# Win free merchandise and the improved CD guidelines



## geve

Hi, 

I just came across that line in the improved guidelines of the CD forum (I realize I am hereby confessing that it took me a few days to actually read the improved sticky - naughty naughty me)


> *A good Cultural Discussions thread:*
> ...
> asks for and expects distinct national and cultural viewpoints, not personal opinions and ideas


 
And I'm a bit puzzled: what else can we expect but personal opinions?  I certainly would not dare to speak for all French citizens.


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## TrentinaNE

You can't speak for all French people, but you can report what you see as French ways of living and thinking.  Take, for example, this thread.  Discussing cultural norms/practices/expectations about treatment of houseguests strikes me a perfectly legitimate topic for the CD forum.  Individual testimonials about how we deal with houseguests -- that have nothing to do with cultural practices -- can be interesting, but strike me as being outside the purpose of having a CD forum within this particular site.

I should state that I'm one of those people who thinks the scope of CD should be fairly narrow: a place to discuss cultural adjuncts to language that might not be readily found in other places on the web.  Just how wide or narrow the scope of CD should be, however, is *not* a settled subject and continues to evolve.


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## jlc246

The difference between an observation about "distinct national and cultural viewpoints" and a personal opinion or idea is something I am still grappling with. I realize that personal stories often lead me to be more chatty and anecdotal than is really desired at WR, and I am trying to improve! I also agree about generalizations leading to trouble. However, regarding posts that express distinct viewpoints about my nation or culture, I sometimes agree with them but often do not. Perhaps this comes from living in such a large country with so many diverse subcultures, which are often not contained geographically. I don't think it is because I am not "representative" of my nation or culture! (I can usually sort out when I am just different than everyone else.) When people express "viewpoints" about a culture and I don't agree with them, I am much more likely to feel angry than I am when people tell personal stories about a culture. That's one reason that I usually express my opinion as my opinion and my experiences as personal experiences. Often people take their own experiences or opinions and state them with authority as being national / cultural / regional / scientific viewpoints, but that doesn't make them any more true for anyone beyond the posters. Even viewpoints / opinions supported by a study / quote / link are often not representative of a culture. 

To get personal and anecdotal, someone referred to a marketing study that showed that Xxxxers didn't like a product because they don't like to yyyy, and the next poster said, "Really? Xxxxers are weird!" (It was a weird idea.) Not only did I feel misrepresented, but I felt that someone was spreading tales about my people and homeland that are not true! The fact that both remarks were probably tongue in cheek and intended to be humorous made me smile wryly, but didn't completely remove the sting. (I never made a habit of telling obviously rude ethnic jokes, but I swear I will think ten times about telling even a "tastefully funny" ethnic joke even about "my own culture" after a month of being educated in the WR forums!) The fact that the poster was talking about her own people and homeland didn't make it any better. I don't think she was saying that she thought all Xxxxers were like the study, but the post could easily be interpreted that way. In fact, I think she was subtly implying that she is not the way the study said we are, thus providing a counter example to the "viewpoint." At the time it was posted, the readers must have had a better sense of humor than I did the day I read it, because no one jumped in to say, "Actually, pardon me for disagreeing with a marketing study, which probably interviewed a few hundred people maximum out of many million, but I would like to respectfully express a contrary viewpoint on this nation and culture." I didn't see any point in adding a rebuttal approximately 130 posts and many months later, so I just tried to see the funny side of it and let it go. (And hope that few people would be interested in going back 7 pages to the early part of the thread.) I'm not sure that I will always be that restrained. After all, if a silly "fact" about my culture could be so irritating, think what the results of a national poll about something I really care about could tempt me to say. Maybe, "when 51% agree, that means there are still 49% who don't; in a country of hundreds of millions, 49% is a lot of people." Or maybe, #*!&%(#! Or maybe something I think will be humorous but make the point that I disagree, which will probably be personal and not a viewpoint. 

I think I need to go cool off. (Joke. But also true. )

I do understand that the new additions to the guidelines are well meant and aimed at true needs. I appreciate the caveat about generalizations. I am grateful for the gentle guidance that is helping me to be a better WR forer@.  (And post shorter posts -- sorry about this one.) 

I think the thread about funny experiences with language is a great example of a good thread full of personal stories that are very appropriate to WR. I also enjoyed both the cultural viewpoints and the stories of how people deal with houseguests, and I think the thread showed that we have as many similarities and differences globally as we do nationally or culturally. I can see that houseguests may not be very closely related to language, but I think that's a great message to spread. Just one more personal opinion: I greatly appreciate that this is a well moderated site; in your thoughtful efforts to make it serious and keep it on target and on topic, please leave room for appropriate lightheartedness. (I feel sure you do.)

Best wishes -- jlc


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## Jana337

The new rule, as I read it, is directed towards thread openers rather than other participants: Before you *ask* a question, you should examine whether it is reasonable to expect that it will provide insight into cross-cultural differences. When you want to *reply *to a question, you should keep the cross-cultural focus in mind but you are not obliged to speak for your culture. Cultural traits will be revealed by comparison of your posts with contributions written by your compatriots.

Questions like "when you buy a newspaper, do you read the sports section first?" are, in my view, devoid of any cross-cultural implications and should be avoided.

Cultural moderators, please correct me if I am wrong.


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## geve

Thanks everyone.  I understand the intent, it's the wording that I find misleading. People should not be encouraged in stating their opinions as cultural facts. As I said before, I think each of us has a credibility as a human being, and generalizations should be handled with care in all circumstances.


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## ireney

I can't see why it's either or. You can speak of general trends without generalising.

People should not  state their opinions as cultural facts and personal habbits/opinions even as presented as such have no place in these forums. 

I like classical music. Saying that all Greek do would be a misrepresentation of my fellow Greeks. I personally hate little aliens with blue with green stripes skin and purple antennas. Good for me  but, although, I do state it as a personal opinion it has no place on a cultural forum. I can add it in my profile or PM it to my friends if I feel others should know how I feel about those unforunately coloured creatures.

Let me put it this way: If anyone asked (a question waaaay outside the scope of the forum) if Greeks are dark or light of skin there are two replies I could give that would be wrong:
a) Greeks are dark skinned. A gross generalisation
b) I am light skinned. So what?

If, however, I said something like "most Greeks are not light skinned and tend to get rather tanned during summer. There are of course those who are dark skinned all year round and those who  have a lighter complexion and turn a wonderful boiled-lobster red under the sun. I do." it'd be alright.

Now let's take a topic that could possibly survive in the CD forum. TV news,  newspapers or both?  I go for both with a preferment to newspapers. Most of my friends do the same. As far as I know however most Greeks go for the first option. My personal opinion/habbits is/are of no interest and most importantly, misrepresent my fellow Greeks. 

I'm also not interested in hearing that member X from country Y likes to drink ouzo or eat feta. If I had any culinary interest at all I would be interested in learning whether many people in this country find the Greek cuisine nice/horrible.


A personal anecdote that highlights a member's report of his/her country's culrural habbits is always welcomed. Any comment on the personal anecdote as such is not. It's chat and will be deleted.


jlc246 nothing stops members from correcting the misrepresentation of their country's culture done by another member.

Finally, if anyone has any ideas about how to word this particular phrase in a better way so as to make sure no one will misinterpet the meaning or be confused or wondering about what we could possibly mean please PM one or more of the moderators.


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## jlc246

ireney said:


> A personal anecdote that highlights a member's report of his/her country's cultural habbits is always welcomed. Any comment on the personal anecdote as such is not. It's chat and will be deleted.


I understand your comment that it's ok to add a personal opinion/anecdote in support of a cultural point, which is different than posting an anecdote alone or replying to an anecdote instead of continuing the cultural discussion. 

I think it's hard to find a few words that express what you mean, but it becomes clearer with experience.

thanks --


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## zazap

I still don't really understand these rules.  A thread I just participated in was closed soon after, and I don't know if it was my fault, if I wasted my time trying to contribute or what.  I thought it was pretty interesting, but...
I don't know, I am unsure and hesitant now about the forum.  
Just thought I'd let you know, zazap.


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## cherine

zazap said:


> I still don't really understand these rules. A thread I just participated in was closed soon after, and I don't know if it was my fault, if I wasted my time trying to contribute or what. I thought it was pretty interesting, but...
> I don't know, I am unsure and hesitant now about the forum.
> Just thought I'd let you know, zazap.


It's not your fault zazap. 
I'll try to put it as simply as possible :
1- there are many threads in the Cultural forum that were created before the guidelines were put
2- we can't just review all the threads in the forum to see which among them complies with the guidelines, so we let them be.
3- when/if a forero "resurrects" an old thread that is -now- against the guidelines, we have to interfere to maintain consistency with these guidelines.

So you don't need to hesitate about the forum. Simply read the guidelines before posting. When/if you see a thread that's against the guidelines, don't post in it. The most obvious cases are the threads that ask for personal opinions, impressions, feelings... toward something; threads asking for advice or discussion romance, movies....

Voilà, c'est aussi simple que ça


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## Agnès E.

While our forums evolve and grow, we have to constantly adapt our policy to all changes occured. This is made step by step, according to situations faced, and the way we have to deal with them.

This is the reason why there seem to be some inconsistence over time; this is actually not inconsistence, but adaptation. 

Imagine that you once invite 10 people for your birthday: you then can enjoy yourself preparing a fantastic meal and serve people around your dining table in your living-room. Then, the year after, you decide to make a big party with 80 people. You will not be able to treat them with a similar meal; you will have to adapt to the new situation. What would you then say to someone asking you: "Hey! I saw pictures of your 2006 birthday! last year they got a great Italian cuisine served in china! I'm lost! why did you choose a cold buffet in the garden this year?" Well, you just adapted... 

Please forgive my simplistic image; I have no imagination! 

Some old threads, which were fine one or two years ago, are not any longer acceptable, for many reasons. Sometimes these reasons are obvious to all foreros, sometimes they come from many different grounds; in any case, they are aimed for the good of WR, not to upset foreros.


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## zazap

Thank you for your replies.  So I guess this old style resurrected thread should be closed too, shouldn't it?  I mean, before people waste time writing posts...


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## TrentinaNE

zazap, that thread is about *cultural *differences, is it not?


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## zazap

Maybe.  I find it is made up of mainly personal views and anecdotes  (I would never wear a pyjama/my wife goes to work wearing slippers/the other day I saw a guy...) though, which I think is against the forum rules now.

I could be mistaken.  That is what I mean about being unsure and hesitant. 

I guess there is a difference between the initial thread starting post being "against" the new rules, and the "participating posts" not complying to them.


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## johnL

zazap said:


> Maybe.  I find it is made up of mainly personal views and anecdotes  (I would never wear a pyjama/my wife goes to work wearing slippers/the other day I saw a guy...) though, which I think is against the forum rules now.
> 
> I could be mistaken.  _That is what I mean about being unsure and hesitant. _


I have to agree with you, zazap. I find the rules of the CD forum to be arbitrary and impossible to understand and follow. Good moderation is necessary for any forum to run effectively, but my impression is that the moderators of the CD forum sit with their fingers poised over the "delete" button, hoping for the chance to use it. (Sorry if that's offensive, but it's the way that forum feels, so I rarely use it.) I feel that _any _post or response in that forum runs a very high risk of being deleted. (Hope this response lasts long enough for you to see it!)


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## ireney

Note: "you" is used in a generic way.

Well yes, if a person writes posts that do not follow the rules he or she runs the risk of having his or her posts deleted. In fact it is by bending the rules that some personal posts remain so if what you suggest is that we "enforce" the rules more strictly we can discuss about that.

If you want to be 100% sure your post will not be deleted you only have to follow the rules and guidelines as you agreed to do when joining this forum. Let us not forget that this site is first and foremost dedicated to the languages and the cultural forum is there to provide cultural insights about different countries since we feel that understanding a language may help understand a culture but the opposite is also  true.

The fact that I, a most atypical Greek may like or dislike certain things may be important to me and maybe those of the members who "know" me but will be of no interest to future members. These posts are "property" of the forum and should, among other, more common functions, fulfil the following criteria. Will they help future readers understand something about culture X?

zapzap, if you had such a question as "am I responsible for that?" (or any other question really) on your mind about a specific action of a specific moderator (me in this case) you could have sent me a PM as suggested in rules and guidelines.


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## jonquiliser

ireney said:


> The fact that I, a most atypical Greek may like or dislike certain things may be important to me and maybe those of the members who "know" me but will be of no interest to future members. These posts are "property" of the forum and should, among other, more common functions, fulfil the following criteria. Will they help future readers understand something about culture X?



Well, isn't it obvious that the so called "exceptions" are important? I thought it was also part of the new forum rules that touting out stereotypes is forbidden...?


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## ireney

jonquiliser it is one thing to say that, for example, in a hypothetical thread entitled "does your culture like fish?" to reply that "In general Greeks love fish; not all Greeks though; I for example will do my utmost to avoid eating or indeed smelling any" and quite another to reply " I hate fish!" or indeed "I love fish". NO post has been deleted if _some_ personal information is included so I can't quite understand the source of your confusion I'm afraid . Posts of the second kind are routinely deleted. Post of the first kind are not.


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## jonquiliser

ireney, it's the rules in themselves that confuse me . I think it's a little strange to have cultural discussions that are centred around finding out the stereotypes - that in many cases are in fact not much more than stereotypes. Greeks are like this, Finns like that, Brits so and Ecuadorias so: in the end, no one of us really is like that, but we all know the stereotypes already (about our own countries or others). And if we don't, we learn them here. But do we learn something about other *people*?

Anyway, not a major thing. I skip most CD discussions. Some of them would be tremendously interesting, but I have little interest in simply stating what "Finns" or other arbitrary groupings of people supposedly think. I'm just as representative of this country as anyone.

Ok, I'm exaggerating a wee bit: I do think it can make sense to talk in generalising terms sometimes. But the risk involved is too easy to ignore...


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## zazap

ireney said:


> zapzap, if you had such a question as "am I responsible for that?" (or any other question really) on your mind about a specific action of a specific moderator (me in this case) you could have sent me a PM as suggested in rules and guidelines.



True, I actually thought about it, but I chose to express my confusion in the forum because  I didn't mean to criticise your specific action,   only to express a general impression and give an example.


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## geve

jonquiliser said:


> ireney, it's the rules in themselves that confuse me . I think it's a little strange to have cultural discussions that are centred around finding out the stereotypes - that in many cases are in fact not much more than stereotypes. Greeks are like this, Finns like that, Brits so and Ecuadorias so: in the end, no one of us really is like that, but we all know the stereotypes already (about our own countries or others). And if we don't, we learn them here. But do we learn something about other *people*?
> 
> Anyway, not a major thing. I skip most CD discussions. Some of them would be tremendously interesting, but I have little interest in simply stating what "Finns" or other arbitrary groupings of people supposedly think. I'm just as representative of this country as anyone.
> 
> Ok, I'm exaggerating a wee bit: I do think it can make sense to talk in generalising terms sometimes. But the risk involved is too easy to ignore...


That's what was on my mind too. (Though you are a bit harsh: people might go into more subtle and fascinating nuances such as "but things are different in New York and in Dullsville, Arizona", or "Parisian girls are more concerned about fashion than the rest of French women". ) 
I found it more interesting to read personal opinions  of people I had got to know on the forums, but if it's the new scope of the CD forum we'll just have to comply with it.


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## xrayspex

The new rules, plus strict enforcement, has reduced my interest in CD to practically zero. The topics are now forced toward the inane and irrelevant. In the few months that I've been here, participation (i.e. new posts and quantity and quality of replies) has noticeably dropped. 

If that was the goal, I'd say it's been met.


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