Expectations and Web-based Forums
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Sep 28, 2006
Updated:  Mar  5, 2011
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/manga2.txt

[This was originally titled _Manga is Fun, Manga Discussions Aren't_.]

I recently became a manga convert and while scanning some sites, I found
a blog entry that had been linked by several other people.  That blog
entry is here:

http://www.tokyopop.com/ChunHyang72/blog/10956.html

I found the entry interesting, but wanted to discuss several aspects of
it.  I left a comment that made the points I wanted to in a (IMHO) consise 
and polite manner.  After I posted it, I received a note that the blog was 
moderated.

The comment never showed up.  I guess it was moderated away because it
questioned some of the author's views.  This isn't a trait I like in blogs
I read, so I stopped reading that particular blog.

A few days later, this same blog entry was mentioned again, this time here:

http://www.mangablog.net/?p=668

On this site, I left a comment about how my post on the ChunHyang72
blog never showed up.  It will come as no surprise that my comment
about how my ChunHyang72 comment was moderated away ... was moderated
away.

I guess people prefer to hear themselves talk.

Don't worry, I won't interrupt your kindergarden tea party ever again.

*********************************

[Update on Oct 10, 2006 and later on Dec 31, 2006]

Actually, I was wrong on both counts.  Both of my comments eventually
showed up, although it took more than a day on the second blog and more
than a week (quite possibly two) on the first blog.  In addition, all
of the formatting of the first message was completely lost, so my posting
looks like a giant run-on sentence.

I sincerely apologize to both blog authors for claiming that my comments 
were moderated away.  Still it's clear that this form of communication
isn't suited to me.

What to take away from this?

Web-based forums are their own medium and play by their own rules.  
They are significantly different from both mailing lists and Usenet and 
woe to you who expect them to be, as I did, Usenet or a mailing list
with a pretty face.  Web-based forums aren't Usenet any more than 
television is radio with pictures.

*********************************

[Update on Mar 5, 2011]

But Web-based forums aren't meant for simple and easy one-off
communication.  In the Usenet days, when someone had a question, I
could email him/her an answer.  No more.  Now I have to register at the
forum before I can post an answer and, of course, each forum has its
own set of registration procedures, unique usernames and so forth.

Sometimes I will grit my teeth, but most of the time I give up before
I am successful.  For example, here was my sequence of tries to register 
at http://www.anime-forums.com:

1) fill out all fields -- doesn't like name
2) fill out all fields and use different name -- doesn't like name
3) make sure noscript isn't blocking something javascript-y
4) fill out all fields -- name too short
5) choose different name -- name is long enough, but forgot to accept terms
6) repeat -- doesn't like name again, another javascript-y problem
7) repeat -- forgot to accept terms

Forget it.  Life is too short.  I'm sure someone else will tell
Mr. or Ms. v1tamind that the anime name s/he was looking for was 
_Battle Athletes Victory_.  I'm afraid that I could not.

There is a rule called _Greenspun's Tenth Rule_ that states:

"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, 
informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of 
Common Lisp."

I'd like to propose _Usenet's Last Rule_ (I'm not so pompous to name it 
after myself or to believe that I was the first to think of it):

"Any web-based forum is Usenet as if it had been designed by Microsoft."