Click to subscribe to HPforGrownups
Yes! Oh yes. Cranky (darkthirty) has attempted to JOIN the list elves. How is this possible?
Through the good faith of the list elves. Do i mean that? Yes.
Well, in fact, what it meant at the time, this exchange, what I thought it meant, was this:
I had what I considered were, not exactly revolutionary ideas regarding HP, but certainly less than mainstream ideas. I was eager to get them out, and completely moved to joy when I discoverd HPfGU. So, in total exhilaration I posted my theory. And I get an elfing back claiming my post was, yunno, too much this and not that. Whoa! All these things I was accused of - they happen in every other post. My feeling was that, in fact, it was my IDEA regarding the boy in the closet that was being objected to, not the style of my post.
Was it my fault for not being clear? Was it a strange post? Well, it was an unusual post. I modified it slightly and it got through. So, now I'm a prospective elf, what's my take?
Through experience, I know how absolutely amazing the list can be, when one first joins - to find a community, large, multi-facited, and growing. As a list elf, it is really important to understand the significance of this discovery for new members.
What strikes me about my own parts of this exchange are - my crankiness. Yet, I was having fun, in a way. Testing the list elf system. In retrospect, I come across as pugnacious, though. I could have made my points better.
I hope that my work for HPfGU, should I become a list elf, displays as much diplomacy as the elves with whom I had these dealings did with me.
Hello and welcome to HPFGU from the petty, small-minded, haughty
Ravenclaw-on-the-warpath Moderator Team.
I'm sending this message back to you for editing for several reasons:
1) Far too much attribution -- as our Admin file says (here --
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%20Files/hbfile.ht
ml#24), please do not quote excessively long sections of previous posts
when replying to messages. It clogs up bandwidth for all members, many of
whom are on metered internet access. In addition, it creates a large amount
of text for everyone to scroll past, which is frustrating. Bear in mind that
you
can also summarise someone else's arguments in one line. The quoted
material should certainly not exceed your own thoughts.
2) If you are unfamiliar with the workings of Yahoo!Groups, please ask off-list.
It is not conducive to a healthy list volume to ask questions about Digest
Mode to 4000+ people. The Mods are always happy to answer questions via
personal mail or at mods@hpfgu.org.uk. FYI, we have no control over the
formatting of Yahoo!Groups-generated digests. You might want to bookmark
our Portkey page at www.hpfgu.org.uk, though -- it has links to pretty much
everything HPFGU.
3) Explanation of ideas. Frankly, many of our list members are not going to
know who Tarkovsky is. If you want people to reply to your post, it would be
exceedingly helpful to include a brief summary of Tarkhofskyan style. Also,
we
recommend development of arguments rather than a simple "throwing it out
there" -- many posters become discouraged at the lack of response when
they just "throw out" their posts for discussion without generating
any
themselves.
4) We discourage on-list policy debates for the simple reason that attempting
to make any sort of list policy with over 4000 people is futile to the level
of
insanity. Similarly, comments about the moderators should be directed to the
moderators, not the list at large.
Our rules exist for a reason -- we have been administering this and other
online discussion fora for several years and we have found this system to be
the most conducive format for discussion. A full explanation can be found here
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%20Files/hbfile.ht
ml#1
I hope you decide to edit your post as I've suggested. I'm sure many of our
members would be very interested in your discussion.
Magically yours,
--Queer as John, for the HPFGU Magical Moderator Team
> --- In HPforGrownups@y..., eloiseherisson@a... wrote:
>
> > I'm a Snapefan, so I will acknowledge it! ;-) If vengeance isn't
> far up my
> > own list of priorities, perhaps it is only because a willingness to
> own up to
> > the less pleasant facets of our personalities goes a long way
> towards
> > dissipating them. (I have a lot of others to work on, though!) And
> shouldn't
> > one of the functions of literature be to awaken some of this
> awareness of
> > ourselves?
> >
> > I think similar clashes occur throughout JKR's writing: the lack of
> > psychological trauma suffered by Harry despite his abusive
> childhood, which
> > is understandable if we explain it as a mythic or fairytale early
> childhood;
> > the 'greyness' of the 'Light' side which suggests that good an evil
> are
> > complex, when we are clearly told which side to take; the treatment
> of
> > Slytherin House (for instance the argument a while ago over
> Dumbledore's
> > treatment of Slytherin at the end of PS/SS). There are more, I'm
> sure. There
> > are parts of the books which bear detailed moral analysis and parts
> which,
> > perhaps, do not; parts which perhaps were written with other
> intent, merely
> > to amuse rather than to instruct. (Although this does not negate
> Cindy's
> > point about the twins' actions having consequences for others.)
> >
> > Really, as often, I want to agree with everyone! I think JKR's
> > characterisation of the twins is too complex a subject to be
> analysed on one
> > level. I think they perform different functions in different
> contexts and
> > that they could be developed in either direction.
> >
> > Eloise.
>
> Having held myself back from posting to this group because of the
> inane, or rather, small-minded "warnings" of the moderators,
their
> haughty Ravenclaw-on-the-warpath attitude, such that, in their
> digests, they include no quick link to the board itself, I now find
> myself faultering on this very question of "how to take" Rowling.
Not
> that I have any particular beef, as they say, with any of the posters
> or their posts, but rather that I see little evidence that anyone
> else reads the Potter canon the way I do.
>
> That is to say, I read Rowling as if I were watching a Tarkovsky
> film. Ultimately, as those familiar with his flicks will know, they
> are about belief. At the end of Stalker, for instance, we watch as a
> child born close to "the Zone" apparently "wills" a
glass of water
> across the table and onto the floor, but seconds later a train
> rumbles by very close (they live a few metres from the tracks) and
> supplies a way out of belief, for those inclined to take it, though
> at the cost of narrative honesty.
>
> Tarkovsky wasn't, in that scene, talking about the ability to make
> things move by thinking it so, or rather, that was only the
> ostensible subject. What he was really talking about, as in his films
> in general, something Bergman himself referred to as Tarkovsky's pure
> cinematic language, is our response to the witnessing.
>
> I have to go to work - it has taken far longer to read these threads
> than I had imagined it would. For a condensed version, let me just
> state that, for me, Potter is an abused boy's fantasy world as well
> as a parallel world to ours, that some of the intensity of my
> response to the books arises from this, and, on the subject of
> bullying, my experience of school was that some of the worst
> transgressions by students involved "snitching" on others who
had
> done either relatively minor "bad things," or nothing at all,
or was
> done in a way and for a reason as petty and small-minded as
> the "warnings" of this groups moderators
>
> darkthirty
I sincerely hope you share this with the rest of the team, as I think you
are not only dead wrong, but are, in fact, equivocating, certainly in you
reference to the attribution characteristics of my post being "far too"
anything. I will not include any demonstrative posts, but the digests I get
are stuffed with attribution.
Frankly, having read the digests for a while I know you are completely wrong
about members of the list not knowing who Tarkovsky is. However, your
response is, in spite of your gameful attempt to respond to me personally,
only evidence of the negative attributes I pointed out.
You may "discourage" all you want. That is different than "eliminating."
Further, it is not my intention to let any of the context of the posts, you
and your fellow censors being a very big part of that context, go, either
unnoticed or unacknowledged. To do so would be a complete affront to my
sense of honesty, to honesty in general.
As a side note, just where would I post my original message, or are you just
dead set against anyone else reading it?
I read your explanations. I read the pages you demanded I read. I read your
email to me when I attempted to sign up for the group. Apparently, however,
you and your fellows are less interested in ideas, ideas quite different
from many of the other posters' ideas in form, content, and significance, or
meaning, than in "administering," read slapping.
I'm sure many of your members would be interested in my original post.
Especially since, with reference to the "snitch" reference, the form
of the
message and the content were one. You wish me to eviscerate my
communication, which will, in your estimation, make it palatable.
In conclusion, let me add that, while I don't actually enjoy being
artificially relegated to the status of reader only, for questionable
reasons, or even fabricated reasons (ie that there was too much
attribution), the gist of my post, the context within which it did occur,
whether you are willing to acknowledge that or not, was concise, accurate,
absolutely on the topic of "bullying," snitching being, I say, a relatively
unexamined form of bullying, rather like the group's moderators, left the
door quite open for further development of the idea of HP as an exercise in
the character study of adolescence in different situations, as an exercise
in belief, and as a far more pessimistic series of books than many are
willing to admit, and I let it stand.
Hi,
I'm sending this message back to you so that you can revise it in
compliance with our list rules.
As John mentioned, our list is for discussion of the Harry Potter
books. As a result, we discourage debate on the main list about the
list rules themselves or their application to particular posts.
Similarly, we prefer that list members not quarrel with each other
on the main list about personal matters unrelated to discussion of
the Harry Potter books. These matters are best handled off-list,
either by contacting the Moderator Team directly or by contacting
the list member with whom you wish to take issue.
Take care,
Cindy
--Magical Moderator Team
*****************
> --- In HPforGrownups@y..., "jferer" <jferer@y...> wrote:
> > As one of the board Geist...
>
> >We are *not* here to argue about what
> > kind of argument is legitimate, what things are worth
discussing,
> and
> > how we should go about making our points.
>
> Well, this morning, I got up, ate breakfast, and spent an hour
> reading posts and composing what I thought was a wonderful first
post
> to the group, a response to part of the "bullying" thread that
> pointed out "snitching" was also a form of bullying, or often
could
> be construed as such. However, one of your censors, his first day,
> mind, I see from the list, rejected it for what I consider
spurious
> reasons - something about too much "attribution," though, of
course,
> at least HALF of the digests are read this morning
> were "attribution." And he didn't like that, as part of my example
of
> the "snitch" mentality, I used this particular group's censor
policy
> (which I had assumed until I learned that it was very much a
> practise). He didn't like my reference to the great film director
> Tarkovsky, for instance, and claimed people in the group
> wouldn't "know" who Tarkovsky was. Now, to me that's
rather "inward,"
> econsidering that I was saying I read Rowling in much the same way
as
> I watch Tarkovsky films - that is, as an exercise involving both
> elements of witnessing and of the challange of "belief," the
books
> being, essentially, the fantasies of an abused boy.
>
> > --We know there is room here for everybody. We don't have to
read,
> > respond to, or be interested in everything here. We just have to
> make
> > room for everyone who's got something to say about Harry Potter
> canon.
>
> Provided they don't make allusions to the context of the group's
> censored state, even as part of a reasoned arguement, and that
they
> don't mention Tarkovsky as if he were the famous, internationally
> reknowned and respected, in fact, director that he is. Would I be
> expected to "explain" who Spielberg is?
>
> Relevant portions of the censored post appear below.
>
> > That is to say, I read Rowling as if I were watching a Tarkovsky
> > film. Ultimately, as those familiar with his flicks will know,
they
> > are about belief. At the end of Stalker, for instance, we watch
as
> a
> > child born close to "the Zone" apparently "wills"
a glass of
water
> > across the table and onto the floor, but seconds later a train
> > rumbles by very close (they live a few metres from the tracks)
and
> > supplies a way out of belief, for those inclined to take it,
though
> > at the cost of narrative honesty.
> >
> > Tarkovsky wasn't, in that scene, talking about the ability to
make
> > things move by thinking it so, or rather, that was only the
> > ostensible subject. What he was really talking about, as in his
> films
> > in general, something Bergman himself referred to as Tarkovsky's
> pure
> > cinematic language, is our response to the witnessing.
> >
> > I have to go to work - it has taken far longer to read these
> threads
> > than I had imagined it would. For a condensed version, let me
just
> > state that, for me, Potter is an abused boy's fantasy world as
well
> > as a parallel world to ours, that some of the intensity of my
> > response to the books arises from this, and, on the subject of
> > bullying, my experience of school was that some of the worst
> > transgressions by students involved "snitching" on others
who
had
> > done either relatively minor "bad things," or nothing at
all, or
> was
> > done in a way and for a reason as petty and small-minded as
> > the "warnings" of this groups moderators
> >
> > darkthirty
Hi,
One of your moderators posted a thread about what the list was for - that
> > >We are *not* here to argue about what
> > > kind of argument is legitimate, what things are worth
> discussing,
Yes, I am familiar with Jim's post, and you are correct that Jim is a Geist and therefore has a role in list administration. And you are correct that Jim did attempt to calm a discussion on the list that was becoming increasingly heated. There is, however, an important distinction between attempting to head off a flame war versus attempting to post criticism of how the list is moderated. The latter is not appropriate on the main list, as I explained in my prior message to you, although people can and do voice their concerns about list administration to the moderator team off-list. Without exception, we respond to those concerns.
Let me explain that some of our list members (usually our newest members) are moderated, which means that their messages must be approved by a member involved in list administration until the moderated member gets the hang of things around here. The vast majority of our members are not moderated, which means they can post freely. Every now and then, an unmoderated member makes a mistake, and that mistake appears as a post on the main list. When an unmoderated list member violates a list rule or posts something that should not be on the main list, that list member is reminded of our rules off-list. Therefore, if you see something on the main list that you believe is improper, the chances are very high that the offender has been spoken to privately. Consequently, if a questionable post appears on the list, you shouldn't assume that you (or anyone else) has tacit permission to commit the same offense or that some new precedent has been established.
This seemed a bit odd since, as far as I can tell, there is no way to make
the point I was trying to make without transgressing - that is, that the
posts that DO make it to the rest of the group seem to have to run a
gauntlet of bullies. You can have all the fine discussions you like about
bullying in HP, but if every post regarding that subject is already bullied,
it seems that ONLY a meta-oriented discussion is relevant. Perhaps it is
rather a quality of the books themselves, and the way Rowling writes, that
makes this particular subject sensitive - as even I can see.
I'm not entirely sure how to advise you about the best way to make your points
on the list, but I do have a few general remarks.
As you probably know, all posts to the main list have to make a canon point. In other words, if someone reads your post and cannot readily identify the point you are trying to make *about HP canon itself,* then the post is off-topic and does not belong on the main list. It is not enough that someone can read the post and discern your general take on bullying – there must be a clear point about the words and works of JKR herself.
If I understand you correctly, you'd like to point out that many people discussing bullying in the canon were victims themselves. That would be a reasonable observation to make, but you'll have to be more than a little bit careful. First, you'll have to find a way to frame your remarks as a canon discussion. So if you wish to identify victims of bullying *in canon* and then point out that they got what they deserved, this would be fine. The canon point is obvious – bullying victims in canon got what they deserved. If you wish to point out that Mary, Bill and Susie who posted on the thread probably only formed their opinions about bullying in canon because they themselves were victims who got what they deserve, then I have difficulty seeing the canon point. The sole point of such an observation would be to remark on *posters themselves* rather than the HP canon, so the post would be off-topic and improper.
I don't know whether I have come anywhere close to being helpful there, so don't be offended if I missed the mark. If you focus on making a clear canon point in a considerate way, you should do just fine on our list.
There is one other alternative, however, if you wish to voice some ideas about bullying that don't fit neatly within HP canon. We have a sister list called OT-Chatter in which posts on almost any subject are welcome. You could certainly discuss bullying in general in that forum, and people have done so before. There is one important thing to keep in mind if you decide to proceed in this manner: all of our lists require that members post in a considerate way, and personal attacks are simply not tolerated. Given the topic you wish to discuss and your take on it, it might pay off handsomely to be thoughtful about the best way to make your points.
FYI I am posting parts of this correspondence on a blog, which, don't worry,
no one reads, and with the names of the other correspondents removed (out of
courtesy). It certainly has the potential to be quite entertaining, I think.
Thank you for providing the link you sent. Hopefully, our discussion won't be all that entertaining. Friendly and helpful, I hope, but not necessarily entertaining.
Take care,
> Your opinion is your own and I would not attempt to change it. When you
> wrote "That is to say, I read Rowling as if I were watching a Tarkovsky
> film", you did not indicate precisely the viewpoint from which you
watch
> said film, nor how this is similar to your interpretation of the books.
> Remember, all posts are required to be related to the Harry Potter canon.
>> That is to say, I read Rowling as if I were watching a Tarkovsky
> > film. Ultimately, as those familiar with his flicks will know, they
> > are about belief. ----->
Note that, here, for those who are NOT familiar with his films, I describe
a
scene in one which "a freak," a child born near the zone, apparently
has
magical powers, but that the director (remember, I have already state to
whom I was comparing said director) leaves a way out of belief - that is to
say, the train, in the same way that Rowling leaves a way out - that is to
say, the magical world is nothing but the fantasy of an abused boy. Which I
duly follow up in the last paragraph.
> >At the end of Stalker, for instance, we watch as a
> > child born close to "the Zone" apparently "wills"
a glass of water
> > across the table and onto the floor, but seconds later a train
> > rumbles by very close (they live a few metres from the tracks) and
> > supplies a way out of belief, for those inclined to take it, though
> > at the cost of narrative honesty.
> >For a condensed version, let me just
> > state that, for me, Potter is an abused boy's fantasy world as well
> > as a parallel world to ours, that some of the intensity of my
> > response to the books arises from this
My problem is that most of the comments that have been made about my
original post seem more like comments about the way I made my point, and my
distrust of the moderators is only an convenient excuse for them. The real
problem is that I do not present my "facts" like a manual of style.
Those
manuals of style are, in my opinion, manuals of banality. I do not argue or
present any idea by say a + b = c. Why? Because I neither think, nor live
that way. And not all ideas can exist that way. I think of feminism, for
instance, and its focus on the inseparability of so-called separate regions
of knowledge and feeling and sense, to which it saw the analytical and
grid-like order inposed upon the so-called world by men. I would hazard that
no one does actually lives like a + b = c. And I would hazard that thinking
one lives thus is in fact dangerous and silly, to the highest degree.
I have presented a cohesive statement about Potter as witnessing and belief
over 4 paragraphs. I have managed to convey a far subtler and deeper sense
of the way I read the canon than I could have managed with 4 times as many
paragraphs, done in manual of style style. And in those four paragraphs, I
have even managed to convey a distinct so-called "voice." But what
I now
hear you saying is that really, the only problem is the reference to the
untouchables, to the owners, to the Ministry of Moderators..
Well, I find the process interesting, and not a little Kafkesque.
sincerely, really
darkthirty
