This is not supposed to be a theology debate.

December 1, 2002 9:35 AM

This is not supposed to be a theology debate. Although I don't mind walking the line because I am interested in people's reactions and interpretations of a natural phenomenon. But I don't want my first FPP yanked because people couldn't at least flame on topic and the topic is HIV, how it works and what it looks like.
posted by wobh to Etiquette/Policy at 9:35 AM (19 comments total)

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get anyone in trouble.
I'm not a virus expert and am not able to have a high-level discussion about the mechanics of retroviruses. I just said what the interesting links made me think about.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:38 AM on December 1, 2002

Since the world's handling of AIDS is a political issue and since religion and politics have been synonamous, oh since forever, you gotta take what you get discussion-wise when the front page is so diluted with the issue at hand.
posted by mischief at 9:42 AM on December 1, 2002

Pretty_Generic's reaction may have been genuine, but it was not what the post was about, and it did cause a theological debate that wasn't appropriate for the thread. I'd love to see a more reasoned debate about the religious implications of HIV, because as mischief points out it's not something that we can ignore, but bringing it up in that thread and in the way Pretty_Generic did it was obviously a derail and obviously intentional.
posted by Hildago at 10:00 AM on December 1, 2002

Hey, actually I'm pretty cool with the discussion so far (I'm hardend by years of usenet) but I see it heading in the direction of oblivion and I want to head it off at the pass if I can.
posted by wobh at 10:02 AM on December 1, 2002

Mischief has a point. With so many links on the same topic all day long, the discussion would be similar on every thread. Not a derailment so much as one person's reaction to the topic of 12/1.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:04 AM on December 1, 2002

It's a plague on mankind killing untold numbers of innocents. Theology is on-topic as far as I'm concerned.

Since wobh has been so nice I will shut up now.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:12 AM on December 1, 2002

Please excuse my adding to the derailment. Time to jack the cars back in place and keep it going on its proper path.

Hildago - Maybe you would be so kind as to start such a thread with a related FPP?
posted by Plunge at 10:33 AM on December 1, 2002

I just tried to rerail it for us. Let's try again.

And for the record I'm certainly not blaming anyone for their honest feelings here. I just want us to be more directed about them.
posted by wobh at 10:41 AM on December 1, 2002

It's a plague on mankind killing untold numbers of innocents. Theology is on-topic as far as I'm concerned.

By that logic every thread about a serious topic ought to have as its first comment "How can any of you worship a God that made that thing?"

Which isn't even so much an honest question about theology as a thinly-veiled insult to all the theists out there, of which I am not, by the way, a part. Come on, is this really what we're supposed to be doing today?
posted by Hildago at 10:48 AM on December 1, 2002

is this really what we're supposed to be doing today?
no. apparently, we should be masturbating away the passion incited by lying in a puddle of dead mans shit.
posted by quonsar at 10:51 AM on December 1, 2002

Hey Quonsar, start your own thread.
posted by wobh at 11:00 AM on December 1, 2002

Whaddya know, I would have thought quonsar was impervious to all things disgusting.

Apparently copronecrophilia is his own personal kryptonite.
posted by malphigian at 1:14 PM on December 1, 2002

Seems to me that derailed threads are the only ones getting any comments at all today. So I wouldn't really complain.
posted by ODiV at 6:40 PM on December 1, 2002

Suggestion:

Maybe Matt might consider creating a feature in the sideblog along the lines of "Most outragous, insensitive, and thouroughly unecessar/worthless post of the week".
Sort of like a 21st century stock and pillory in our little hamlet called MeFi.

(Not that my idea was inspired by any one post or poster--I'm just sayin' )
posted by Fupped Duck at 8:30 PM on December 1, 2002

Give it a fscking rest. Just because it's World AIDS Day doesn't mean the standards by which this community is run are abandoned. If this were any other normal day on MeFi, a sizeable number of people would be calling for blood if someone posted a link with an elaborate accompanying quote about jacking off next to a dying person.

These ad hominem cries of "insensitive" and "homophobe" are patently bullshit; it was a lousy shock-jock way of posting a link, regardless of content.
posted by Danelope at 9:27 PM on December 1, 2002

ODiV: I was trying to do some self-policing, here, you know trying to maintain some civility and on-topicness in the thread I started this for. And Quonsar comes along apparently trying to fuck my shit up. Sorry Quonsar, you have been trolled. You could have tried to whine about it somewhere else instead of spreading it here.
posted by wobh at 10:24 PM on December 1, 2002

Self-policing or no, as Matt claims, MeFi doesn't do politics well. So, when he devotes an entire day to a highly political topic that draws FPPs many of which would raise howls of NewsFilter on any other day, expect some fireworks.
posted by mischief at 4:10 AM on December 2, 2002

Ohhhhhh! Ahhhhhh!
posted by Witty at 10:00 AM on December 2, 2002

Am I the only one who noticed that this thread about a derailed post has gotten derailed itself?
posted by TedW at 2:08 PM on December 2, 2002