Running's Rants

Town Herald: Runing's Rants

Say again…?

I was visiting a page of a friend I had started watching a while back, after I got a system message that changes had been made, when I saw what I considered at the time – hilarious at first sight.

Looking back now, I think the argument is valid, but don't conclude until you have seen both sides of this very thick slice.

My time in this e-community has been one of interesting encounters and I have met very nice folks, as well as the oddest you could find anywhere online. So when I saw the notice on Communications Protection Center , I thought the subscribers as well as the offenders where in the words of a comment I read on that page, part of a Supersonic clown site.

The CPC, as it is has been fondly dubbed by the banners the subscribers display, has several wikis linked to the main page. Of these, the ones to note most seriously are The Code and the infamous Terms And Conditions , infamous to offenders of course.

They have a number of actions that have been highlighted and termed ‘offences'. They are indeed rather annoying when you are focused on doing ‘important things'.

Receiving a chain message was the silliest I ever got; the individual now holds a special spot on my relations list. It wasn't exactly her fault since she was superstitious, but we cleared that up mostly without leaving a bad taste in our mouths.

Then there was the fellow who made aggressive sexual advances (where do they get these ideas), I scared him away by sounding dangerous. I think that was a bit over done, but so was his offer.

In the page Terms And Conditions it was explicitly stated that the transmittal of any information that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, libellous, and invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, sexually, ethnically or otherwise objectionable was strictly prohibited, luckily the closest I have come to any of these was not directed at me but you still see quite a number of those.

It could be argued that the ‘dungeons' where the names of these ‘offenders' are placed could be abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, hateful (a subscriber said she hated them) and invasive of privacy or publicity rights. The messages were sent privately and tackling the matter ought to remain so.

Another interesting bit was ‘Hi' not being a sentence. I know someone who was painful shy, and in short supply of words that she used a smiley. If I had responded harshly I definitely would have missed out on a fun, fulfilling and wonderful friendship. Admittedly, ‘Hi' is rather annoying when it comes to the messaging system at Elftown, it would take – give or take- 2 minutes to start a conversation, when in this jet age everyone wants things to happen fast. After all, email wasn't enough; we had to get instant messaging.

However, in my opinion, the rule which is too strict would be the one about grammatical errors.

Messages in ALL CAPITALS a lack of punctuation a lack of caPitAls in the correct places and IM talk

Judging by my friends, who have English as a second (in some cases third or fourth) language, some mistakes could be over looked. I doubt if anyone online actually spell-checks messages to friends, I know I don't even spell check emails. All capitals can be tedious to read and punctuations (or the lack thereof) can be distracting, since you would have to put them there mentally, but IM talk really clinches the prize in this category. Once I had to get a neighbour to help me figure out parts of a message. When we both came up blank, I had to ask the little (politely) to explain what she said in the previous message.

As I write this piece, I fear that I am in danger of violating the 7th, 8th and 9th items of the Terms And Conditions and may end up in one (or more) of the dungeons, therefore, I must state that I am not against the terms since I agree with some of them, and they may be necessary, but then we can't judge everyone's message by these standards.

Back to the issue of weirdoes, an Elftowner that stumbled on the page asked the subscribers to include his name on their lists even though he was not an offender. At least one obliged, another turned down the request. So they break their own rules? That's a question that should be answered, or an issue that should be addressed.

If you get on the list you ought to deserve it. My advice to the fellow would be to harass them, send dozens of ‘Hi' messages and ask a question like "what would you do if I walked in your bed room with just my boxers on".

The recipient of the above question amply replied “dial 911 as fast as humanly possible”.