Forum Etiquette

[mark]

Thoughts:

• The term "height fetishist" geeks me out.
• "Zero moderation is the best moderation" sounds a lot like Ron Paul saying that heroin should be legal because no one you know will do heroin. It's naive and it severely underestimates the size of the overlapping area in the People With Internet Access/People Who Have Mustard Stains On Their Shirt Right Now Venn diagram.
• I generally agree with Peter, and I think a lot of the issue here is that it gets extremely annoying when people post mindlessly.
• With a few glaring exceptions, I've met the overwhelming majority of the thoughtful posters on the forum. The people who have the most complaints about moderation are anonymous, and that matters to me personally.
• If you think that you're learning more on SSC than on here, by all means, stop posting here.

You know, when I was 23 I was the smuggest, most self-satisfied person you'll ever meet. I would lecture people with decades more experience and perspective without a moments consideration. As the years pile on, in quiet moments I sometimes cringe at my behavior and how ludicrous it was. I feel very fortunate that my fumbling attempts at intellectual assertiveness were not recorded for posterity.

You did not create this community, Elf, Bapster did. And the community he created was quite literally an ode to tall buildings. You showed initiative when Minnescraper crashed and produced a replacement site. There are many internet forums, absent the Minnescraper community I've seen nothing that would suggest that this would be anything more than a quaint echo-chamber. Seeing your apparent disdain for Urban's visitors, maybe that's what you want.

Oh and there's a geopolitical reason for why many of us support ending prohibition that has nothing to do with wanting access expanded, but rather about questioning prohibition's sustainability in a multipolar world and the ethics of imposing hell on poor people. Not a bus ride to the train hell. A 9-11, every year.

[Nathan]

I think what this difference is that urbanmsp strives to be a factual tracker of projects happening in msp. a wiki reference if you will of things going on. each thread is about a specific project and what is known about it. if someone post a rumor in a thread and it's taken for fact by a browser it looks bad on the site. it's not tmz or the national enquirer ( though there are specific threads for that sort of fun).

the problem with desiring more height is that basically everyone wouldn't mind every project being taller or having a more unique design. duh. but after a point of multiple pages in each thread of every building it goes with out saying and it's no longer constructive conversion. if we just post pictures of what we'd rather each project be in every thread or would be impossible to sift through to the relevant information about each project getting built.

and if a rumor comes true, then GREAT we can then update that thread and be joyous.

But the same people who are saying we shouldnt do the whole "It should be taller" are the same people who constantly complained about 222 not being taller. And are now complaining about Stanton's proposal not being taller.

I disagree with you. (and maybe some people have evolved but still slip in a height comment here or there because certain spots just seem so prime)

Also urbanmsp isn't minnescraper. its hard to order a bucket of chicken at subway. trust me ive tried

I remember the comment about you staying in the suburbs if that's all you were interested in. (it takes two to tango sir) It read as sarcasm to me. if internet inflection is hard for you, I'd just try to lighten up a little bit.

[talindsay]

he created was quite literally an ode to tall buildings.

Literally: without exaggeration; describing something without figurative language.
In nine years I never read an ode composed by Bapster to tall buildings. If it really existed I would love to read it.

[Viktor Vaughn]

I've never spent much time on SSC, so I got curious and read the most recent few pages of the MPLS forum. It was a combination of someone alluding to rumors they were considering sharing, a debate whether nasa was credible, complaints about being rebuked on this site, and some reminiscing about Hines' old Twinsville plan.

Then I came back and read the updates here. Sara posted an awesome report from the sw meeting, tc gave a heads up about getting a say on neighborhood boards, and other interesting conversations carried on.

As anyone with an internet connection knows, quality discourse doesn't happen naturally on the interwebs. So I guess that I appreciate the curation that helps this site to be so much better than the usual terrible. And being an advocate for free discourse, I like that the moderation is done mostly through debate and rarely through deletion. It seems like usually off topic conversations run their course and then get merged with similar ot diversions. That makes both threads better.

I get kinda tired of "it should be taller." But maybe we ought to be quiet about our irritations for the sake of building a wider community that cares about our cities.

The most disappointing part of visiting ssc was to see spectre post his detailed updates on St. Paul there instead of here.

[Nick]

From what I recall from the parking ramp development, is that people were only making comments about how it was supposed to be an "iconic" building. That along with differing floor counts from the media is what has sparked the conversation about height. Is that so wrong? What is worse. That, or 2 worthless pages because people b!tch and moan about Stanton's new development having too much parking for their personal preferences. Something that 200 pages on this forum will not change. So why complain about it?

Well, I wasn't really a huge fan of that either, but the conversation was smart and interesting. And I would disagree that nothing on the forum will change anything--while definitely not anywhere near the entire reason, people organizing here to go and speak in favor of it is probably at least partly how the Opus Dinkytown development got through the City Council last year.

But the same people who are saying we shouldnt do the whole "It should be taller" are the same people who constantly complained about 222 not being taller. And are now complaining about Stanton's proposal not being taller.

That's clearly not true, and that's one of the things that bugs me. People on SSC are complaining about negativity here, but I mean A) read through that thread, and B) those folks are consistently the people who've been negative on different projects, whether it's 222 or Nic on Fifth or whatever. And another thing, the idea that 222 should have been taller due to its location at Hennepin and Washington isn't necessarily a dumb idea, but simply posting "this is ugly I hate it" every three weeks for a year isn't a very good way to go about things.

The most disappointing part of visiting ssc was to see spectre post his detailed updates on St. Paul there instead of here.

Right???

[John]

I think it's been good for the "height fetishists" to be able to vent their obsession on SSC rather than irritate people here as much. There is talk of creating a subforum for the Twin Cities on SSC as we certainly have a very active metro area that is booming. I'm actually "Bi" in my reading/posting on these websites. Both sites are great. But Urbanmsp has more comprehensive coverage of development that includes neighborhood activity and the whole state. Also good on transportation issues, and promoting the values of urbanism and good public transit. Yes, people on this site can be bitchy and catty at times, but I work in the mental health profession, so I'm not too phased by it. On a public forum like this, It will be hard to get along at times. Everybody has their own strong opinion and ego.

[NickP]

Cool convo folks. Like, John, I am "bi" in my reading, in other things as well, lol, and I agree that I get more hard data from here than I a do SSC. There are a couple people I wish didn't feel so alientated however, like spectre. I also liked retired bankers posts. I personally thought his posts were informative and interesting. I felt some posters stated rumors as a way to claim significance and seemed to lord their knowledge over others, such as "look at me, I'm in the know, but I can't tell you anything." I found that to be annoying and a bit rude, but I never got that vibe from banker. It seemed to me that the previous discussion of him just got out of control.
Does anyone else think so? I hope I'm not alone in this thinking haha.

[mattaudio]

I didn't get into the discussion too much, but banker seemed alright. And I don't think any jabs were supposed to be taken personally. But on the internet it's hard to interpret things with the levity that might have matched their intent.

[Didier]

I'm also not sure where the perception started that people here ran retired banker out with broomsticks and told him never to come back.

My recollection of RB is that he generally had an interesting perspective and was able to "ground" some of the people who were over-eager for towers, Towers, TOWERS!!! But at one point he broke open his vault and some of his predictions seemed a little too positive, and when some skepticism began coming in he left, with only min-chi-cbus knowing where he went.

I'll say two things.

1. If he really is an important retired banker with his hand on the ground floor of all sorts of big projects, it's probably not realistic to expect him to be a regular poster in a community like this anyway. Just like if Mulad actually worked at a railway he probably wouldn't come here and post about trains all the time, since he could just talk to his other industry friends rather than speculating with other interested citizens.

2. If the complaint is that people here were skeptical about an anonymous person posting vague and far-reaching rumors on a message board, then the Internet has certainly succeeded in dumbing us all down.

[Tyler]

2. If the complaint is that people here were skeptical about an anonymous person posting vague and far-reaching rumors on a message board, then the Internet has certainly succeeded in dumbing us all down.

Maybe read whats been written? No one is talking about retired banker until the last two posts.

[David Greene]

Yes, people on this site can be bitchy and catty at times, but I work in the mental health profession, so I'm not too phased by it.

Ha!

On a public forum like this, It will be hard to get along at times. Everybody has their own strong opinion and ego.

One of the things that keeps me coming back here is that people can (often *strongly*) disagree on one thing yet still find common ground elsewhere. People generally don't take things personally here, which is great. I love the fact that I can go to something like the Bottleneck open house and share laughs with some folks who think I'm insane for supporting 3A.

[mattaudio]

True. Even if we have different backgrounds, assumptions, and preferences we all are connected in this well enough to know who cares about our city. Clearly I've disagreed with David or woofner on SWLRT routing, but I respect them and know they want the same quality region that I want.

[John21]

If you don't like what certain people post, go to the user control panel and add them to your foe list. Pretty simple.

[Didier]

2. If the complaint is that people here were skeptical about an anonymous person posting vague and far-reaching rumors on a message board, then the Internet has certainly succeeded in dumbing us all down.

Maybe read whats been written? No one is talking about retired banker until the last two posts.

And I was pretty obviously referring to retired banker in this entire post.

[Tyler]

Right. But why? He's not the topic of this conversation.

[Didier]

That's kind of a random thing to nitpick considering the post directly above mine was on the same topic.

[Tyler]

Umm... you wrote five paragraphs about retired banker and tried to distill the position of those who have "complained" into something none of us said. So yes, I'll agree. Quite random.

[Didier]

1. This is stupid.

2. I don't know why you keep insinuating that my post had anything to do with you. Maybe you haven't noticed, but retired banker's exit from this message board has been a sore spot for a handful of posters, and it's been discussed throughout the entire "rumors controversy," including just before when I posted.

3. Moving on.

[mulad]

I'm oversubscribed on my time as it is, so I don't follow the other forums. spectre000 does have a Flickr page that I follow, though:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/33319414@N08/

[holmstar]

I wanted to search for info on parking in the LPM apartments thread, so I went to the thread and in the search bar, typed "parking". This is what I get:

The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: parking.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 3 characters and must not contain more than 14 characters excluding wildcards.

I know this is an urbanist focused forum and that parking is a contentious topic, but come on. You can't even search for it?