Forum decorum, and such.

I am not sure what is going here. Twice in recent days, I have seen TS (thread starter) responses that asked respondents not to post in THEIR (TS') thread. In both instances, the respondent was offering advice or a suggestion related to the TS' question. Admittedly, one was a bit sarcastic. It was certainly valid, however. It was clearly not the answer the TS was looking for, which I interpret as the basis of the problem.

All of this brings me to:
Whose threads are we posting in, anyway? It seems to me that Pekka has created a public forum. Unless I misunderstand completely, the idea behind it is the free exchange of information. This is Pekka's backyard and we play with his ball, in his yard, at his discretion. It just seems wrong to say, "Stay out of MY thread."

As such:
Is is improper (or rude) to claim a thread as 'yours', just because you started it?
Is is improper (or rude) to ask legitimate members/respondents to stay out of 'your' thread?
If you ask for public advice, don't you expect a diversity of opinions?
Is it not possible to graciously accept solicited advice you weren't expecting or don't want? ("Thank you." Then ignore it.)
Is this a generational thing? I am on the grey side of 50. My mother would box my ears for such behavior.

Any thoughts?

It's a public forum, I don't see anybody having the prerogative to say who can or can't post as long as it's civil and follows the forum rules.

I think I saw one of the thread you are referring to and the response to the OPs question was a bit of a.. um.. how do I say this nicely? um.. the response was from someone who has been around for a while rarely providing anything more than a silly sarcastic post thus adding little to the discussion. But this is a public moderated forum so we should expect all types of responses and as long as the response does not cross one of the many lines the moderators are looking for, we need to just ignore the juvenile type comments. Of course, the OP is also open to shut the poster down as they did if it's the thread I'm thinking about, but many times those things lead to silly arguments which when escalated, get the thread shut down.

Those type of posts I just ignore. If the person really bothers you, block them.

Bassat wrote in post #17977023
I am not sure what is going here. Twice in recent days, I have seen TS (thread starter) responses that asked respondents not to post in THEIR (TS') thread. . . .

Is is improper (or rude) to claim a thread as 'yours', just because you started it?
Is is improper (or rude) to ask legitimate members/respondents to stay out of 'your' thread?

I didn't see either of those threads. To both your questions, I answer yes, it's improper and rude. No one owns a thread. Some threads started by mods are exceptions, but mods can lock their threads.

Thanks for the responses so far. I just don't see the point of asking for help, and then telling people you can't help them help you. I mean by posting a shot or giving some camera settings. I read those kind of questions as:

"I am doing everything right. Please tell me how I can blame this on my equipment."

It reminds of the the: "I am shooting in P mode, with AWB, Auto-ISO, and ETTL-II. Why won't my camera do what I want it to do? I thought SLRs were supposed to be better."

Then complaining when someone suggests you try different settings.

Tom, one of your questions was
"Is is improper (or rude) to claim a thread as 'yours', just because you started it?"

I think there are some unwritten rules in a public forum that each of us adhere to. Unfortunately, unwritten rules are easily interpreted differently by others. And also, typically, unwritten rules are sometimes assumed because of another unwritten rule that someone has actually verbalized.

Here an example, related to your question.

I've always believed (at least on POTN) that when you Open a thread - it belongs to you.

For the following reasons/assumptions:

Because you can diverge from the original question going down another road if you so choose.
Or you can insist the thread stay on topic - if thats what you want.
Or you can request the Mod to close it (or move it) if you feel that's an appropriate action.

And last but not least, when someone other than the OP tries to re-purpose the thread - they usually apologize in advance. As if they know the OP owns the thread and they're walking a fine line by re-directing it.

Anyway, just my opinion but I think a lot of the "rudeness" or "impolite behavior" we see here is because the forum rules didn't really apply to this exact scenario and the assumptions other people made about the rules are different than ours.

Walt, I agree with you. But, I don't think you went far enough. I think we 'own' a thread in the same way we 'own' a public park. On a spring day, if I get to the monkey bars first, I get to play on them. That certainly doesn't mean I can tell others whether or how they can play on the monkey bars. In the last few days, I've seen two different threads where the OP specifically asked (told?) another member not to play on his monkey bars. Not because the comment made was invalid, but simply because it wasn't what the OP was looking for. I think that is wrong. It amounts to: "WaltA, please don't post in my forum decorum thread. You don't agree with me, ergo, your opinion is invalid." And that is wrong, to me anyway.

The way I see it, thread starters are just that. Once it's born it's out of the gate, and no one person can claim it. If I truly owned my threads, then it should follow that I can do anything with them that I please (within reason), such as disposing of them. But I can't. That's why I think they belong to the community.

Tom, I haven't seen the posts you are referring to - or maybe I saw them and just ignored them.
I have a tendency to ignore stuff that I a) don't understand or b) don't agree with.
I do a lot of technical reading/writing in my real job and its just how my brain is wired.

But I have seen the same kind of "rude-response" as you mention but I've seen it as a "non-response".

It happens to me often - maybe because I'm not a super-technical type about photography. I am in my real job - but in photography I just enjoy taking pictures.

For example, the OP will post a question about something I am knowledgeable and would like to respond. So I post a response along with 5 or 6 other people. All the other people that posted get a response back from the OP - saying thanks that's a great idea or I'll try that or something. I get nothing.

Is that rude? Maybe the OP didn't like my answer and decided to ignore me rather than tell me I'm full of crap?

I think many people post questions here - not to get an answer - but to have others validate what they'd already decided/determined. In that case you stand a good (50-50?) chance of not providing the answer they were looking for.

FORUM

A: a public meeting place for open discussion

Two of the key words being "open discussion"

Here we feel that if a thread is a question, the "TS" (or "OP" as we used to call it) does NOT have the right to come down on a posted answer or suggestion that does not fit their own P.O.V. IF the reply/answer is on topic.

Bassat wrote in post #17977591
... I think that is wrong. It amounts to: "WaltA, please don't post in my forum decorum thread. You don't agree with me, ergo, your opinion is invalid." And that is wrong, to me anyway.

Likely it is, in theory it is. That said, given the circustances, it may not be the OP (TS) that began the problem. What if the replier was in fact trolling? I'd need the full context to pass any actual judgement on a specific case.

In either case, a post that offends O.P. or the way that replied, should be reported to Moderators to handle.

WaltA wrote in post #17977616
...

I think many people post questions here - not to get an answer - but to have others validate what they'd already decided/determined. In that case you stand a good (50-50?) chance of not providing the answer they were looking for.

Yes, this happens sometimes. If the answer provided is not the answer desired, it is not overly difficult to just say, "Thanks for the information." Telling someone to stop playing on 'your' monkey bars is obnoxious, IMHO.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17977635
Likely it is, in theory it is. That said, given the circustances, it may not be the OP (TS) that began the problem. What if the replier was in fact trolling? I'd need the full context to pass any actual judgement on a specific case.

In either case, a post that offends O.P. or the way that replied, should be reported to Moderators to handle.

I started this thread specifically so as NOT to implicate other users in this. The one sarcastic comment could have been softened a bit with a smiley face. I know I can get a bit snarky before I've had my morning coffee (or my evening IPA). The other TS told a user with 20,000+ posts, who was requesting background info in order to help the TS, to stay out of 'his' thread. That is between those two. But after that, whatever input I may have had to the TS' problem was left unposted. I kind of felt like, "If you know it all already, why are you asking?"

Bassat wrote in post #17977023
I am not sure what is going here. Twice in recent days, I have seen TS (thread starter) responses that asked respondents not to post in THEIR (TS') thread. In both instances, the respondent was offering advice or a suggestion related to the TS' question. Admittedly, one was a bit sarcastic. It was certainly valid, however. It was clearly not the answer the TS was looking for, which I interpret as the basis of the problem.

All of this brings me to:
Whose threads are we posting in, anyway? It seems to me that Pekka has created a public forum. Unless I misunderstand completely, the idea behind it is the free exchange of information. This is Pekka's backyard and we play with his ball, in his yard, at his discretion. It just seems wrong to say, "Stay out of MY thread."

As such:
Is is improper (or rude) to claim a thread as 'yours', just because you started it?
Is is improper (or rude) to ask legitimate members/respondents to stay out of 'your' thread?
If you ask for public advice, don't you expect a diversity of opinions?
Is it not possible to graciously accept solicited advice you weren't expecting or don't want? ("Thank you." Then ignore it.)
Is this a generational thing? I am on the grey side of 50. My mother would box my ears for such behavior.

Any thoughts?

If you are referring to me, which I haven't said anything of the sort....all I have said is "if you want to think you are at a standstill in regards to the thread, please don't post anymore, I am happy that way" that I never told anyone not to post, yet two of them continue to try bait me into saying something rude to them in order to get a ban placed on me. I like this place, but I can't stand the likes of my thread being hijacked by people who think that by posting published photos on here or anywhere else it was published, I mean would you? After all, you would probably have to go to a court which would, not only cost you money, but jobs and other things like going to marquee events. Clearly some people are just got a bit green in my thread. It's easy for the moderators to say, just ignore their silly insults by them saying "are you an angry photographer?" whatever that means I don't know

Yet, I get the feeling that you are saying that I am rude to them, whatever dude, whatever. Nothing against you at all, I can't fathom where you got that from