Lootman wrote:But all that said, I'd still like to understand why HYP is disproportionately affected in this regard. In my view it may be confusing to Lemons that there are two boards for HYP. ...
I don't think there's anything inherently confusing about the difference between two boards.
But there are quite a lot of posters who appear to have baggage from the past, often from quite long ago, and I think there's also quite a large "confusion breeds confusion" effect: because many users seem to be confused about which is the right board, they frequently post to the wrong board, and because posters frequently post to the wrong board, users don't get a clear picture of what the board distinction is supposed to be from what they see in practice. A clearer picture is available from the board guidance, but many users don't seem to bother checking what that says, and so end up confused about the distinction.
As an example of the baggage from the past, "strategic ignorance" has
not been part of either TMF or TLF guidance about whether a strategy is a HYP strategy ever since the 2008 TMF board split, yet many still seem to believe that if a strategy doesn't use "strategic ignorance", it's not a proper HYP strategy, and post accordingly...
They even include a moderator, judging by one recent moderator note, though I'll take that with a pinch of salt until/unless it is confirmed in updated guidance or by sufficient further moderator/site admin comments. In particular, I do
not think it a good idea to make the use of "strategic ignorance" part of the requirements to be a HYP strategy. My reasons for that belief include that there seems to be widespread confusion about what it means (basically, deliberately ignoring all views about a company's long-term future, including one's own), judging by the number of times people use it about things that have nothing to do with such views, and that it appears to be used far too often as a 'religious' term -
both by pro-HYP zealots as saying particular worries about a company must be dismissed or else you're not running a HYP
and by anti-HYP crusaders as a stick to attack HYP strategies with...
Of course, if the moderators/site admins want it to become part of the board distinction, it will. But I think it's a bad idea, and if they nevertheless decide to do it, users really ought to be told so by a more reliable means than (AFAIAA) a single moderator note quite a long way into a single thread that people might or might not be reading!
Lootman wrote:... How many times do we hear "this topic should be on the other board/no it shouldn't" conversations? They really add nothing at all of value from my perspective and we don't do that for other topics, which again raises the question "why only HYP?".
Very largely agreed - as a general rule, I would regard "you shouldn't have posted that here!" posts as completely unnecessary and often disruptive noise. It's almost always better to
either put up with a post one regards as off-topic
or report it and let the moderators handle the situation as early as possible. I do regard reporting it as a perfectly OK course of action when I'm interested in the original subject of the thread and the off-topic stuff looks like drowning it out - and the more 'form' the off-topic stuff has for becoming that major, the earlier I'll decide it looks like that (this is of course a judgement call on my part, and I almost certainly get that judgement wrong from time to time - but there is the safeguard that a moderator judgement call has to agree with mine before anything can happen as a result of my report).
There are however at least a couple of awkward cases:
* Posts steering a newcomer towards a more suitable board that they might well not be aware of. It's just about impossible to do that in a way that doesn't have possible "you shouldn't have posted that here!" implications for someone looking for them...
* Replying to a post that could be followed up in either an on-topic way or an off-topic way, when one is very interested in the former and doesn't have anything one wants to say on the board about the latter. If one doesn't say anything at all about the latter, all too often one gets accused of missing the point - but it's just about impossible to say that one has seen that possible point but is declining to reply to it without possible "you shouldn't have posted that here!" implications for someone looking for them...
With regard to the "why only HYP?" question, I doubt that it is
only HYP. But yes, it does happen disproportionately often for HYP, and I suspect the reason is basically historical: because there have been many such conflicts in the past, they're a sore point for a lot of users and so they're more likely to see "you shouldn't have posted that here!" implications and react to them. And the ensuing arguments are of course further conflicts, that add to it being a sore point... I.e. I suspect there's a "conflict breeds conflict" loop here.
And I suspect ordinary users are stuck with that loop - while individuals might recognise its existence and refuse to feed it, I don't see any signs that enough are doing so to break the loop. The moderators could do something about it in principle, with sufficiently firm action against posts that say "you shouldn't have posted that here!" fairly explicitly
and against posts that argue against "you shouldn't have posted that here!" messages (whether those messages are explicit or merely possible implications). But to be sufficiently firm, such action must at the very least ensure that whoever posted the offending posts knows that the action has been taken. As the current system doesn't even do that (witness the various things said in this thread about moderators sending PMs), it seems very doubtful to me that the moderators are going to break the loop either. :
-(
Gengulphus
Eh? "many of the culprits went down"?!? You mean TMF posters got sent to prison?! O/T or not, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is very intrigued and wants to hear more!
