Am I logged in?

All things related to the general running of the forum - got a suggestion? Here's where it should go.
User avatar
Scooter
Posts: 16540
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:04 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Scooter »

CHAPTER V—AT BOMBARDA’S
The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became stranded in Bombarda’s public house, a branch establishment which had been set up in the Champs-Élysées by that famous restaurant-keeper, Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near Delorme Alley.

A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the panes; two tables; upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets, mingled with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples seated round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and bottles; jugs of beer mingled with flasks of wine; very little order on the table, some disorder beneath it;

“They made beneath the table
A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable,”

says Molière.

This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o’clock in the morning, had reached at half-past four in the afternoon. The sun was setting; their appetites were satisfied.

The Champs-Élysées, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud of gold. Carriages were going and coming. A squadron of magnificent body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde, which had become the Place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy promenaders. Many wore the silver fleur-de-lys suspended from the white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls threw to the winds, amid the passers-by, who formed into circles and applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to strike the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain:—

“Rendez-nous notre père de Gand,
Rendez-nous notre père.”

“Give us back our father from Ghent,
Give us back our father.”

Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and revolving on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some journeyman printers had on paper caps; their laughter was audible. Everything was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist security; it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief of Police Anglès to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of Paris, terminated with these lines:—

“Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble.”

Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised by Count Anglès possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to the Minerva Aptera of the Piræus, there stood on the public square in Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too “rose-colored” a light; it is not so much of “an amiable rabble” as it is thought. The Parisian is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek: no one sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not be trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but when there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in every sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of August; give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon’s stay and Danton’s resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a question of liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled with wrath, is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys. Take care! he will make of the first Rue Grenétat which comes to hand Caudine Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be terrible, and his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the Alps. It is, thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the Revolution, mixed with arms, conquers Europe. He sings; it is his delight. Proportion his song to his nature, and you will see! As long as he has for refrain nothing but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world.

This note jotted down on the margin of Anglès’ report, we will return to our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

User avatar
Scooter
Posts: 16540
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:04 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Scooter »

CHAPTER VI—A CHAPTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER
Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke.

Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyès was drinking. Zéphine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at Saint-Cloud.

Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:—

“Blachevelle, I adore you.”

This called forth a question from Blachevelle:—

“What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?”

“I!” cried Favourite. “Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you arrested.”

Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed:—

“Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain myself, not at all! Rabble!”

Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed both eyes proudly.

Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar:—

“So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?”

“I? I detest him,” replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork again. “He is avaricious. I love the little fellow opposite me in my house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes in, his mother says to him: ‘Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone. There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting my head!’ So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know what? so that he can be heard downstairs! He earns twenty sous a day at an attorney’s by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes me so, that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to me: ‘Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.’ It is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him—how I lie! Hey! How I do lie!”

Favourite paused, and then went on:—

“I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer; the wind irritates me; the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very stingy; there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life.”
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

User avatar
Scooter
Posts: 16540
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:04 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Scooter »

CHAPTER VII—THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS
In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyès intervened.

“Let us not talk at random nor too fast,” he exclaimed. “Let us reflect, if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen. Let us mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with meditation; let us make haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime; if it makes haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets frozen. Excess of zeal ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of zeal kills the grace and the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen! Grimod de la Reynière agrees with Talleyrand.”

A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group.

“Leave us in peace, Tholomyès,” said Blachevelle.

“Down with the tyrant!” said Fameuil.

“Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!” cried Listolier.

“Sunday exists,” resumed Fameuil.

“We are sober,” added Listolier.

“Tholomyès,” remarked Blachevelle, “contemplate my calmness [mon calme].”

“You are the Marquis of that,” retorted Tholomyès.

This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool. The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the frogs held their peace.

“Friends,” cried Tholomyès, with the accent of a man who had recovered his empire, “Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The pun is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter where; and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into the azure depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not prevent the condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the pun! I honor it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most august, the most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St. Peter, Moses on Isaac, Æschylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius. And observe that Cleopatra’s pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a Greek name which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I return to my exhortation. I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no hubbub, no excess; even in witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me. I have the prudence of Amphiaraüs and the baldness of Cæsar. There must be a limit, even to rebuses. Est modus in rebus.

“There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the glutton, Gula punit Gulax. Indigestion is charged by the good God with preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this: each one of our passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn on appetite; one must set one’s own fantasy to the violin, and carry one’s self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence in me, for I have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference between the question put and the question pending, for I have sustained a thesis in Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at Rome at the epoch when Munatius Demens was quæstor of the Parricide; because I am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Félix Tholomyès; I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes.”

Favourite listened with profound attention.

“Félix,” said she, “what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin; it means prosper.”

Tholomyès went on:—

“Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil, gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphæas; drink emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet, starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of lead, and fomentations of oxycrat.”

“I prefer a woman,” said Listolier.

“Woman,” resumed Tholomyès; “distrust her. Woe to him who yields himself to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The serpent is the shop over the way.”

“Tholomyès!” cried Blachevelle, “you are drunk!”

“Pardieu,” said Tholomyès.

“Then be gay,” resumed Blachevelle.

“I agree to that,” responded Tholomyès.

And, refilling his glass, he rose.

“Glory to wine! Nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon me ladies; that is Spanish. And the proof of it, señoras, is this: like people, like cask. The arrobe of Castille contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of Alicante, twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin of the Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zéphine, O Joséphine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau, he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as ‘thou,’ because I pass from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little while ago. That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names. They may delude us. I am called Félix, and I am not happy. Words are liars. Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us. It would be a mistake to write to Liège 2 for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in existence. O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyès, I am an illusion; but she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras! as for the rest, everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth, sweet morning light. O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or Pearl, you are a woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second piece of advice: do not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk. But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not prevent the waistcoat-makers and the shoe-stitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt. All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood; hence tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live. I turn to the men: gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your well-beloved without remorse. Chassez across. In love there are no friends. Everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions of history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is man’s right. Romulus carried off the Sabines; William carried off the Saxon women; Cæsar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the army of Italy: “Soldiers, you are in need of everything; the enemy has it.”

Tholomyès paused.

“Take breath, Tholomyès,” said Blachevelle.

At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the wind, which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and take their flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group replied to Tholomyès’ harangue:—

“The father turkey-cocks so grave
Some money to an agent gave,
That master good Clermont-Tonnerre
Might be made pope on Saint Johns’ day fair.
But this good Clermont could not be
Made pope, because no priest was he;
And then their agent, whose wrath burned,
With all their money back returned.”

This was not calculated to calm Tholomyès’ improvisation; he emptied his glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:—

“Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither prudes nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth; be merry. Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy in the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee! O Luxembourg! O Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allée de l’Observatoire! O pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming nurses who, while they guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odéon. My soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas. All is beautiful. The flies buzz in the sun. The sun has sneezed out the humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine!”

He made a mistake and embraced Favourite.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

User avatar
Scooter
Posts: 16540
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:04 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Scooter »

CHAPTER VIII—THE DEATH OF A HORSE
“The dinners are better at Édon’s than at Bombarda’s,” exclaimed Zéphine.

“I prefer Bombarda to Édon,” declared Blachevelle. “There is more luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; there are mirrors [glaces] on the walls.”

“I prefer them [glaces, ices] on my plate,” said Favourite.

Blachevelle persisted:—

“Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda’s and of bone at Édon’s. Now, silver is more valuable than bone.”

“Except for those who have a silver chin,” observed Tholomyès.

He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from Bombarda’s windows.

A pause ensued.

“Tholomyès,” exclaimed Fameuil, “Listolier and I were having a discussion just now.”

“A discussion is a good thing,” replied Tholomyès; “a quarrel is better.”

“We were disputing about philosophy.”

“Well?”

“Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?”

“Désaugiers,” said Tholomyès.

This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:—

“I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie. One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty centimes.”

Again Fameuil interrupted him:—

“Tholomyès, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author?”

“Ber—”

“Quin?”

“No; Choux.”

And Tholomyès continued:—

“Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chæronea if he could bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation! Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus.”

Tholomyès, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping, had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was dragging a very heavy cart. On arriving in front of Bombarda’s, the worn-out, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, Mâtin (the jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, never to rise again. On hearing the hubbub made by the passers-by, Tholomyès’ merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyès took advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with this melancholy strophe:—

“Elle était de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses
Ont le même destin;
Et, rosse, elle a vécu ce que vivant les rosses,
L’espace d’un mâtin!” 3
“Poor horse!” sighed Fantine.

And Dahlia exclaimed:—

“There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be such a pitiful fool as that!”

At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back, looked resolutely at Tholomyès and said:—

“Come, now! the surprise?”

“Exactly. The moment has arrived,” replied Tholomyès. “Gentlemen, the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a moment, ladies.”

“It begins with a kiss,” said Blachevelle.

“On the brow,” added Tholomyès.

Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress’s brow; then all four filed out through the door, with their fingers on their lips.

Favourite clapped her hands on their departure.

“It is beginning to be amusing already,” said she.

“Don’t be too long,” murmured Fantine; “we are waiting for you.”
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

User avatar
Guinevere
Posts: 8989
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:01 pm

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Guinevere »

Scooter wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:34 pm
Don't say I didn't warn you. What was purported to be a simple question turned out to be just another excuse to complain about how the board works. So be it.
Not to mention the demanding PM about deleting post content. Fuck no.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké

User avatar
Sue U
Posts: 8545
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 4:59 pm
Location: Eastern Megalopolis, North America (Midtown)

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Sue U »

Where's music?

Image
GAH!

User avatar
Guinevere
Posts: 8989
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:01 pm

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Guinevere »

“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké

User avatar
Econoline
Posts: 9555
Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:25 pm
Location: DeKalb, Illinois...out amidst the corn, soybeans, and Republicans

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Econoline »

Guinevere wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:49 pm
Scooter wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 8:34 pm
Don't say I didn't warn you. What was purported to be a simple question turned out to be just another excuse to complain about how the board works. So be it.
Not to mention the demanding PM about deleting post content. Fuck no.
Yeah, WTF was that about? Saving space "if some files in a thread are moved elsewhere."??? I tried moving my files—hell, I moved the whole toolbox, plus a cordless drill and a spare flashlight—into another room, but my wife made me put everything back in my office. No space saved here.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
God @The Tweet of God

User avatar
Sue U
Posts: 8545
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 4:59 pm
Location: Eastern Megalopolis, North America (Midtown)

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Sue U »

Guinevere wrote:
Sat Nov 21, 2020 10:47 pm
I knew I could count on you!
GAH!

Methuselah
Posts: 272
Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:57 am

A History of an Incident for Newbies

Post by Methuselah »

One of my goals is to make the site more accessible to Newbies, who are essential to the longevity of this site. In regard to the other commenters on this incident I’ve known on previous sites I I am senior to most of them in Car Talkery, even if I have been on a lurking basis here for a couple of years. [Lurking is defined as the practice of coming to a site and reading posts but not entering any, or leaving any trails behind.] After I staggered through getting approved (registering was easy) I had to learn how to use the modern software it has, which I hadn’t used anywhere before then. As a retired software developer, customer service rep, and user documentation writer, I thought I could help in attracting newbies by augmenting the user documentation here, found primarily in the excellent FAQ. My initial experiences as a user here gave me the newbie point of view while generating the FAQ extensions that would have made my progress here easier and faster. It was of minor interest to existing site members. To this end I wrote a post that set up a new thread with the phrase “Newbie” in it, to guide newbies to it. My definition of a thread here is that it is a collection of related posts that are placed behind a header post that states some of the concepts to be treated in the following posts.
After I entered several posts a guy whom I had tussled with before suddenly dumped many posts behind the last one. Their content was unrelated to the subject of the header post. Furthermore, any time I posted in this thread or elsewhere he would enter another string of unrelated posts immediately after mine. I didn’t attempt to discuss it with him because past discussions had been futile. I looked for solutions that would not involve the Admin. The interloper, whom I will call the Goon henceforth, had interjected several posts that hinted at the motivation of the Goon and commented on by the Admin, so that behavior was known and condoned. I tried to do something about what will be called malicious cluttering immediately, so I used the FOE block technique available in this software. When a single username is placed on my FOE list I no longer see any of his posts. That solved my problems of needing to scroll past 2 to 30 posts to find one of my own, or to enter a new post. After living contentedly this way for a while I began to think of the ill effect this malicious cluttering had on newbies and uninvolved other members. The next thing I did is remove my posts and place the content elsewhere, then deleting its content from the thread and replacing it with the word [deleted]. Unfortunately, there is no way for a user to delete an entire thread, title and all. I can’t change the title either, I think. I felt guilty for the people who had added posts with some relevance to the theme of the thread and commenting on the now absent prior posts being left high and dry, so I suggested that since I couldn’t edit their posts they could delete their thread content with the phrase [deleted] and move the content elsewhere or just forget about it, to avoid being involved in this nonsense. This was taken badly by some of them, as a step toward censorship, I guess. My intent was to warn them they were in bad company and could escape.
I’m at a loss on what I could do about it next with the tools and conventions today. It is unpolite or perhaps against the current conventions to make suggestions for system changes involving more Admin interaction (to reduce further his workload, here), but a capability for a top post writer to edit its title would allow me to do something with little ill effect. I’d announce in the title that this was now a thread of random content, removing the word “Newbie”, then list the titles of the remaining posts, after I’d given their authors time to move or delete them. A second change would be to change the convention that anyone can post anything anywhere. Better conventions would be to discourage cluttering, to recommend that added posts stay on the course listed in the title, and owning up to malicious cluttering. If you feel the need to copy the entire Mein Kampf here using multiple posts, be a man and own up to it by putting your user name on your top post in your own thread.
Lastly, this post may be of interest to Newbies trying to understand how a place like this evolves, but it is now too prolix to the point of being counterproductive to the Newbie audience. I will no longer respond to any comments added here. I will respond to PMs or emails that you may send me. With regard to some of the snarky sentences from the commenters above, I’m told that projection therapy is woking wonders now.

User avatar
dales
Posts: 10922
Joined: Sat Apr 17, 2010 5:13 am
Location: SF Bay Area - NORTH California - USA

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by dales »

SHADDUP!

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


yrs,
rubato

User avatar
MajGenl.Meade
Posts: 20704
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:51 am
Location: Groot Brakrivier
Contact:

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

[Lurking is defined as the practice of coming to a site and reading posts but not entering any, or leaving any trails behind.]
Image
The next thing I did is remove my posts and place the content elsewhere
Image

:lol:
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18299
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by BoSoxGal »

Was it your secret plan to ruin this board, Meth? Because if so, you are succeeding spectacularly!

Please stop creating new threads everyday about the operations of the board - software, registration, etc.

Just spend a couple of weeks reading and posting appropriately in the various topical threads that are currently active. Show us that there is value in having your new voice here, and you’ll probably encounter more enthusiasm for your expansion themes.

Or, keep doing your best to exhaust and dismay us with your endless fountain of gripes, judgments, and pontification on the workings of our little community. Just what we all need in the midst of the worst holiday season in forever.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
MajGenl.Meade
Posts: 20704
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:51 am
Location: Groot Brakrivier
Contact:

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

This:
BoSoxGal wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:23 pm
Just spend a couple of weeks reading and posting appropriately in the various topical threads that are currently active. Show us that there is value in having your new voice here, and you’ll probably encounter more enthusiasm for your expansion schemes.
:ok
Last edited by MajGenl.Meade on Sun Nov 22, 2020 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18299
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by BoSoxGal »

Damn it you quoted me too fast! I meant to write schemes not themes - just a quirky thing my brain does sometimes now. I would’ve fixed it upon review but now it’s quoted I would only look foolish.

Sigh.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
Guinevere
Posts: 8989
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:01 pm

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by Guinevere »

Several of us have tried to provide advice and context, and it has clearly fallen on deaf ears.
Guinevere wrote:
Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:30 pm
Sue U wrote:
Thu Nov 19, 2020 5:06 pm
I have stayed out of this whole kerfuffle largely because I think adults in general can choose where they want to be and can figure out how to behave themselves in normal social interactions, whether we're talking about a BBS or IRL. Here, some people get along well with others, some don't, some have particular betes noir and some just like to be assholes periodically. We fight, we agree, we argue, sometimes we go too far, but everyone who chooses to be here has a place, and we are all pretty accepting of that. Only truly egregious and endangering behavior will get someone banned from this site; as XKA says, we don't have rules but we do have conventions. I like what BSG said in another thread:
BoSoxGal wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 2:58 pm
especially in these isolating times, an ongoing conversation among friends one can drop into at whim is a cherished thing. More friends are a cherished thing, even annoying ones. But everything in moderation, please!
This, this, this.

Methuselah, let me try to explain -- as noted above, this place is an ongoing conversation among friends, most of whom have been engaged in the conversation for going on decades. Like friends who are often another form of family, we also squabble. Sometimes its nasty, sometimes its petty, usually it blows over (but not always, some feuds never end). But we have our way of doing things - conventions - as also mentioned in posts above. So you have come in and elbowed your way into the conversation. OK, that's fine - we allow new members. But the vast majority of your posts are not joining the ongoing conversations, but telling us we are using our voices and hands wrong, and is irritating and condescending as hell. Please stop it, and just join in the conversation. Engineer or not (and I grew up in a family chock full of 'em) I bet you have more to contribute than to tell us how this board should be run.
The most annoying response has been one that he is “senior“ to all the folks who were here from Car Talk. First, that’s not really true (except age-wise), and second, he doesn’t understand that this is not solely a group of Car Talk people. Half this board came from another forum. Finally, we don’t care about “seniority,” everyone here gets a fair shake, and its their own behavior that determines otherwise.

Take the advice and become a member of the community, Methuselah, or continue the course in world literature. Up to you.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké

ex-khobar Andy
Posts: 5419
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:16 am
Location: Louisville KY as of July 2018

Re: A History of an Incident for Newbies with my comments in red/bold

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Methuselah wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:45 am
One of my goals is to make the site more accessible to Newbies, who are essential to the longevity of this site. If Gob wants to encourage more users to his site I'm sure he will ask us to help. In regard to the other commenters on this incident I’ve known on previous sites I I am senior to most of them in Car Talkery, even if I have been on a lurking basis here for a couple of years. [Lurking is defined as the practice of coming to a site and reading posts but not entering any, or leaving any trails behind.] Perfectly good definition of lurking. I didn't know we had a seniority thing going on: being all about conventions, I'd like to know if I have to pull a salute in your direction daily or only when I am fully dressed.. After I staggered through getting approved (registering was easy) I did not know that registration and approval were different things - it's so long since I came here that I don't remember the process - what privileges does a registered but unapproved user have? I had to learn how to use the modern BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAA (sp?) software it has, which I hadn’t used anywhere before then. As a retired software developer, customer service rep, and user documentation writer, I thought I could help in attracting newbies by augmenting the user documentation here, found primarily in the excellent FAQ. My initial experiences as a user here gave me the newbie point of view while generating the FAQ extensions that would have made my progress here easier and faster. It was of minor interest to existing site members. To this end I wrote a post that set up a new thread with the phrase “Newbie” in it, to guide newbies to it. My definition of a thread here is that it is a collection of related posts that are placed behind a header post that states some of the concepts to be treated in the following posts.
After I entered several posts a guy whom I had tussled with before suddenly dumped many posts behind the last one. Their content was unrelated to the subject of the header post. Furthermore, any time I posted in this thread or elsewhere he would enter another string of unrelated posts immediately after mine. I didn’t attempt to discuss it with him because past discussions had been futile. I looked for solutions that would not involve the Admin. The interloper, whom I will call the Goon henceforth, Why not call him by his preferred handle? And BTW 'Interloper' suggests to me someone new to the place, who had just suddenly arrived and started to impose his (it's usually a him) feelings/thoughts/preferences on the rest of the group. I'll look it up. had interjected several posts that hinted at the motivation of the Goon and commented on by the Admin, so that behavior was known and condoned Admin = Gob; it's his house so he can do as he likes this side of the law. If he does something I really don't like I'm sure he would not stand between me and the door. I tried to do something about what will be called malicious cluttering immediately, so I used the FOE block technique available in this software. When a single username is placed on my FOE list I no longer see any of his posts Well done - you've figured out how FOE works. That solved my problems of needing to scroll past 2 to 30 posts to find one of my own, or to enter a new post. After living contentedly this way for a while I began to think of the ill effect this malicious cluttering had on newbies and uninvolved other members. The next thing I did is remove my posts and place the content elsewhere, then deleting its content from the thread and replacing it with the word [deleted]. Unfortunately, there is no way for a user to delete an entire thread, title and all. Why should any user be able to delete a thread? Once it is started it is a common area for anyone to read, to comment on, or to ignore. I can’t change the title either, I think. No; but you can change the title of an individual post in that thread. It defaults to 'Re: Thread title'. I felt guilty for the people who had added posts with some relevance to the theme of the thread and commenting on the now absent prior posts being left high and dry, so I suggested that since I couldn’t edit their posts they could delete their thread content with the phrase [deleted] and move the content elsewhere or just forget about it, to avoid being involved in this nonsense. This was taken badly by some of them, as a step toward censorship, I guess. My intent was to warn them they were in bad company and could escape. That's decent of you MethUser but you're not my Dad. If I want to escape the bad company around here I'll figure it out for myself.
I'll get to the rest of this next time I have some spare energy.

User avatar
MajGenl.Meade
Posts: 20704
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:51 am
Location: Groot Brakrivier
Contact:

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:28 pm
Sigh.
I fixed it in the quote I used - now you can edit both yours! :ok
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18299
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by BoSoxGal »

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 2:07 pm
BoSoxGal wrote:
Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:28 pm
Sigh.
I fixed it in the quote I used - now you can edit both yours! :ok
My goodness, you really aren’t such a cunt after all! 😘

(I hope this comes across kindly and funny as it is meant to. I will leave the errors and exchange for future fun reading by NEWBIES.)
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
MajGenl.Meade
Posts: 20704
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:51 am
Location: Groot Brakrivier
Contact:

Re: Am I logged in?

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

Post Reply