Let me see if I have any of this straight...
A major argument that seems to be presented here is that anytime news surfaces it should not be talked about and bantered around on an Internet bulletin board until, or unless, it meets certain requirements, or standards.
is that it?
In other words, fan groups can't jaw about thing unless it meets certain requirements?
Because what I think a fan board is for is just that. Jawing, talking, bantering around.
A factor of the Internet is the "Net-etiquette" that we all share -- namely there really isn't any. For going well into the second decade of the existence of the Interent and Email I see no evidence of a any kind of Net-etiquette established in the art of dialogue and exchange.
The Net has a history of flaming and a history of in-your-face talk, and on boards quite a history of not just presenting one's own view of a thing, but routinely talking about what we think of (a) another person and (b) what another person said.
The Net is a cauldron of simply arguing not over the points of something but purely at one another. "You can't say that! What the hell do you mean by that? Are you nuts?"
For a society based on free expression, it's hardly free. Our thoughts are subject to the trump card of another. Everybody so bent on getting the next guy's "mind right," as said in Cool Hand Luke.
It's hard to find a thread where majority of the posts avoid hitting on another poster or poster's comments. I'd like one day to read one long thread where every post and poster respects the opinions and views of the others and limits their input strictly to their view of the matter -- with not a single freaking word diminishing another or another's views. By that I mean, without diminishing that other person... personally. Just on the facts of the matter. Period. Nothing more.
It can be done. But it requires having a solid point to make. To me, it is pure cowardice to have nothing to say but "Hey, I don't like what you just said." Or, 'I don't like you."
In the late 1700s, I believe it was, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell and others would meet about 7 o'clock on a particular night of the week (I think it was Thursdays, might have been Wednesdays) in a Tavern in London and there they would take up a fine art of fencing with words. I can't imagine what level of conversation that was. But if I was going to engage in trading barbs as I would clashing swords I'd at least like to do it with the finest art of doing it.
I couldn't have held a good sentence among those men, but God I'd have loved to have been at a nearby table and listened to it. Only then would I enjoy listening to arguing and debating.
On the Net I'm afraid it's pretty much fan talk. Which is fine with me. Only if it's not taken so darned seriously.
It's a fan board. It's fan talk.