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escargot said:
Guardianistas is a reference to Sandinistas, members of the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front. Holding fervent left-wing views, y'know. Oh my poor sides.
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I think the suffix "ista" has taken on a wider currency (fashionista, for example) as referring in a mock derogatory way to anyone perceived as setting themselves up as some sort of opinion former or arbitrator of opinions.

It's had a similar evolution to the suffix "...gate" which is now used to refer to any minor scandal, deception or conspiracy without implying any sort of link to or parity with Watergate, or the participants in that particular scandal..

Be that as it may, using Guardianista as a code word for "people whose political beliefs I disagree with" is politics "by the back door". Not what this forum is about.
 
Mikefule said:
I think the suffix "ista" has taken on a wider currency (fashionista, for example) as referring in a mock derogatory way to anyone perceived as setting themselves up as some sort of opinion former or arbitrator of opinions...
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I actually think the derogatory element has faded somewhat, as - seems to me these days - those described in such ways often use it, if occasionally ironically, about themselves. (Possibly an object lesson in how to take the bile out of a derogatory word.)

It is regular usage in Spanish (and possibly the other Romance languages), and a simple exoticisation of the common suffix 'ist' when adopted in English. Barista is probably the most common example - so common in fact that its barely noticed.

I read some English grammar purist somewhere complain about an implied gender misapplication in using anything with ista when applied to a male - because, presumably, they believed any word ending in an a in the original language would be feminine. However, one of the interesting things about its legitimate usage – in Spanish at least – is that, whereas mixed groups are generally described in masculine terms, in this case ista – with its feminine ending - is the standard.
 
...sorry, got completely distracted there.

What I actually came here for was to ask if anyone knows if it's okay to link directly to an eBay listing?

I've found something really quite odd, but am just wondering if there's any protocol about linking directly to commercial listings on a site like eBay.
 
Spookdaddy said:
...sorry, got completely distracted there.

What I actually came here for was to ask if anyone knows if it's okay to link directly to an eBay listing?

I've found something really quite odd, but am just wondering if there's any protocol about linking directly to commercial listings on a site like eBay.
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Yes, I think it's fine—unless members start trying to sell non-Fortean stuff to the membership.

Privately selling Fortean items is acceptable if all is above board and in the correct FORTEAN EXCHANGE section.

I would strongly suggest screen captures and copied text to preserve the content when the page disappears a few weeks after the auction ends.

Copied text brings it into the domain of SEARCH.
 
Yithian said:
Yes, I think it's fine—unless members start trying to sell non-Fortean stuff to the membership.

Privately selling Fortean items is acceptable if all is above board and in the correct FORTEAN EXCHANGE section.

I would strongly suggest screen captures and copied text to preserve the content when the page disappears a few weeks after the auction ends.

Copied text brings it into the domain of SEARCH.
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Thanks.

Believe me, the listings in question will only end when the seller delists the items; no-one - I guarantee - is ever going to pay for them.

And the item descriptions are of biblical proportions!

(Bit of a teaser there.)
 
We will delete all attempts to introduce debate on the Israel/Gaza conflict unless they pertain to Fortean topics.

Those who have spun such attempts as 'irony', 'conspiracy' or 'religion' have simply generated additional work for us.

The whole situation is a tragic and insoluble mess, the debate of which will only bring discord to our community; there are thousands of other places you can participate in it online—please go there.
 
I'm going to sacrifice some clarity in the name of circumspection here and name no names; please don't take this reticence as an invitation to speculate.

A very long-term member wrote to me recently to say thank you and farewell because they had decided to give up on this forum after many years.

When pressed, they cited—essentially—three intertwined factors:

1) An active aversion to discussion from certain other long-term members—not a silence or a failure to contribute to threads, but regular insinuations that discussion of A, B or C is risible.

2) Supercilious single-line posts that fail to directly address the earlier posts they quote/refer to. That's to say, for example, a poster gives A, B and C as reasons for entertaining possibility X, and the response post ignores A, B and C and states X is bollocks and Xers are all cranks, dupes or loons.

3) Use of emoticons as an additional or alternative means of expressing the two outlooks described above.

Members come and go regularly and some small proportion of these have bees in their bonnets about their perceived mistreatment at the hands of others, but I'm afraid this report rings all too true with the moderators, and it chimes with the feedback we've received from other members.

This place is first and foremost a discussion board; it serves secondarily as an aggregator and database for reports, but it is the exchange of a broad variety of opinions that is its lifeblood. Those posting to belittle others and stifle debate have missed (or forgotten) the main reason people are here.

If you are not personally interested in a subject, please consider not posting simply to announce this fact; if a thread is boring to you, please feel no obligation to read or post on it; if you believe a poster is wrong or misguided, please do the community the courtesy of laying out the reasons for your belief without mordancy or sarcasm.

Cliquish bores will be ejected without warning or appeal regardless or whether they are on first-name terms with the staff or caught the bouquet at their weddings.
 
When you’ve been on this site long as I have (I have previous incarnations) and having shared my UFO sightings, family experiences and a history of me growing up sharing paranormal experiences of local knowledge, spooky stories from around my area and personal recollections of astral projections, memories of huge importance of before I was born and contributing to a whole slew of Forteana, forgive me but I will not accept judgement for the flippancy I often display. I have laid a lot of myself bare here.
The thing is, I see the same subjects crop up over and over again. Often these are later to be proven to be misidentification or hoaxes. As I’ve grown older, I’ve gained experience and while I appreciate the bread and butter of this site, part of growing old is the brain maturing, growing up and with that, cogitation on the nature of mind and how it can deceive itself, (look what your dreams get up to) how ancient eyewitnesses never had access to Specsavers and why being flippant and dismissive is can actually be a correct reaction when confronted by bonkers events until you receive actual factual verification. Whatever that can be in such a forum as this.
The more you learn and experience, the more these Fortean cans are being knocked off the shelf by the bean bags of recognising the confused, hoaxers, naive dabblers in subjects they don’t really understand or have no intellectual grounding of the area covered and the wishful pronouncements of basic attention seekers. Everyday, I see young reporters adding the stuff we’ve already been through a hundred times turn up on news feeds without any degree of critical thinking or background checking just for clicks.
I’m tired of arguing the toss with people who claimed the moon landing was a hoax or the earth is flat. Sometimes it’s necessary to do a course correct and I prefer to do that in an offhand and, a hopefully humorous way without offending too much.

If anyone is complaining about a poster here, I suggest they go back through their history, see what they’ve contributed, see how their offthread musings have spun into interesting sidelines and try to stop being so easily offended and just join the fun.

In other words, say no to self censorship.
 
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Yeah. Cantankery is not a crime. But neither is restraint. Something I’ve learned in “all my years”. People new to these experiences deserve to find their own way through, as we did.
 
skinny said:
Yeah. Cantankery is not a crime. But neither is restraint. Something I’ve learned in “all my years”. People new to these experiences deserve to find their own way through, as we did.
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I agree with the two posting above. I sometimes wonder if we, or people in general, are becoming to sensitive to postings that may appear to be rude, or insensitive, etc, about what they posted.

I've had a few short shots at me on this forum. Firstly, not everyone can express themselves to perfection, secondly, sometimes a member might post something and then think I shouldn't have posted that but cannot retract it, and thirdly it may be a knee jerk reaction. The other cause might be a few drinks inside them.

My view point is one of tolerance. I've posted crap stuff and I know some of my replies have been off the mark. I've read them the next day and the replies and thought sh*t, that is not what I meant.

We're all human with human failings. It's what we agree on that matters.
 
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