On your suggestion, Dave, I re-read the posting guidelines for... well, AT LEAST the 3rd or 4th time.
I've taken the liberty of copying them here, below:
Guidelines for posting.
This club has grown over the past few years and represents, in my view, a community. There are a number of folks who have been members since this club was formed and who have been regular contributors. And there have been members who have joined along the way and have been regular contributors too. There are also those folks who have been members for a while but contribute only occasionally. And there are those who come by for a short spell and then are gone.
The one thing we all have in common is our appreciation of Alembic basses and guitars. Beyond that we are a diverse group. Our membership is worldwide; members of the Alembic club are members of a global community. We find ourselves in various economic situations, various states of health, and various mental and emotional states as well. We have differing political views and spiritual practices. We have varying tastes in music; and we play through a wide assortment of rigs and use a wide variety of strings. Our members represent a very wide range of ages.
It has been my observation that the membership of our community has through their posts developed a practice of treating each other with respect and courtesy, which is reflected in the overall feel of the community. Thus there have come to be certain expectations of behavior. New members frequently remark about how helpful our members are and what a friendly place the club is.
It has been stated many times in past threads that our discussion group differs substantially from many other usenet and internet discussion groups, that our friendliness and helpfulness is somewhat unusual compared to other groups. Our members have grown to value this feeling of community and desire to preserve it. To this end I offer the following posting guidelines.
- Treat all members with respect and kindness, and treat yourself with respect and kindness as well.
- AVOID USING LANGUAGE THAT OTHERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE. Other people will find offensive, remarks that are degrading sexually, that are ethnically or racially oriented, that are patently political, or that may present some particular religious view. Many people find vulgar language to be distasteful.
- Craft your post as if you expect that the mother of someone you hold dear reads all the posts.
- Keep in mind that you do not know where someone else is in life. When you read a message posted by someone, you don?t know the context in which the post was written. All of us live lives of suffering. Someone who?s just made a post may also have just had a bad day at work, been involved in a traffic accident, may be dealing with personal or family illness, etc. Treating each other with respect involves being aware that all people suffer and are deserving of our compassion.
- Employ some level of humility. We all love our instruments. We each have our own ideas about what makes a great instrument. But treating each other with respect is to recognize that others have different ideas and that others love their instruments too. Members will have differing preferences for such things as body styles and electronics packages; and no one person?s preference is a better preference than anyone else?s.
- Breath. If someone posts something that makes you angry or upset, pause before responding. Remember, you don?t know the context; this person may be going through a particularly traumatic time in life; or this person may have been brought up in an environment that was significantly different from yours; or this person may be used to discussions on other boards where there is little regard for the feelings of others. So pause before responding, then try crafting a response that considers context and employs respect.
- Don?t beat yourself up. We all make mistakes. If you post something that you later regret, just be present with that feeling of regret and learn from it. Then jump back in and post something else.
- Use the edit button. In the top right hand corner of your post is the edit icon. You can edit a post for up to 72 hours after it?s initially posted. You cannot add pictures and links in the edit process. Keep in mind that when you edit a post it does not show up as a new post. The longer you wait to edit a post, the less likely others will notice that it has been edited. Thus editing is more useful when it?s fairly immediate.
- There are some general usenet practices that should be followed in any discussion group. For instance, using all caps is considered to be shouting and thus is generally considered to be inappropriate. If you are new to our group, you may want to observe the posts of others and just follow their example.
- There are also some aspects of copyright that should be considered as well. When thinking of copying text or pictures from another site to post on the board, it?s probably a good idea to check to see if the site has a copyright message at the bottom of the page. At the very least it may be a good idea to at least reference the other cite with a link.
- It is also a good idea to keep in mind that this discussion board is being provided for our use by our hosts at Alembic, and a link to the board is prominently displayed on Alembic?s web site. We are essentially in their home and we should act as if we were invited into the very living room of the Wickersham household.
The grocery store story.
A shopper is in line at the checkout register. This particular shopper is self absorbed at the moment; he?s had another bad day at work, he hates his boss, he?s in a hurry to get home and this line is moving too slowly. Why can?t the checkout person move faster, why didn?t that other shopper start filling out the check while the groceries were still being scanned, why don?t they open another register. The self absorbed shopper gets to the register and scowls at the checkout person, letting them know how angry he is at how slowly the line has moved. He doesn?t know where this person is in life, but has acted in a hurtful way. Chances are his actions will effect the actions of the checkout person negatively. The checkout person may become angry and then may act on this anger when encountering the next person in line.
A shopper is in line at the checkout register. This particular shopper may have had a bad day at work and may have a poor relationship with his boss, and may need to be home at a certain time, but at the moment he?s in line at the grocery store. Life is not about him; life is the interaction of all those around him at this moment in time. When he gets to the register he genuinely smiles to the checkout person; the checkout person is a fellow human being, and since all of us suffer, this person is deserving of compassion. Chances are this action will effect the actions of the checkout person positively. The checkout person may feel a little better and may smile when encountering the next person in line.
This is what I refer to as karma. But whatever it?s called, it seems to be a tool for living life that works. Its results can be confirmed by observation. When you treat others with respect, kindness and compassion, our community, the world we live in, becomes a better place for all of us.
I took the liberty of putting the phrase AVOID USING LANGUAGE THAT OTHERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE in bold.
To make a point.
Which is: good luck.
There is NO LANGUAGE that cannot be found arbitrarily offensive by a snivelly whiner. I found this out recently myself, on this website, which is why, unfortunately, I don't post much here anymore.
ANYTHING can be found offensive. Period
And what's so horrible about offensive? Are we so insecure that we must live in perpetual fear of the offensive? (Rhetorical question)
Personally, I find very little to be more offensive than the notion that civilized, rational discourse should be subject to self-censorship to avoid offending someone.
Take my word for it. Anyone can (and will) be offended by anything. And if offense is the standard of what it will become permissable to civilly discuss... then before long, we WILL NOT discuss ANYTHING of importance.
Because, EVERYTHING that is IMPORTANT to discuss is (at least, potentially, to someone) offensive.
It's that simple. Offensive... and important... they're two flip sides of the same coin... and they simply CAN NOT be separated. PERIOD.
Think about it. Or don't.
Take care, gang. Depending on the response, I may or may not post here anymore -for whatever it is (or isn't) worth.
