Insular crowd

The irony in this is truly delicious.

Especially given the title of this thread … “Insular crowd”

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heehee, isn’t that true.

FTC is highly exceedingly west coast couple cities oriented. others need not apply.

it is a spin off, just like HO, when Chowhound mightily leap on their very dull ban-everyobdy-sword.
I joined, dropped out when the forum owner opined that, since they’re all adults, any member should be able to edit any other member’s posts. yeah, that’ll work out well…

HO is not innocent either. there are TOS - and when they’re not enforced by the staff, members tend to revolt. to wit the recent "political’ flappola. should never have happened.

ChefTalk is another splendid example - recently sold. new owners attempting to monetize the place have an advertising section. spam and more spam, piled on top of spam. checking the moderators - “last seen” from 02Apr2022 to 23+ hours ago.

basically forums need to maintain focus on their charter or simply let it fade away into pixel dust.

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FTC. Lord of the Flies come to mind.

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Wow. And “Lord of The Flies” has some food/eating related content. On topic!

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Piggy, and Conch fritters.

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Yes!
And from From Page to Plate- The home of hungry readers

" Food can bring out the best in humans: creativity (experimenting with new dishes and ingredients); generosity (feeding others); open-mindedness and tolerance (trying foods from other cultures) and civilized behaviour (table manners).

But it can also bring out the worst in us. We judge other people’s diets, are overly picky about what we eat, overeat or binge diet when so many people in this world don’t have enough to eat.

In William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies a group of schoolboys are stranded on a tropical island after an unspecified military incident. Left to their own devices, the boys descend quickly and shockingly into a state of savagery. And food is one of the ways Golding uses to mark this descent"

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Right. Just hop on over to the “Mexican week at the Great British Bake-off” thread, and you’ll see how irritated people got at each other.

No thank you.

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@chienrouge I have no idea what happened between you and @linguafood but I hope you will come back. You’re the only one who appreciates my Spring Onion’s love of Jack’s Hot Dogs now that @passing_thru is on hiatus.

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@digga - thank you. I really do enjoy the camaraderie and support from you and a bunch of friends here that have messaged me or otherwise registered encouragement. Thank you thank you. Compassion and kindness are always in season. I love to read about the community’s eating and cooking and travelling triumphs and to share intel and good mojo. Thanks for being real people that offer a window into your interesting and varied lives, travels and homes. It’s what I like about this webpage. I’ve been taking a bit of time off as a sort of online detox. Goes well with tiki drinks I might add. I don’t want to feel the way I felt last week again and I think for me it’s going to take some stepping back, managing my participation and using some of the onsite tools available to make it a more positive experience for me, and hopefully for the gang because I enjoy what we share together. There are hopefully solutions to my concerns and those that have been noted by others.

PS I am a former record holder at Jacks – back when that could be accomplished for $7!

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I’m sad you and @linguafood had a disagreement ETA: there is dischord.

I’ve come close to leaving recently for various reasons, but

image

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I’ve been thinking about the repeated claim that this is a food board and politics have no place, but the problem with that is that food is political, from cultivation to plate and all places in between. How farmers are supported and the policies that shape their worlds (and what foods can come to us and how often) is political. How food travels to us is political. Where food is available and degrees of accessibility is political. And how we value food (beyond basic sustenance, and even then) is political. Questions of taste and authenticity are political. Covid, restaurant viability, and eating out all made that clear.

None of that is a bad thing. But when we identify certain conversations as political and others as not, it usually means that there are blind spots (often enabled by being part of a majority that has not only presumed their perspective is neutral or objective, but often does not even see the perspective as a perspective. Frequently, certain realities or truths we hold are not even visible until someone (typically from a minority perspective) points something out. I think that can be really valuable.

Of course, there are contentious modes of articulating one’s position. There are also certain positions that perhaps we could call off limits (particularly for being unrelated to food) but there are going to be some spots where they do come together (and are perhaps acutely visible to some) and I think there is value in discussing these or exploring how to articulate what one is seeing. This is not about ad hominem attacks (all off limits, including disparaging the topic itself, which can be meaningful to some) and certainly arguments cannot go on when all it becomes is an increasingly unpleasant time such,. BUT I think there is a place for such conversation, and, like small_h, if you know where those fora are (where people are more sensitive to these intersections and willing to explore them) I’m interested in knowing.

But again, pretending that nothing said here is political when food itself is absolutely so feels disingenuous and risks silencing those who might want to say something that we all might learn from.

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I think that your analysis is correct. There is more than a small aspect of everything that is political. And, as we know, politics is a very charged aspect of our lives these days. I think that the question all food (& other) boards have always faced and continue to face is whether it is possible to maintain a volunteer platform while allowing such a charged aspect. I’d guess not. Things already get heated enough without opening that door. However, I wouldnt be adverse to keeping a light hand on it & not looking for reasons to end otherwise civil discussions. I also gave up volunteering to be a moderator of any board long ago. :wink:

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I don’t think anyone is pretending that food isn’t political. I think it is more a decision of what kind of forum the peeps who run this site want.

And - as I’ve seen over and over again with those discussions, even the fine folks here are mostly incapable of staying OT or articulating their stance in a non-combative way.

I wholeheartedly agree. The personal is political, and that includes food. I notice complaints about being “political” tend to come up when someone expresses a minority viewpoint or challenges someone else’s more “mainstream” assumptions.

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Well put.

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Of course food, like almost every other aspect of our lives, is at least in part political because politics is nothing more than how people interact and identify themselves with.

So that, in and of itself, is neither surprising, nor verboten on a food discussion board.

In other words, talking about food politics, or the politics of food, or even the food that politicians’ like (:smiley: ), is not off-limits.

What is off-limits, and is really non-negotiable, is demeaning or attacking someone because of their political viewpoints as it relates food, even if that attack is about a person’s feelings of what food a particular politician likes to eat.

For example, it might be ok (though it’s borderline) to say “people who eat bananas are right-wing racists” and another thing to say “everyone who thinks people eat bananas are right-wing racists is themselves a nincompoop.”

The former, though acceptable, really should not be on a food board, but we – being the humans that we are – are no doubt going to express our opinions on these things as it relates to food qua contributors on a food board. But the latter, my goodness, that has absolutely no place on a food board. None. Full stop.

That’s really the line of demarcation.

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I can only speak for myself, of course, but I will flag political content regardless of whether I agree with the poster’s opinion or not. OMMV :woman_shrugging:t3:

However, given the backlash I’ve gotten for the simple act of reminding people of the rules on this particular website, I will just unfollow a thread that veers in that direction from now on.

I don’t need that kind of grief or extra drama in my life, and will leave that to others to participate in.

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Have you witnessed a ‘political’ discussion here or back on CH that didn’t devolve into personal attacks sooner or later?

Because I haven’t. Ever. In fact, the topic doesn’t even have to be political for some posters to get personal.

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attempts to allow “mild” political / sex / religious “discussions” fail because people get ‘offended’ - then it escalates into a food fight.

and, should a minor thread slip by with no flame war(s), a newcomer will arrive, see that politics / sex/ religion is not off-limits and start posting (typically) very obnoxious messages, just to get a reaction.

the best approach is none of that
it’s not like we don’t have members that stay out of politics / sex / religion but still manage to cause offense with their “my way/idea/method is the only way”

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That was my point, too. I’ve been absolutely flabbergasted at how contentious threads over, say, knives can get, and that’s about as far from political as possible (?).

People who join a specific forum do so because they feel passionately about its specific topic. Passion can run high (both positive and negative), and people’s personal disposition to fight or flight (or agree with one another >gasp<) adds to the mix.

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