|
Post by Fortunomancer on May 5, 2015 23:59:31 GMT
As a member of the Guild of Master Spellcrafters and the Council of Nimora, it is an important part of my job to avoid accidental breaches in etiquette for political reasons. The Many Worlds Forum, given its nature, makes this task difficult. There are a few points I'd like to address.
1. In my world, this forum has manifested as a sort of newsletter. However, others seem to be experiencing the forum in other ways. Thus far, I've formatted any responses addressed to a specific person in the style of an informal letter. Should I continue to do this? It doesn't seem to be common practice. Does the medium by which you're experiencing the forum have any other standards of etiquette that I ought to know about?
2. How do you prefer to be addressed? In my native country, there is a strict set of rules regarding names and forms of address, and breaking one of these rules is catastrophically offensive. Thus far, I've simply addressed people using the names displayed above their responses in the newsletter, and I have encountered no problems. May I continue to do so?
(For those concerned: I would prefer to be addressed using my title, "Fortunomancer," which was not awarded by the government of my native country and thus escapes any tricky etiquette traps. I will most likely not reveal my name to anyone participating in the forum, mostly because I don't like it, but also to save you from having to navigate these rules).
3. Is there anything I could possibly say or do that would violate any strict cultural taboos in your respective cultures or otherwise grievously harm my relationship with any given member of the Many Worlds community?
My thanks.
|
|
|
Post by Dispersive Prism on May 6, 2015 0:22:37 GMT
1. I don't see any reason why informal letters are bad form, if you want to you can. The only forum-specific etiquette I can think of off of the top of my head is that you should try to keep to whatever topic the thread's about.
2. Prism or dispersiveprism are fine by me, but I think other people will have different rules about that thing. Usually, yeah, names displayed above responses are fine.
3. I am pretty sure if you genuinely don't mean to offend me, even if you say something possibly offensive (which, can't think of anything) I won't hold it against you. If you upset people, I think an apology will be fine? I dunno, forums aren't hugely etiquette intensive, I don't think. But maybe it's different for other people?
|
|
|
Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 0:23:42 GMT
I picked "Leaf" out of not much more than thin air, but I'll answer to it as a name without any problems. That's more or less standard practice on the nets (the medium through which I access this forum). Addressing posts to a specific person isn't universal to the medium but neither is it especially weird.
I am personally pretty cosmopolitan and don't think I have any catastrophic taboos for you to trip over.
|
|
Nifl
Poster
Posts: 35
World: Nexus
|
Post by Nifl on May 6, 2015 0:46:51 GMT
Addressing me as "Nifl" is fine. I don't anticipate significant etiquette trouble.
I would appreciate it if any members of this forum capable of doing so would acquire forum avatars. (The forum avatar is a picture that may appear attached to all of a user's posts. For example, I have a picture of a misty forest, Leaf has a picture of what looks like some maple leaves, and Prism has a drawing of what looks like a shiny metal unicorn with a rainbow mane.) Since the default forum avatar is the same for everyone who uses it, and forum avatars are displayed more prominently than forum names, it can be a little difficult to distinguish one default-avatar person from another.
|
|
|
Post by Andrew on May 6, 2015 1:05:52 GMT
I think that participation in this forum requires that people be willing to assume that other people have different taboos, and that there’s a good chance any perceived offense wasn’t intended. I think that if somebody does something that somebody else considers offensive, the best idea would be for that somebody else to (as politely as possible) say that they found this offensive and why.
I’m going to post an example, but another example could be that many of the things in the following example would be offensive to even bring up in conversation to at least some people from my world:
In my culture, the subject of sexual activity is somewhat taboo. Obviously people engage in and enjoy sex, but they usually prefer not to talk about it, and usually only in the context of certain types of relationships. Sometimes, people want to have sex but not in any of the culturally accepted ways (sometimes because they feel themselves unable to have it for culturally acceptable reasons and sometimes for other reasons), and instead want it in a non-culturally-accepted way. One of these is prostitution, or one person accepting money from another in exchange for them having sex together. A less polite slang word for that is “whoring”. Since family is important in my culture, one relatively offensive insult is “your mother is a whore” (often used even if it is not factually true). However, I could see it actually being a compliment along the lines of “your mother is so good at pleasing people with sexual activity that others are willing to pay her for this”, while having an “indirect compliment” structure similar to the “indirect insult” of the way it is in my culture. If somebody said this sentence to me, therefore, I think the best thing to do would be to politely respond that I find this offensive because it is often used as an insult in my culture, and ask if a different reading was intended.
Of course, sometimes people really do intend offense. I’m not advocating a policy of pretending that doesn’t happen; I’m advocating a policy of not assuming offense until there is more evidence than just a single statement..
|
|
|
Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 1:42:37 GMT
Thank you to everyone who has responded.
Andrew,
I agree that such a policy would be desirable. I spend a significant amount of time interacting with sensitive political notables, and as a result am going to be more careful about etiquette than I probably need to be. Also, I am naturally rather blunt, and as such tend to overcorrect for that in sensitive situations.
-The Fortunomancer
|
|
|
Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 1:47:04 GMT
Nifl,
There is a section on the entry form attached to my letter which asks for a picture. I'll attach one at the next opportunity.
-The Fortunomancer
|
|
Nifl
Poster
Posts: 35
World: Nexus
|
Post by Nifl on May 6, 2015 1:53:59 GMT
Thank you, Fortunomancer. I appreciate it.
|
|
|
Post by Mother Starlight on May 6, 2015 1:58:36 GMT
I think that as long as everyone's acting in good faith, it should all work out okay in the end. It's not a bad idea to try to find out this sort of thing in advance, though.
|
|
|
Post by Andrew on May 6, 2015 4:32:32 GMT
Since it came up in a different thread, how do people here feel about posting twice without anybody else posting in between (for those of us with a real-time access to the forum)?
|
|
|
Post by Mother Starlight on May 6, 2015 4:50:13 GMT
I don't see anything inherently wrong with it.
|
|
|
Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 13:14:54 GMT
Local forum etiquette norms don't discourage it unless it starts getting obnoxious in its own right - one post per word of a sentence, filling up multiple pages talking to yourself and drowning everyone else out, crap like that.
|
|
|
Post by ArtlessIlluminator on May 7, 2015 0:16:54 GMT
Reading this introduction to the etiquette of the Unscribed Book, I see that my initial dedication was a hasty defacement. I apologize for any rudeness I may have imposed, and will endeavor to more fully understand this artifact before making further inscriptions.
I understand that to mark the Unscribed Book first illuminating the frame on the initial page is further defacement, and so I have scribed an I, artless though it may be.
|
|
|
Post by Ahrotahn on Jun 6, 2015 21:50:06 GMT
It's considered bad form to reveal secret or hidden information, if an alternate method exists by which people could find the information out for themselves. The exception is if the listeners specifically request the information, but people are usually encouraged to find things out themselves if they can. People often request to be given only a small amount of information, or cryptic information, as a form of partial assistance. The forum seems to have a feature to conceal information by default, making it visible only by the reader's request, which is useful for this purpose. (This is only a demonstration, there's no actual secrets here.) (This is where secrets would go.)
|
|
|
Post by Andrew on Jun 7, 2015 3:10:11 GMT
Ahrotahn, that is often true of fiction in my world, but people rarely apply it to real life. Do you have anything like schools in your world?
|
|