Yes, I do not understand why we cannot ‘refer’ people to a private, non commercial, photo storage group (without the exact link) that supports an ongoing discussion. I can link to dresses at Nordstrom all day!
Spelling around the filter has never been allowed since I’ve been here. Doing so defeats the purpose of having a filter. It is not a sudden change. From the Forum Rules.
Damn autocorrect won’t correct “nit” for some reason.
I edited your post to add an emoji and the post shows I edited. I cannot find a post I edited that does not have the system stamp on it.
This is not a word filtering situation. It’s a question of whether it’s a link. And it’s not. She’s not trying to slip by a swearword or a “website targeted by commercial promoters.”
She has been generously sharing projects with us for years and mods have permitted that (since her threads are among the most popular in the Cafe, they certainly have not flown under the radar.)
So it is a sudden change. And one that makes me grumpy.
If the intent is to keep discussion on this board, it actually does the opposite. It encourages the location to move to a place where the information is allowed to be shared.
@skieurope I get that you don’t make the rules, and 99% of the moderation I see from you I think is helpful. I’m just pointing out what I think is a pretty big flaw in the logic.
The discussion remains on this board. Only the viewing of photos is off-site. Just look for Coralbrook’s threads and you will find pages and pages of discussion.
This all seems sad at a time when a bit of lighthearted diversion as well as serious discussion with a wide range of folks is perhaps more essential than ever. CC has been my downtime pleasure for years as time allows. The Covid thread was a treasure of information, and am sad to see that go. Keeping things civil in a world which appears to value civility less is a difficult task, and I appreciate moderator efforts in that direction, though I would hope most are adult enough to tolerate a bit of frank discussion of serious as well as less weighty issues. I have been busy enough to be oblivious to some of the nuance of recent issues, but am sad to see some frequent posters less involved recently.
“And honestly, the only people who complain about “mean girls” are themselves the true bullies, IMO.”
I might put it more softly, but I don’t think we need nice-nice police. It’s a parent-child dynamic. That’s not to say we need to beat anyone up, aim to hurt. But life itself isn’t all ponies and roses.
I do think it behooves us to know what we, too, are communicating. Sometimes “nice” just waters down responses and misleads. A pat on the head. Or distracts.
Btw, I trace the radical change in CC interaction to the banning of that lives-under-a-bridge word. It was not, imo, used as a weapon, rather a shorthand.
Now a question. Is it too easy to replace IRL social relationships with an anon forum? Are we all asking our IRL friends some of these thread questions that come up in the Cafe?
I do get why some Cafe threads gain traction. A book group IRL is more limited in members than online. Same with some other topical, content-based threads.
Not sure I would know where to look for examples, but there have been several situations where a mod made a change or posted a commend and did not identify who they were. I cant come up with an example, but only recall thinking “I wonder who/which mod did/said that?”
I do find CC is heavily moderated, so it gets kind of boring. Just when a thread starts to get interesting, it gets shut down. We have a fairly diversified group here with a lot of different experience/opinion. It is not surprising some discussions may become heated, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. There are (were) some mean posters, but most people do call them out on it. We used to have more back and forth on CC, but now the moderators come on to say, “there is no debate on CC,” or “this point has been discussed, let’s move on.”
I have learned a lot from many posters on CC. People from different regions/countries have different views. I am still very opinionated, but I think I am better at hearing other people out and not think I am right all the time (maybe it comes with age too 
).
I have met some CC’ers IRL, and I enjoy to come back here to check on some old timers on CC.
If a moderator has edited a post—where is the notification? At the bottom of the post? Top?
EDITED BY MAINELONGHORN (I don’t think it will show up this time, since it’s within 15 minutes of post).
Now it does - se
The ONLY time a name doesn’t show up when a post is edited is if it’s in the brief time permitted for users to edit their own posts. I am sure of that.
I’m doing an experiment on @Bromfield2’s post. I just edited it. My name is not showing up because I did it at 8:50, 13 minutes after the post was written. I will try again in a little while to see if my name shows up.
At the top. Above the text.
Quite often, I will edit a post because a user hasn’t used the quote function properly or has an embarrassing typo in the thread TITLE! I don’t have time to send every user a note as to why his/her post was edited. But people can always PM me to ask.
@lookingforward You asked if we ask the same questions posted here of our IRL friends; my answer is sometimes. My IRL friends tend to be similar to me, so at times, I would like a more worldly view of people from other walks of life. Just because my friends agree with me doesn’t mean I am right. Other times I might not want to share details with an IRL friend as it might pertain to them, so I need to get an outside opinion. Then there are the post made just for fun, because I want to participate in a thread.
Close family and friends at times tell you what you want to hear; if I want brutal honesty, I come to the Cafe!
Posting and commenting on sensitive issues here is a welcome outlet because some of us don’t have oodles of friends or family that we can wisely have these discussions with. I’m a pretty honest person but I’m really honest here. With the variety of people here you get so many views - cultural, regional, political, personal.
Real life doesn’t always provide that variety. This message board is sort of like a form of therapy or working through life issues.
@lookingforward, no, I don’t discuss the same issues here as in real life. Mostly because I’m a loner and don’t really have much family. I have my husband but he can be annoyingly single-minded and impossible to dialogue with once his mind is set. For fluffy things, of course I talk about those things here and in real life. For the college questions, no one I know irl would have any help or insight so I don’t bother. I come from a very blue collar, no college world.
Agreeing.
IMO, the net result is people with differing opinions are driven away from the forum and/or their participation is reduced.
If you are a poster that doesn’t agree with the majority narrative about a particular current event for example, welp, you’re not gonna last long. When the “disagreeables” leave – voluntarily or not – then the board/thread is “peaceful” – because there is largely agreement between the remaining participants. But at what cost?
To me? It’s like the worst of group think & echo chambering and we all miss an opportunity to learn and, perhaps, experience a paradigm shift.
In addition, just my two cents, but I would prefer to have my entire post deleted by the mods over having parts of it edited/removed.
Lastly, I have gotten to “know” some posters much more than others due to our participation & interaction on threads. It is not being intentionally clique-y at all!
Right? This.
Well, we certainly had more fun. The other day, in response to a post on the prep forum, I searched for an old thread that discussed the use of made-up prep school acronyms and was shocked at how “free” that thread was compared any current thread. I don’t think that discussion would fly today:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1628641-hades-v-phlegms-p1.html
At the time, I thought #8 on that thread would get it shut down but, evidently, being gross has never been against CC TOS. Also, there were also some pretty strong opinions voiced to a young OP. I easily could pull up a number of threads from those days that were quite contentious but interesting and informative for that contention. Across the board, IMO CC has become way too bland.