Suicide maybe - but needs saying (AP post)

I know some here abhor AP postings and this is probably going to be a suicidal post - but I feel I need to say something.

The manner in which an individual went through a thread and slammed so many posters with neg AP's and turned an extremely positive thread to a suicidal one leaves me pondering.

I recently posted to the thread "We can bomb the world ....." and a large number of posters were slammed with negative AP's, including myself. I have no problem with this, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I do believe though if one is going to "dish out the dirt" so to speak, why not explain why you found the posts/thread offensive and thereby educating others on what is and is not the appropriate use for these boards. I feel this borders on an abuse of the AP system.

I for one, would never dish out an AP (neg or pos) without letting the poster know why I feel that way and give them the opportunity to respond .... I have no need to hide behind anonimity - hence this post.

I am new but I can only imagine that this individual must wield some power in the site to be able to do what was done and I may again feel that wrath, but I felt it needed saying - suicidal or not.

Sorry if this post offends anyone, but needed to get it off my chest.

Ok I feel better now......

Found out a few things here far many more people read then post. Many choose not to and that is their right. In the States votes are cast with no need to justify to anyone why votes are cast. Me I only assign points based upon what is important to me, my family and community, while I did read the thread it appeard to be just about Bashing the US and I did not assign posts or respond because I felt it did not meet any requirement at AO. In short you do not see Americans here bashing your country but accepting you. I'd say the people that never post cast their votes and here the votes speak, wither one agree's or not after all it is an American site open to all. It is not about one person but a community speaking in one voice through a vote system here that up holds the American I cast my vote I need not explain.

the original post, as stated and through the continued statements, served no purpose outside of pissing people off on both generic sides of the opinions shared. why even bring it up - unless you plan on providing a solution or working towards one.

if we are here, through creation, only to point out others shortcomings, then we live miserable lives indeed. why not take things at face value, without derogatory generalistic remarks - forget the past (in all aspects fortune, glory, and shame), rejoice in good things and comfort in negative ones. we are all people...we all contribute to the same problems...we all suffer from some form of organization that doesn't act in our best interest or our neighbors...and we all have minds of our own - conflict is inevitable - resolution is compromise - i'll even take the first hit.

Palemoon,

I hear you loud and clear, and without returning to the tone of that thread I spoke of tolerance and respect .... and I respect your point of view, although it would appear the party responsible for the allocation of the AP's, distributed them carte blanche to kill the thread without looking at too deeply at the postings. I found that "Flying of the handle" and "Jumping to conclusions" are dangerous sports.

I agree, I do not see US citizens bashing us "down under" in this forum but there are individuals who do, on both sides elsewhere, fortunately they dont speak for the majority and are generally ignored. Coming from the US you must admit you pride yourselves on democracy and free speech - and with that I guess the fringe elements have the right to be heard, no matter how painful their words.

I have never been one to sit in silence when I have something to say and am quite happy to sign my name to it.

Kindest regards.

I wonder.... does the Suicidal-thread feature have checks to make sure that the negative AP's being assigned are not all from one user (or from one several accounts in succession with the same IP range?...)

Oops forgot I take points on the post. My point the thread did not mention the some 2,600 American lives lost of people just going to work, the 4 civil airliners used as bombs and the distruction of private properity. So lets compare this to a wedding party shooting guns in the air when our country was attacked. Make mistakes we do as any people so I suppose I will take what ever hits that are cast. Fact is you do not see Americans posting threads of how screwed up anyones country is, we put our lives and our childers lives on the line. If the US made a mistake we have lots of checks and balances to investigate such things, the answer will be known. But in general and common sense you are in a state of war guns are fired to hurt, kill or mame, you expect the US to take more hits? Freedom is hard to understand if you have never had it.

Droby10,

I agree some of your arguement, but to forget the past, are we not condemned into making the same mistakes in the future ..... (said but some smart, famous person - not me).

If the tolerance and respect (which is a two way street) I spoke of are not an intergral part of compromise, please point me in the right direction for help, and if tolerance and respect piss people off, I guess we need all the help we can get.

Thank you for your opinion.

Wow, Terr has a great point, it makes me wonder too. . .I dunnno too much about anit-points yet, I've just started here , but it seems like they are a real nuisance to some people that wrote legtiamate posts on a topic. . .the site makes it pretty easy to tell by the scale of 'anitpoints assigned to this post', and I've seen quite a few that I don't agree with, but still think they have a very valid point. I also agree with Phat, I've only clicked on the 'assign antipoints link one time, but I left a message, and I plan on continuing that. . .

Palemoon,

I will not be drawn into a debate over 9/11 with a US citizen or anyone for that matter, I am not that insensitive. I contributed to the funds supporting the victims, of whom I never knew.
I support the US going after the people that committed the atrocity, but when they have been punished time should be set aside to acknowledge why it happened in the first place to ensure it doesn't happen again, anywhere, anytime to anyone. I am sure this is probably happening as we speak/type/read. Again this is a "war" that will be fought in the media, people of whom I have little trust and faith.

I am sure the checks and balances for errors in judgement are in place, I am from a law enforcement background and I understand accountablilty better than most.

I am sorry for those that found my original posting offensive that was not my intention but I stand by the fact that I refuse hate anyone and through tolerance and respect we can build a better world, but selling that idea to the masses may be impossible task.

i agree completely with the 'learning from the past' - i should have said forgive.

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If the tolerance and respect (which is a two way street) I spoke of are not an intergral part of compromise, please point me in the right direction for help, and if tolerance and respect piss people off, I guess we need all the help we can get.

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i think tolerance and respect _are_ a part of compromise. similarly your post has a much different approach and attitude than the one it references. it is presented in a manner that isolates a problem and establishes a framework for a workaround; while remaining open to opinion.

Terr

Good point .... the thread went from very positive to suicidal in minutes with a mass allocation of neg AP's to a large number of posters. I find it hard to fathom why all of a sudden there would be a mass of people sitting there with their fingers poised over the "button" so to speak.

Food for thought though. If it were more than one person who allocated neg AP's to a particular post would this not show in the AP Centre ?

This is a little different, but I posted a suggestion tonight regarding suicide threads, where a certain person posts, gets negatives and the post is closed, a valid post to begin with.

I have also thought that somehow, after a certain time, and a thread has died, a thread can no longer receive any antipoints. There are people who insist on going to older threads and balancing out their points, and you could have made a comment, for example my comments on the "I Am American" thread were very controversial, and I'm still receiving negatives for them. But what if, as time changes, my views change, by going back and putting more negatives, or positives on a thread I made three months ago to balance out your points on a view that may have changed since then, doesn't seem very fair either. I mean, what if someone asked how to hack hotmail, but really wanted to learn, and (I know, bad example) completely changed his attitude since then. He would most likely get banned because of a few comments.

I guess everything has their negative sides, everything can be abused one way or another, and I'm you certainly can't please everyone, but I do think there is some tweaking to the antipoint system that could be done, such as the old posts and the suicide threads. I also think that there should be a limit to how many antipoints you can assign per thread. That means, you can't go through an entire thread and give each person in the thread negative points...maybe only 5 people, there has to be some kind of limit on that....

What are your thoughts?

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Originally posted here by Terr
I wonder.... does the Suicidal-thread feature have checks to make sure that the negative AP's being assigned are not all from one user (or from one several accounts in succession with the same IP range?...)

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i strongly agree with terr.. recently i posted one thread at general chit chat... and that thread got negetive response and it died out. but then the people who gave me negs on that thread , the same people gave me negs ( of no reason ) at one of my thread at that tech humour also .. just out of frustration... so i just wanted to ask.. jp what can u do about this... ??