wrenchbread said:AnimageNeby said: snip
I still stand by the idea that any reading of Mahouka has its place in the Mahouka forum. Yes, that includes making fun of the things it does. Otherwise [amusing, crazy, etc.] fan theories or breakdowns that try to make sense of some of the more... incomprehensible shows would be thrown out with the bathwater.
Just wanna confirm, if another person did the exact opposite, that is, saying "this is great!" week after week, what would you do? Would you condemn it as much?
And I dunno why you're so focused on masochism or irony. The discussions I'm referring to aren't exclusive to just those two ideas. I don't think I'm particularly hurting myself. I don't think I'm hurting another person (unless someone somewhere identifies too much with the work someone else is criticizing). I think being able to consider irony or any sort of humor in a work is just as valid as the surface reading. I'm sure you've learned how to analyze literature. Every possible perspective is valid in a forum for discussion. Whether or not you think the specific content, as in, the specifics (e.g. Tatsuya is annoyed at all the girls around him) is valid is the one thing up for debate. Now, if you wanna create separate threads for ironic interpretations (memes, jokes, satire, etc.) I guess you can, but the general episode thread will have to make do until one is made. Until you're a mod or put the report button to use, you're just gonna have to accept this.
NeoGAF, one of the most respectable English gaming forums on the internet doesn't have entire separate sections for the different games we talk about because it wasn't built for it. We made do with "Official Threads (OTs)." All posts that praise, hate, elucidate, criticize, analyze, etc. all go into these megathreads. And it works. Why? Because of proper moderation. Because you don't have to pay mind to everything written. As long as you're on topic. As long as you don't attack another user. No racism, bigotry, sexism, etc. You should try reading what gets posted in the FFXIII threads sometime. It gets superheated, with jokes made in between all the word flinging, and people come out of it just fine, for the most part. (Yes, people are still butthurt over it to this day.)
Ermm...I didn't come up with the masochist thing. Neither with the ironical confabulation of something. Those were you guys' examples.
"Nidhoeggr said:
I am just masochist that likes to make fun of bad movies."
And you came up with the irony-thing.
Thus, I'm basically focussing on these examples because that were the examples you yourselves provided. ;-)
"Just wanna confirm, if another person did the exact opposite, that is, saying "this is great!" week after week, what would you do? Would you condemn it as much?"
Hmm. I would certainly find it as worthless as any other unsubstantiated and repetitive comment. Positive and negative don't matter in this respect. Would I react as much against it? Probably not - though I have done so a few times when it really became too blatant as well. The reason being, what I already said: one may reasonably expect, in an anime forum, that people talk about the anime they like. It's not about a secondary derived pleasure, it's directly related to the anime. It's therefore more on-topic, even if it's as worthless in my eyes. It's also less prone to be put there to get some reaction out of others. I'm simply not naïve enough to consider all those negativistic one-liners - some are blatantly provocative - as mere invites for a reasonable and constructive dialogue. If a fanboy here says how great everything is, I don't think he does it to annoy others, nor to elicit a reaction or response of the 'basher' crowd. The trolling aspect is much less, thus. They would still say how much they loved it, even if there were no bashers around. In contrast, I think a lot of the bashing and provocative posts would starkly diminish if no one of the fanboys or others liking the series were here to provoke.
So I'm inclined to ignore those repetitive and little-saying fanboy-posts as being worthless, but reasonable comments which I tolerate (more). The 'reasonable' being the natural expectation that people who like something, will continue watching and thus will continue talk about it. As said, I don't find it a reasonable expectation of someone who DISLIKES the series and is very vocal about how boring it is and what not, to continue to not only watch it, but also continue complaining about it, week after week. This is not normally within the line of what can be expected, unless there are ulterior motives behind the continuous complaints. The one I explicitly heard mention is that it was an invitation to debate. However, as I pointed out, the repetition, the form, the style, the lack of argumentation etc. is not conductive to open a debate, I therefore find it highly dubious that that would be the main reason of continuous complaining. Positive reiterated remarks are understandable in the sense that it's the most obvious way of dealing with a series one likes. The most obvious way to deal with a series one doesn't like, is not watching it, however. Not watching it is a perfect alternative for those that find something boring to watch.
It could be, as you say, that some of the bashers have some peculiar secondary pleasure in keeping complaining about something you keep watching though you don't like it, but one can hardly call that a reasonable expectation. It is, frankly, weird. I'm not trying to be judgemental here, I'm just saying as it is: normally, people do not waste their time on things they don't like, if the point of it is, exactly to entertain oneself. Even bashing and trolling could be considered to give pleasure to those that do the trolling (in fact, it almost always does), but that doesn't mean we should consider troll-posts as being a 'normal' way and certainly not a welcome way of conduct on a forum. To a lesser degree, this is true with posts that are hovering between troll-posts and just reiterated bashing one-liner posts. The most logical consideration there, is that it's neither an invitation for an interesting debate, nor behaviour that would be the most logical - namely not watching a series one doesn't like, just as watching a series one *does* like is also normal. The question then becomes - and with it, the rather natural suspicion - : why does someone keep watching and complaining and whining about a series that he doesn't like, instead of doing the obvious? I got two reasons: MS feelings and ironic confabulations. But why would that make it reasonable, or at least, have to be considered a normal way of dealing with it? I mean, what is it to us, that you derive some secondary pleasure out of it? Why would that differ with a real troll, who derives secondary pleasure out of trolling too? Should we allow trolls to flamebait too, then?
I'm sorry, but, while I can see how you think you have the right - and, on itself, you have - to consider secondary derived pleasure as equally valid as posts directly portraying to the anime itself, I do not think this is the case. At the very least, it can't be considered normal behaviour, within the context of watching and commenting (and especially 'keep' watching and commenting something while you don't like it while one keeps saying one doesn't like it, ad infinitum). That, well, basically is the definition of complaining and whining, and no-one likes whiners. SM feelings and what not withstanding, (concerning entertainment in) life is normally considered too short to keep focusing on things you don't like and find boring, when one could as well spend their time on things one does find interesting or fun to do. I find the apparently(?) uncontrollable tendency of some to show off how much they dislike something week after week, when they could and should just drop it then, far more alienating than someone who week after week says how much he likes it. Well, of course he keeps watching it, then; that's the whole point of seeking entertainment. And of course he's more prone to saying how much he likes it; that's because he DOES watch it every week, and that's the obvious consequence of and *because* he likes it.
In fact, if I had to compare the absurdity of continue to keep watching and complaining about something one doesn't like, instead of just dropping it and moving to something else, it would be someone enjoying a series and dropping it because he likes it so much and he has fun watching it. I dunno. Maybe such a person has a masochistic nature too? Could be. In any case, without external factors, it makes as much sense: next to none.
As for moderating systems; indeed, there are better ones. Personally, I like the system on slashdot: there, you can evaluate the posts yourself. The better they are genuinely appreciated by the community, the higher they get. You can then set your own level of what you want to see and what not. Those you don't care about, get immediately and automatically 'under your radar' and won't show up. It's a reasonable effective system, and lets a lot of options to the user/poster/reader. Simply put, you can auto-ignore crap posts. This wouldn't mitigate the making of such posts, of course, but at least it wouldn't bother anyone as well. I think it would not be appreciated by the ones seeking out provocation, however; nothing worse for a troll to be completely ignored, after all.
Frankly, I also suspect the amount of bashful one-liner posts would diminish sharply. Let's face it: most of those are there to clash with people not having the same opinion. Not debate. Clash. Very troll-like, thus. If all those posts would get ignored, the sheer amount of those posts would diminish as well, obviously, since that is their purpose; to seek confrontation. The more thoughtful posts still would surface, as most people recognise a worthwhile post from a nonsensical oneliner, be it positive or negative. It would be worthwhile to try something out like that. |