Polly's Thoughts on Future of Our Community

[Hibush]

IIn the interest of full disclosure, I was in favor of a Reddit group when we made the transition from the Chronicle to here. Reddit's threading makes it easier to ignore/skip tirades that may now dominate an interesting thread and it is much simpler to downvote, report, and personally block from ever seeing again, specific, obnoxious posters.  Having said this, I am always grateful for this community and more so the work of the moderators.

I recall your interest in reddit then and again when IHE dropped their comments and the r/insidehighered subreddit was formed.  Unfortunately that subreddit has devolved to be mostly the kind of comments that you find frustrating. It would take the concerted effort of a lot of thoughtful redditors to bring it up to the kind of interesting discussion we have here.

In both cases, as with all online communities, satisfying participation takes being intentional about seeing where the good stuff is and recognizing that 10 to 99% of the overall content is just not for you. Perhaps even aggravating. But building on the good stuff.

[Hibush]

The effort to continue IHE comments on Reddit r/InsideHigherEd has officially failed. The organizer u/splunge, put a lot of effort into posting several articles every day. However, the comments that resulted were not quality discussion. The subreddit has been locked with a farewell note from u/splunge.
"I appreciate that it gives people an outlet for complaining about every little thing, and I appreciate that such an outlet is needed. But reading through all this has become more of a chore than a passion."

The other subreddits covering similar material include
r/professors
r/highereducation
r/highered
r/faculty
r/college
r/universities

Thanks to Splunge for giving it a shot.

[Bbmaj7b5]

I was a big loudmouth over on the old Fora. I'm also in engineering and there weren't a lot of engineers (though some notable ones for sure) around the old place, so I kept most of my discussions general. Got a lot of useful advice and tried to give out some that I hoped was useful.

I was looking at a guitar transcription of one of my favorite jazz tunes, ran across a Bbmaj7b5, and my new moniker emerged from the chrysalis.

I appreciate the work of Eigen in getting this place started, and Polly for helping to keep things going.

Since it's good to have goals, my immediate goal is to make it to "Member." After that, we'll see how it goes.

[traductio]

I was looking at a guitar transcription of one of my favorite jazz tunes, ran across a Bbmaj7b5, and my new moniker emerged from the chrysalis.

Since first seeing your moniker, I've been contorting my hands trying to get the flat 5th into a Bbmaj7 chord (and reminding myself that I am not a jazz musician). It's an excellent moniker.

[eigen]

The effort to continue IHE comments on Reddit r/InsideHigherEd has officially failed. The organizer u/splunge, put a lot of effort into posting several articles every day. However, the comments that resulted were not quality discussion. The subreddit has been locked with a farewell note from u/splunge.
"I appreciate that it gives people an outlet for complaining about every little thing, and I appreciate that such an outlet is needed. But reading through all this has become more of a chore than a passion."

The other subreddits covering similar material include
r/professors
r/highereducation
r/highered
r/faculty
r/college
r/universities

Thanks to Splunge for giving it a shot.

That's too bad, sorry to hear it folded. We'd welcome the discussion on r/professors, and most articles there seem to get pretty decent discussion if you want to migrate over. Only policy rule is against blind links- so if you post an article, also post some starting discussion.

[Bbmaj7b5]

I was looking at a guitar transcription of one of my favorite jazz tunes, ran across a Bbmaj7b5, and my new moniker emerged from the chrysalis.

Since first seeing your moniker, I've been contorting my hands trying to get the flat 5th into a Bbmaj7 chord (and reminding myself that I am not a jazz musician). It's an excellent moniker.

I usually play it as X-1-2-2-3-X, low to high. The E on the D string is the flatted 5th.

[dr_codex]

I was looking at a guitar transcription of one of my favorite jazz tunes, ran across a Bbmaj7b5, and my new moniker emerged from the chrysalis.

Since first seeing your moniker, I've been contorting my hands trying to get the flat 5th into a Bbmaj7 chord (and reminding myself that I am not a jazz musician). It's an excellent moniker.

I usually play it as X-1-2-2-3-X, low to high. The E on the D string is the flatted 5th.

Now, that's a threadjack I'd endorse. My guitar is not accessible, but I'm trying out the fingering on my desk.

dc (dcdedcdf)

[traductio]

I was looking at a guitar transcription of one of my favorite jazz tunes, ran across a Bbmaj7b5, and my new moniker emerged from the chrysalis.

Since first seeing your moniker, I've been contorting my hands trying to get the flat 5th into a Bbmaj7 chord (and reminding myself that I am not a jazz musician). It's an excellent moniker.

I usually play it as X-1-2-2-3-X, low to high. The E on the D string is the flatted 5th.

I was trying to bar an Amaj7, which is easy enough, but it was danged flat 5th I couldn't work in. Didn't think of muting strings.

[Bbmaj7b5]

Threadjack:

I was looking at a guitar transcription of one of my favorite jazz tunes, ran across a Bbmaj7b5, and my new moniker emerged from the chrysalis.

Since first seeing your moniker, I've been contorting my hands trying to get the flat 5th into a Bbmaj7 chord (and reminding myself that I am not a jazz musician). It's an excellent moniker.

I usually play it as X-1-2-2-3-X, low to high. The E on the D string is the flatted 5th.

I was trying to bar an Amaj7, which is easy enough, but it was danged flat 5th I couldn't work in. Didn't think of muting strings.

Well, the old jazzer's trick (taught to me by an old jazzer) is to leave out the 5th (which would be F) since it typically doesn't add any appreciable harmonic content. The chord as written above would be root-flat5-maj7-third.

End threadjack

[mahagonny]

As I mentioned earlier, boundaries are subjective, and so I don't have any idea how many people think that I have pushed boundaries, or how often.

Boundaries may be subjective in the sense that anyone may decide or state that he is offended by anything and, while it's often easy to quickly find out who sympathizes and who dismisses the claim, it's almost impossible to challenge the veracity of the claim without running the risk of 'bullyhood' (though we have our suspicions when someone is being manipulative), since not one of us is any other one's shoes. At the same time, boundaries are not really subjective here, nor on most forums I have frequented. They tend to be characteristic of each forum community. On most forums that lean one side or the other politically (this one leaning left); they are established by de fact majority rule. Some might say the 'tyranny of the majority.' Since you Marshwiggle are politically moderate or perhaps just bit right of center, you are regularly seen as right-wing, and it's not surprising to me if you are surprised from time to time to find you are thought pushing a boundary, just by ruminating.
I can think of only one forum that I know of that leans neither left nor right. The people on the left would hate it.
Certain posters reveal themselves to have buttons that are easily pushed. Thus, Marshy or someone else is considered a troll in a discussion about transgenderism, and also considered just the guy on the corner in discussing committee work. Simultaneously! Yet the charge that someone is here 'with the goal of provoking reactions, without interest in conversation' almost always goes unchallenged.
Being offended is an especially big deal these days, because it either gets you political capital ('those racist cops') or ridicule ('white fragility utterance') depending on where the prevailing sensibility has assigned you on the victimhood/oppressor continuum. The trend has really consolidated itself into a mainstream practice in academia, I would say, during the last ten months or so. It's surprising how rapidly that happened; well, I guess not so surprising in the perfect storm of pandemic/George Floyd/social media/national elections.

[mahagonny]

Hmm...slow day for the fora. It can't be that one wise guy adjunct with no terminal degree like me has such power....??

Clarifying from yesterday's post:

It's not that the accusation of trolling is always unanimously supported. It's more that the fact that the accusation of trolling involving an unsupported assumption about the motives of the poster who is being called 'troll' is not properly noted. The assumption takes on a life of its own.  The normal etiquette, when one's curiosity is aroused, is to ask the speaker for more information. Whereas, in online life, once the term 'troll' shows up, fear and suspicion take over. It's not exactly a hard thing to figure out, either. If I figured it out, all of you can. The obvious conclusion being the *fear of trolls* may be intentionally abused by the accuser, who may be calculating, his charge will fly because he's with the majority politically.
confession: whenever I hear so-and-so is a right wing troll, I think, that's someone I need to get acquainted with.

[Hibush]

Whereas, in online life, once the term 'troll' shows up, fear and suspicion take over. It's not exactly a hard thing to figure out, either. If I figured it out, all of you can. The *fear of trolls* may be intentionally abused by the accuser, who may be calculating, his charge will fly because he's with the majority politically.
confession: whenever I hear so-and-so is a right wing troll, I think, that's someone I need to get acquainted with.

I agree. I have not seen any poster here that has been a troll, as it is understood in online forums. I've seen tired tropes, but no trolls. 

Ad hominem attacks don't look good in this venue. Call the idea unfounded, or immoral, or whatever is relevant. Or call out intemperate comments, in a sprit of collegiality if possible.  The vigorous discussion is good. We can let off some steam, and see some other perspectives. Persuading people to abandon their principles is not likely, and not needed.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think one can troll without knowing that's what one is doing, simply by engaging in trollish behaviour.

Similarly, if I attach an outrigger to my canoe to stabilize it, I've made a catamaran--even if I don't know what a catamaran is, and thus didn't intend to build one. Actually, a lot of bullying works this way, come to think of it.

Some people are so focused on the (supposed) purity of their intentions that they don't recognize ther behaviour for what it is: a problem.

[mahagonny]

I think one can troll without knowing that's what one is doing, simply by engaging in trollish behaviour.

Similarly, if I attach an outrigger to my canoe to stabilize it, I've made a catamaran--even if I don't know what a catamaran is, and thus didn't intend to build one. Actually, a lot of bullying works this way, come to think of it.

Some people are so focused on the (supposed) purity of their intentions that they don't recognize ther behaviour for what it is: a problem.

I don't think that's quite it. My intentions were never pure all the time, but yours weren't either. It's more that I'm less impressed with some folks' sanctimony.
Of course, the whole discussion is probably ruined even before we get going, because we've recently crossed into territory where having white skin means you now have to express yourself in a certain way in order to identify your 'ally ship' as defined by a panel of 'experts'. Congratulations to all who worked hard building this Frankenstein's monster of human race relations.
Half of us think this represents a triumph for human rights and the other half thinks it's the slippery slope to inevitable totalitarianism. Instead of your ally ship, I'll stick to my catamaran, even though I take my whips for it.

[marshwiggle]

Some people are so focused on the (supposed) purity of their intentions that they don't recognize their behaviour for what it is: a problem.

This is the logical consequence of arguing that people should not be heard because of their "bad faith", or some -ism or -phobia.

If "behaviour" includes making statements that some people disagree with and don't want to hear, then the only non-"problematic" option is for everyone to live in their own non-intersecting bubble chambers and never interact.