he doesn't view this as a breach of trust. He may be trustworthy, but have very different views of what you and I consider to be private information. After talking with him, I started to wonder what is the norm. — RockPaperLizard 1 min ago

That's an excellent point. But if my definition and standards need to change, I'm open to that. — RockPaperLizard 1 min ago

@RockPaperLizard Trust can be such a deeply intrapersonal topic which I can't really answer on this site. Everyone's definition will vary either slightly or majorly. There isn't an exact "standard" out there for it. It's something you will need to figure out through your own introspection and personal development; taking account of experiences you encounter amongst people. — Anilla 1 min ago