BS: Are Americans 'insular'?

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 May 02 - 10:51 AM

Troll alert

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 02 - 10:57 AM

A bit late out of the starting gate, aren't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 02 - 11:47 AM

So, here is the link I promised above (Guest 18 may 9:04 a.m.).

From Ronan Nolan's excellent "Irish Music Web" site here:

http://www.irishmusicweb.ie/texts/sing_res.html

On his links page he gives the following description of Mudcat:

"Mudcat Discussion Forum Enviable British chatroom with lots of Irish content."

Anyone have any guesses as to why Ronan thought Mudcat, an American folk music forum, was actually a British folk music forum?

WARNING: Rant mode on!

It does seem to me that certain antagonistic British cyber-folk have a tendency to take over folk music forums online and try to run them into the ground with their mercenary anti-American flamewars. We saw it here with the Celtic Music/Bulmer threads, which pretty much ruined the rec.music.folk newsgroup. A couple of years ago, there were numerous knowledgeable American cyber folk contributors, most of whom fled in the wake of nasty, protracted flamewars instigated by certain British posters, directed at all things American--American musicians they claimed were stealing British musicians work and making millions, American posters in the group, what they still disparagingly refer to as "American snigger-songwriters."

Rec.music.folk is like a ghost town now. But uk.music.folk is thriving!

We seem to be seeing the same sort of thing seeping into the Mudcat forum. A handful of malicious British posters attempting to poison this and every other decent folk music discussion forum on the web with their vile anti-American crap. How many of the British protagonists in the Celtic Music/Dave Bulmer have contributed meaningfully and/or fairly consistently before or since those flamewars someone is clearly trying to start up again right now? Where are the folk music contributions to other threads of people like George H and Ralphie to the forum? Answer: they are non-existent. They came here with an incredibly nasty, divisive agenda--divided and conquered, and left.

So Ralphie--is it you trying to get the flamewars going again?

Rant mode off.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 May 02 - 11:52 AM

For the record, I don't think of GUEST 9:04, 9:26, 10:19,10:24 as being a troll. A little heavy-handed, maybe but then, s/he is not on a negotiating team.

I think s/he makes good points- I, for one, do approach with wariness any post that is blank or just GUEST. And Guest 9:04, etc, is right that when a guest signs in with a tag appended I in many cases tend to think the person plans to be somewhat accountable.

As to whether Americans are more or less insular than other countries, I suspect we all tend to judge others by our own communities. Not only that, many, many times when a person draws a blank on the location of a specific city, country, continent- I think it's because the speaker was not understood. We do pronounce things very differently from each other, and given a 'strange' accent to boot, the listener often simply does not understand the question.

I remember years ago in Virginia a woman asked my father where he was from. He said, 'Oregon', pronouncing it the way Oregonians do, which is NOT the way it appears. She asked him twice then finally shook her head. "Never heard of it," she said.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 18 May 02 - 11:57 AM

I am constantly perplexed by how hard it is to be fair.

If a post is polite and respectful, great. If it trashes someone or a whole culture, etc., then not great.

Much as I do not like anonymous postings, as you cannot tell when you are dealing with someone who has in past been one of those anonymous folks guilty of flaming, the fact remains that, if the thinking is sound, the thinking is sound and it shouldn't matter what the source.

Prejudice is prejudice. If you judge an individual by the country they come from or a post by the name it is under, how is it any better than judging someone first by the color of their skin, and not on their individual merits?

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 02 - 12:07 PM

Ebbie, another idea that came to me was the number of members being cited in another thread being around 11,000. It made me wonder how many troll/flamers had registered as members, just to get around the membership prejudices against the blank "From" line, do their damage, and leave once they got bored.

It only takes a few minutes reading this forum for a troll to figure out how to do this, and it gets done in online forums all the time. I think the Mudcat members are too cyber-insular (ie they are too attached to their Mudcat cyber-homeland, and don't get out to other discussion forums on the web) to see who the real trolls are in their midst. Some of the worst trolls and flamers here, after all, are long-time members using the same pseudonyms and/or their real names. They are, in fact, quite proud of the fact that they get away with belittling, harrassing, humiliating, and threatening guest and other member posters with impunity.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: DonD
Date: 18 May 02 - 12:53 PM

As an American (pardon, US) xenophile, I'm much more interested in posts from and about the UK and elsewhere than almost anywhere in the States. Title a thread "UK 'Catters only" and I'm hooked.

I'm not insular, parochial or provincial -- I'm a New Yorker. Of course the Yankees are supposed to win the world series. And the Rock is supposed to win the World Wrestling Federation. What part of the word 'hype' don't you understand.

When I read a thread, I usually start at the top and work my way down to the bottom, and only go back to look at who posted if there is some particular geographical reference or outrageous provocation, in which latter case I must say I am not to surprised to find it is from GUEST.

I'm not insular, but that doesn't mean all Yanks aren't insular; those GUEST flames don't mean all guests are assholes.

I've been to Oahu, but never to Ohio; I've been in St.Moritz but never in St. Louis, etc, etc. but what's that got to do with anything as long as I remember when I express an opinion where I got my information from and what I base it on. Everyone has preconceptions and prejudices but the important thing is to be aware of them, resist a holier-than-thou attitude, and avoid impugning others knowledge or motives.

It's as clear as the moon in the sky on a cloudless night: assholes will reveal themselves. If you suspect you might be one, don't moon, I mean post.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 02 - 01:33 PM

DonD shares his preferences with us, to wit:

"As an American (pardon, US) xenophile, I'm much more interested in posts from and about the UK and elsewhere than almost anywhere in the States. Title a thread "UK 'Catters only" and I'm hooked."

Which begs the question: then why spend your time in an American forum? Wouldn't you be happier inhabiting a British forum, or a NY forum, considering your stated preferences?

Oh, I forgot! People like you prefer to inhabit the American forums so you have a ready made audience to look down upon and hurl your sneering insults at.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 May 02 - 01:46 PM

LMAO..........Ah yes, the weekend........trolldays as it were............Keep trying goofus. I applaud your efforts and creativity in creating non-issues. So far today I see you've tried at least four! Good job....increases your chances, but I think you'd do better to encapsulate all four into one rambling thought thing and start a new thread. This one is now getting too long to attract the majority so I'd think you need to start something new. Maybe something along the lines of "US based forum" and it's "obvious" problems and you can then throw in the oldies such as Guests, Inner Clique, In-House trolls, and the like. Go for it!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: GUEST,SeanN.
Date: 18 May 02 - 02:41 PM

Actually Spaw, you seem to be the only one coming into the threads on the weekends and haranguing guests. And I notice no one else leaping on your bandwagon, so maybe the time has come for you to give it a rest.

I have to agree about difficulty of finding online forums to discuss American folk music. There just isn't a general place to do it anymore. I'm not sure I agree with the above guests stated reasons for the lack of a forum. But I sure do miss hearing from people like Sam Hinton, Frank Hamilton, etc and having to put up with burp and fart threads here in Mudcat, just to get my folk fix.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 18 May 02 - 10:27 PM

Don't feed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: InOBU
Date: 18 May 02 - 11:31 PM

Hey Spaw... me pet wee mousie, the mouse before the late lamented Bongo Knock, well that wee mouse's name was Goofus. It was his name and a good name it was for a good wee mousie, proud of his name he was, and he'd answer to it... please don't waiste a good name on a nameless guest... Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 19 May 02 - 12:20 AM

G'day Larry,

I know you posted this nearly a week ago, but I've been basically avoiding senseless threads started by trolls who promptly vanish back under the bridge:
" ... OUR DAMN BASEBALL HATS! YA DON't EVEN PLAY THE GAME ... "

Hey! Why shouldn't they hang onto the silly caps? ... They invented the game (baseball is mentioned back in Jane Austin's novels and by a few of her contemporaries) ... They've just found better things to do with their spare time since then.

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: BS: Are Americans 'insular'?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 02 - 11:01 AM

I see catspaw49 is doing his best to keep members from looking behind the curtain, and focusing instead on those blank "From" lines.