The Truth Hurts?

[Cool Hand Luke]

Food for thought. One member (who shall remained nameless) just told me that this forum is no longer as popular as it used to be because it should be called 'Web-Debate' instead of forum as people are arguing all the time. The exact message I get is (quote) "Are you guys exchanging ideas? They have never seen your points from your points of view and you also never do that. Everyone keeps arguing. What the difference of KPC ladies arguing in the wet market?" Wow. That hurts. So good people, have we - without intention - kill off this forum? We need to do damage control and do things differently if this statement holds some water. Again, your views, please. This should be, perhaps, a real community forum and not for a few of us to turn it into a gladiator's arena.

[left side hung]

hard to say, since i joined the forum after the shift you described (i think). i would consider a debate an exchange of ideas, or at least, facts.

i was under the impression that this forum dealt with a wide breadth of topics - from the abstract (literature, etc) to real life situations, and as such it makes a lot of sense that there would be disagreements based on different perspectives. (i've always taken debates as a given to any sort of discussion, or exchange of ideas) perhaps it could be attributed to the different and utterly different cultures that exist in one place?

and now, another opinion i have that may and probably will offend a lot of people. so i apologize in advance, but this is based on my own experiences.

malaysians seem to shy away from face to face debates, but would criticize you in kind behind your back, or on anonymous forums such as this. and so it could somehow explain why there may be more negativity here than there would be in real life discussions.

either way, take care all :)

-

off topic: i think i asked if there were pictures of you guys online a while ago, and i've been exploring the site since. i've found a few old pictures, but i have no idea who all the people are, lol! can anyone give me any links to pictures of themselves?

i'm working on a personal website at the moment, and when its up, i'll give you all a peek :)

[lady-o-leisure]

What the difference of KPC ladies arguing in the wet market

According to my Times-Chambers dictionary, "forum" is a market-place in ancient Rome ; any public place where speeches are made; a meeting place to talk about a particular subject.

So... it looks like a forum is a market-place after all. ahhahah.. Fish, anyone? Chicken? Veggie?? Very fresh.

[satish]

No L O L...no veggies 4 me..

i'm into buying Drac's blood..

Have u harvested any fresh stock lately....?

But on thought of this forum being not popular as b4..
I m pretty sure dz website hits has quantified by leaps nn bounds.

Thread hits:

alone nn afraid....7093 views
water filter...........5096
interacial..............3900
Lim kok wing........4462

although a lot are viewers..silent majority are interested in our threads..

But its true about some "debates" going out of hand, especially when the persons are using handles...
thats why i wrote a thread about using nick names some time back..

CHeers!

[lady-o-leisure]

With the recent bad weather.. it;s been rather tough getting a fresh supply of blood, but if u are into 'matured' blood.. then i might hv a bottle of week old stuff somewhere around.

Umm., Satish.. i use a handle.. but real pic included.. is that ok? heheh When i move back to USJ.. i will hv to wear heavy make-up to disguise myself and wear a wig too or else some people might say.. "Look!! that is Lady-O back from Taiwan" aiya..

[CCY]

I don't think it is getting unpopular . Information and news can be presented in multiple ways , be it argument or otherwise .Argument is also a form of discussion on a subject .
It is therefore up to the reader to sieve through and understand the points , pick up what he/she wants .

[ginaphan]

I've been a member for sometime now.
Yes, the culture has changed.

[sky]

Believe it or not, the forum is getting so so dry? Yes, it has lots of good news, info, topics of discussions, but there are "DRY"! And that's part of the reason why not many people are posting! Don't blame entirely on the Msian culture of "LIKE TO READ BUT NOT POST", bcos that is not true....

This forum is getting slow and dry, that's why people often received private messages asking them to post more, asking them to participate, asking them how can we make this an exciting place! Well, in my view, nothing will be changed, if the BIG BROTHERS n owners start to change.....but i know it is highly unlikely.

[Cool Hand Luke]

Sky - Welcome back to the forum. Please do not generalise. Let's hear your suggestions. I am sure all of us here would like to hear suggestions for improvement.

:)

[sky]

:rolleyes:

[Cool Hand Luke]

Sky - I was going to seek clarification about your post but you have edited it to two icons! Gina - Would you mind to share some of your thoughts on 'change of culture'? I would be very interested - for my personal benefit because I am very much into organisational behaviour (or forum behaviour as it is an organisation) and culture management as well as for the interest of everybody so that we can perhaps look at ways in making this good community forum even more attractive. Thank you.

[sky]

Maybe showing a COW MATRIX like this will make the forum more interesting:

http://www.mybuddies.net/portal/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=457&PN=1


:D

[empress_julz]

keep getting error messages. can't quite get to your 'hot forum' sky.

///ej

[satish]

Try now EJ..I chkd it out..it is a reincarnation of Matrix..!

[empress_julz]

the site doesn't support all browsers. apparently i couldn't open it with safari, so i tried IE. worked ok... thanks satish ;)

///ej

[ginaphan]

CHL, if you are really interested to know what, how the forum has changed, we can take it offline. I am quite busy right now. We'll get in touch when I can.

In the meantime, it would be good to research the word "community" and the many meanings and context it applies to.

[Cool Hand Luke]

Thank you, Gina. Will do so. Much appreciated and thanks again.

[romi_o]

err... is this thread getting to be the more literated thread or just a plain discussion?
i'm too lazy to get to my dictionary or wat so ever..... so if this is a literature discussion group, i'll pass:D

[Timo]

I am relatively new here so I do not really know if the culture has changed. Nevertheless, I do not see anything wrong with the way things are in the forum now. It may seem to the external observer that there may be a lot of bickering, but personally I like debating and I think the adversarial style of communicating ideas and opinions is a very good one, as long as everyone knows that at the end of the day, we are all friends and no one should take anything personally. This adversarial style is applied in many systems, law (in the courtroom), politics (the parliament, senate), science and even sports. Competition brings out the best in us, as long as we know it is friendly.

As for the culture change : Perhaps it is a situation where the forum was designed to tackle more down to earth issues, by this I mean issues which would apply to us directly - eg, crime in USJ, which roads to take, etc etc etc.. As the years rolled by, perhaps the younger generation has come to the fore, and being youthful comes with innocence and idealism - and hence issues such as racism have been brought forward. Therefore what we see now is a good balance between more practical issues, and more idealistic issues, which is excellent. That's what I think anyway.

I would add another comment (not a criticism), that in some discussions, the posts tend to converge to a point where people tend to have personal conversations. I have nothing against this, but for me this marks the end of the discussion, and in the process we may have been deprived of some other opinions which may have been extremely insightful or useful.

[Cool Hand Luke]

Timo - I agree with the points you have raised except the last one on personal conversation. I did that all the time. Those who have done it also include Lady-O, Romi-O, Jericho, Satish, LSH, L4F, Claude, Lord, Saml, EJ, (even) Chang and a host of others. Personal conversation add the personal touch of warmth and friendship but in reality it actually means that forum members are really connecting with each other. In my view - personal conversation (whether it be dead serious, friendly banter or flirt) add spice and sugar to the forum. And they should not "mark the end of the discussion, and in the process we may have been deprived of some other opinions which may have been extremely insightful or useful". For example, in this thread Gina and I were having a personal conversation and it certainly did not stop other views and opinions from coming in. In another thread, EJ and I were having a personal conversation on jazz bars. Then Chang and I were having a personal conversation on Vanilla Ice! And Lady-O always made all her posts somewhat personal and warm. They reflected her character as all personal conversations reflect our (hopefully) true selves.

:)

[empress_julz]

guys.....

let's just go with the flow. so long as we respect each other and the crux of the issue, anything goes....

///ej

[saml]

As long as we are not cutting out those who are trying to get back into the thread, I don't any harm in engaging in some friendly and sometimes unfriendly banter. Otherwise it would be too serious. We may or not agree with each other but what the heck, we are all different and sometimes we give each other the benefit of our own experiences. My 2 sen.

[lady-o-leisure]

I agree with Saml, we're all different, and in a way we stay on to share views. So what if the 'truth hurts' sometimes? Better than no truth.