I have asked nicely, 

I have asked multiple times.

I really don't get why folks just don't listen to the ask.

It isnt that your topic isn't important.

Do people not know how to start a thread?

Mmmmm,
Barbeque.

Speaking personally. I haven't been ticked off by any of the discussion on the WC2 threads. Baffled by some of it, but not ticked off at all. 

Hi Pinga,

Seven years in this is nothing new.

Sure they do.

The question is why don't they?

Speaking only for myself if I am addressed in a thread I tend to respond in that thread unless I have said I'm no longer participating in a thread.

In the most recent thread where I have been party to a derail I responded to allegations made of me.  I responded where the allegations were made which I believe is not only my right but a right which extends to all others.

If you were accused of something in thread A would I expect you to open thread B to respond to that accusation?  No.  I wouldn't.  So when somebody grabs me by the collar I don't stop and look for another place to shake myself free.

Grab me here then I will respond here.

Part of that is simply my desire to keep quotes handy.  If I am being called to task for something I said here in this thread then I am going to keep my responses here in this thread.

Does that get in the way?

Yeah.  Sometimes it does.

Does it frustrate others?

Yeah.  I bet it does.

Do I plan on changing?

Nope.

Does that mean I don't listen or care about others?

Nope.

I do listen and I do care and having started threads with one intent only to watch them fall into petty bickering is discouraging.  That said, it isn't something that is a constant.

I understand the wondercafe2admin threads are about future place and there is some anxiety about getting things perfect before this ship sinks and we all go scrambling for another.  I'm not about to let that anxiety be permission for folk to put words in my mouth.

I wouldn't when the boat wasn't sinking why would I start now?

Grace and peace to you.

John

Revjohn, you can quote a thread an put it it in the new thread, the same way you go back and copy a thread.

I am not asking you to not defend yourself.  I would be happy to participate in that conversation and respond.

What you do is limit the abiity of others to participate or provide their feedback by their desire to stay on topic, and not engage in the side bar.

your posts are long, they are detailed.  Kimmio's posts are often updated multiple times to get the right content into the post or update with more accurate language of her feelings/thoughts/suggestions.  Bost of those items are your styles in posting.  Both are good.    It isn't about the value of the conversation or the posters or the style of theposting.  

It is ismply that it is irrelevent.  Put a link in and direct folks to your new thread.  

You are right, there is no need for you to be respectful of the posters or work to keep a hread on topic.  I get that.  You have no requirement to give a shit. I also get that.  I just have a much higher respect for you and others and so would expect you do give a shit.

Respectfully, Pinga, I don't think this is the case at all.  We all have the ability to respond to the opening post on a thread at any time. 

I hear you Pinga. When it comes to the threads that have a sense of urgency, such as getting answers for the preparation of the new site, I would agree. With any preparations that have a limited time period for resolving issues, it is important to stay on topics that are related, in order to achieve the goal.

Other threads, not so much. They unravel, go different directions, sometimes create thoughts and directions that merit another thread or they provoke laughter, disgust, anger.....Whatever the case, we learn something about ourselves and others. Our patience is sometimes challenged but still it is yet another lesson on how to get along or not.

Waterfall, i agree.  Sometimes it is respecting the desire of the thread, and also the community of posters desire.

Sure you do Paradox, just like anyone can come to a meeting or to a party.  Yet, the host has a responsibility in both those situations to check with tone.  Tone is what I think waterfall is speaking to.

To be fair, the code of conduct does reflect this topic, and in theory, the posters could be flagged; however, that seems to drive demand into a moderator which would be nicer to be handled just through decency

Hi Pinga,

I don't buy that.  Not for one minute.

I respect that any two combatants in any particular thread have the ability to generate a lot of posts.  The only time I generate posts in numbers is when I am responding to multiple posters or I am responding to multiple posts from a singular poster.

I'm as easy as anyone else to ignore and move by.  And when the conversation is a heated difference of opinion between myself and another I expect most do.

I wade around others disagreements all the time.

Which is only  a problem if you are still on dial-up.  And that doesn't change whether I'm locking horns or simply being thoughtful.

I think that is a debateable point.  I acknowledge that it was a derail from the desired conversation.

I admit to being off-topic.  I think the allegation of disrespect is hyperbole.

My problem is not that I don't but that I did.  It was my giving a shit that made me the target for somebody else's shit.  I keep reminding myself that no good deed goes unpunished.

And because I do actually give a shit I stuck around when somebody else started to fling theirs my way.

You know how much easier my week would have been here if I didn't give a shit?

Which is why I didn't bail on the conversation.  I didn't pick the time or the place I was dragged into it.  Finding myself there I had it.

Did it get in the way?  Yes. It did.

Can others go around?  Yes.  If they wish.

Should others have to go around?  No.  They shouldn't have to.  And yet, we've all been doing that pretty routinely since WonderCafe.ca started with two months left to go I doubt it will suddenly stop.

Did others show up hoping that other conversation was happening?  Probably.

Have they stormed off vowing never to return?  Doubtful.

At any rate I have signalled I'm not continuing that conversation on that thread which indicates both that I have heard and I give a shit.  If it is too little or too late that is all I can offer for that conversation.  I don't time travel.

Grace and peace to you.

John

RevJohn.

My wish is that I could have particpated in teh conversation and the topic, without also, or that someone more wise than me would have been able to enter a conversation without also being off topic.

so, yes, I could go around your exchanges.  i also had to read it to see if there was something relevant to the topic at hand.  sometimes folks have a habit of throwing in something on topic in the midst of an off-topic.

RevJohn, you were only one party in the off-topic posts.  I understand.  This isn't a witch hunt , just an ask....and a sense of my frustration.

Both Mendalla and I had to browse through that thread to pull the stuff that was relevant.  It was only mde harder by people not responding to requests.

I think the culture here at WonderCafe has always been to allow digressions and tangents in discussion threads. Some folks have had to tolerate that, others have celebrated it. I understand that it would be frustrating to have a thread keep going off topic when somebody might be trying to use it to get actual work done, but it's also the nature of the medium and part of the "social" part of social media. (Though it certainly could be argued that it would also be "social' not to derail somebody else's discussion with your own agenda.)

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, we've intentionally tried to keep the nature of WonderCafe as the open forum it was created to be. And this is both its blessing and its curse.

The host also has a responsibility to check his or her own tone, Pinga. I submit that wording the title of a thread as a demand is not the very best way to set a good tone. 

I took that thread too far off topic- in my opinion it's okay to go off topic briefly because that's how conversations go in real life. But I see that it's not fair to have a one on one debate with someone and leave the rest of the group wondering what's going on and having to comb through pages of the thread to find the relevant posts. I'm sorry that happened again yesterday.

Here it goes. I was defending myself also and my perception that John was missing the point that others feelings are our responsibility to a degree. Our ability to recognize that what we say might hurt somebody depending on how we say it. For example, my posting off topic caused frustration and I am sorry about that. I pissed John off and the conversation went sour and I feel bad about that too. We are a group, a whole, and helping one another rather than hurting is our responsibility. Pinga, chansen, and Mandella deserve respect and not to be met with a barrage of criticism and they should be given the benefit of the doubt that between the three of them they will make fair decisions for us, for this site. They are ultimately going to decide on nominees whether we put some names forward or not and if anyone criticises their screening decision, they are just as likely to criticise if the three do the choosing. It all ends up the same. Just giving us a chane to choose a few names might give us a feeling that we are voting but it's not necessary. So we might as well, IMO, trust that they will select keeping our best interests in mind because they are not only owners but members. How bad could their choices be? We are a group of good people and that's who they'd be choosing from so whoever is picked will be fine. Entering into the new venture based on cynicism about "what if these people raise a problem" is not a healthy attitude towards this group, this place, as a whole. Setting up the emotional environment in such a way that three people are being defended against a group of unmentioned people with grievances, right off the bat, i felt was cynical and not a healthy attitude toward the other of the members of the group- particularly those like me who have been one of those who felt favoritism in the past and was trying be fair and trusting.

Hi Pinga,

Respectfully.  I don't go off topic until the middle of page 5 and while Kimmio and I take up the bulk of that page there are several others offering the fact that they don't find me guilty of what Kimmio alleges.  All of that would be off topic.  I have no control over whomever wishes to come to my defence.

If there is a lot of weeding being needed to be done before page 5 that is somebody else's burden to carry.

At any rate you were heard in the thread and respected.  Maybe not as fast as you like.

I actually didn't read your 18:29 complaint until after I responded to Kimmio's post prior to that and it was likely only moments before the second complaint at 22:44.  I only read all new posts in order if I am not being addressed.  When somebody addresses a post to me I read that far, respond then go back to what else was there from others.

So if you think I sat around for four hours planning on how best to ignore you that is not the case.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Going off track is a time-honoured tradition on web forums (and the dial-up BBSes and newsgroups that preceded them).

There is a time for that tradition to be honoured and a time for it to be challenged.

On most straight up discussion threads, the digressions and tangents arise naturally out of the conversation. You quote a Bible verse in a discussion and someone takes part of that verse and goes in another direction with it or something like that. That is a time to let it go and honour the tradition.

On a thread where you have a specific goal, challenging the tradition is, I think, legitimate. You don't ban or suspend people for it (I hope) but you do respectfully ask that the conversation more back on track (as Pinga and I did repeatedly).

Someone who drops into a thread simply to diss the topic ("threadcrapping" is the technical term) is another. For instance, if I popped into every thread that unsafe opens on Charles Stanley and said "Charles Stanley sucks", I would be threadcrapping. This is not the same as criticizing. If I am criticizing and discussing what Stanley says, that is not threadcrapping, that is participating in the discussion. Simply saying "he sucks", or tossing insults at unsafe and others who are trying to support Stanley, and leaving it at that is trying to shut down the discussion. That does, IMHO, merit a mod warning in some cases and even a suspension if that warning is not heeded. It is disrespecting the discussion and participants. 

Hold that thought (and this topic in general), please, because it will come up in discussing the Code of Conduct where we will have some language around threadcrapping.

Mendalla

Somebody said yesterday that the WC2 thread in question was starting to sound like a Presbytery meeting. Things are continuing to move in that direction. Frankly, I haven't participated too much in any of the WC2 threads because - honestly - I don't really care about them. Just get the thing up and running and I'll decide if I'll be involved or not. I don't feel the need for input, I don't feel the need to give advice, I don't feel the need to vote or nominate anyone. Just get the thing up and running. Interminable discussions that go back and forth and on and off topic are, indeed, the stuff of Presbytery meetings.

Hi Kimmio,

And that degree is 0.

You didn't then.  You are close now.

I take responsibility for my emotions and I will take responsibility for saying what they are when.  It isn't your place to tell me or others what I felt when.

You are the expert on what you feel.  Tell me you are pissed off and I have no choice but to believe it.  You are not an expert on what I feel when, where or why.

If I am pissed off I certainly am not posting here.  I'll find something else to do until I've calmed down and had a chance to think about how I intend to respond.  I'm not shooting my mouth off in the heat of passion.

If you really need to comment on my "mood" wait until I tell everyone what it is.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Wow John. Okay.

I agree.

I went through the thread up to Page 5 and I called twice  for everyone to get on with it but it seems on forums some tend to be more worried about themselves than the  community.Indeed the stuff of Presbytery meetings. Please notice - no names mentioned

Well, you couldn't be refering to me because I've never been to. Presbytery meeting. ;)

At the risk of pulling this thread off topic (can you actually pull a thread about going off topic off topic?) - let me just say: Watch it Kimmio. You're making me jealous. There are days when I wish I could say that.

I've gotten a couple of invites (I think it was presbytery but there are so many meetings I get confused- they were big meetings anyway and I am a volunteer, was on a small committee) but I was working evenings. That's one of the reasons why innundating the church with endless meetings and committees and polity enough to make you dizzy, turns off new members from getting involved and is increasingly difficult for existing members, IMO.

Even for those of us who work days, it's a problem. Who wants more meetings after being in them all day? And when both halves of a couple work, evening is when home stuff gets done. I've been pretty strict about keeping my church involvement to a couple areas in order to avoid getting bogged down time-wise: IT (since that's my area of expertise) where I'm an informal consultant to the Board and office; and worship, where I am part of a group called Worship Weavers that has kind of replaced our former Worship Committee.

To be frank, my fellowship's nominating committee is in crisis right now. We lack a treasurer and secretary for the new board that is supposed to approved by the congregation on May 31. We've cut our governance to the bone and still can't get all the bodies we need. And we don't even have higher courts like a presbytery to deal with. This is just getting people to sit on our own, local committees and boards.

Mendalla

Look at that. I just put the off topic thread off topic about going off topic again. I'd better get it back on topic. What's the topic again? Oh, yeah. Staying on topic. Or is it about going off topic? Coffee anyone?

Reminds me of the "Derail me"  thread.

Yeah- I think nowdays people are looking for ways of doing things that are more flexible and spontaneous. There needs to be some order to the process- doing some things online is really helpful for some things. I'd love to see church meetings be more spontaneous- like an extra half our or hour after church to brainstorm ideas, make it a little more fun and engaging, instead of making everything hyper organized and tedious- organizing the organizing. I just get lost in all that. Not interested. But maybe that's just how my brain works. It's not the most organized.

Not just UCCanada Presbytery meetings. Churches of all kinds of denominations can have struggles. The meetings at my church tend to go very smoothly, but I have heard stories...

About staying on topic.......

I sympathise with the admin team for WC2 when they have threads pertaining to technical and set-up functions for the new WC2.

These are not threads for derailing or off-topic comments - and would be frustrating for the admins concerned.

Like Rev Steven, I tend to avoid all this stuff which I haven't  the competence to respond to, and just want the admin team to get on with it an up and running.

BUT, this constant obsession with "staying on topic", derailing threads, starting separate threads etc on a SOCIAL media site is both unrealistic and somewhat controlling of another's behaviour, IMO.

In life, social conversations evolve how they will.

For example...

Imagine friends discussing a movie over lunch.

They might disagree about the theme of the movie - then go on to discuss the actors.

Someone says they liked the book better.

Someone then mentions a book they're reading about this woman that has breast cancer.

Someone say that her Aunty has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Someone says they know of someone who regained their health by drinking nothing but vegetable and fruit juices for a month.

Somone says that they work in the medical field and that's a ludicrous and dangerous thing to do.......

Get the picture?

Whatever we think of it, derailing will happen.

Best just to scroll over posts when that occurs, if it upsets you.

But, a word of warning here, sometimes the derail comments are more interesting than the original topic...... 

The issue I have with derailing threads is that the people who are setting up WC2 are doing so with volunteer time.  No one is paying them a salary.  They have other jobs to do in their lives and must be tired at days end, so reading through volumes of unrelated material is very time-consuming.  All the changes are being done for our benefit and we have the most to gain or lose.  They also have a time-line as the demise of WC draws nearer and nearer.

So... out of respect for our new admins, I think we can honour their wishes and endeavour to keep things on topic, especially when there have been repeated requests.

If people want to pursue their own "social agenda" they can aways do so via wondermail.

Generally speaking, it's fine if people derail threads. That's the way in which conversations tend to run in real life. This is a social forum, so there's no reason why we wouldn't discuss things here in the same way.

Having said that, I do think it's reasonable for the future Admins of WC2 to request that certain threads be topic-specific with no derailing.

It's the least we can do to refrain from derailing, considering the good work that they are doing, and their need to easily and effectively glean ideas pertaining to the important topics from the threads.

For whatever part I've played in derailing any of said threads I offer my sincere apologies.

Rich blessings.

This thread was in direct response to the wondercafe2 admin threads

As Gecko gets, there are moments of, seriously folks, grow up and show some respect.

Then, I breathe, don't swear, and try to read through the thread

Mendella and i both asked repeatedly.

So, yeah. I just don't get it

Pilgrims, i am not sure about the reference to constant., other than each of the wondercafe2 threads asked for people to stay on topic.

I also think the thread starter has the right to set tone and have expectations. If people choose not to follow, then in most cases the owner can abandon the thread.

In the wondercafe2 threads, we don't have that option

 I'm beginning to wonder why folk have so much touble with comprehension?

Maybe that's the real issue here?

To attempt clarification of my point of view.........

For technical, setting up, oganizing threads for WC2 - keep on topic.

For other threads, NOT RELATED TO THE SETTING UP, ORGANIZING ETC OF WC2, just relate and post what you will with respect.

These are my personal opinions only........

If others disagree they, as other adults, have a perfect right to do so. They are not breaking any laws of the land.

It's not my role to instruct other adults on how to behave. It's enough of a responsibility to concern myself with my own behaviour - and not be concerned by other's behaviour, providing it's lawful.

As Bugs Bunny would say, "That's all, folks."

That was Porky Pig's line.

I agree with the rest of your post.

The Aussie is right. Wow.