Scots Wha Hae: Blue Bonnets, Sluagh-Gairm!

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Where are JJ & Djoerk,

The forum is getting to be a Jock free zone Cant believe you dont have anything to say.

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There was a young Scotsman called Andy,
Who knocked over his bottle of Shandy.
He lifted his kilt,
To wipe up what he spilt,
and the barmaid said "Blimey!, that's handy"

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Well its back to silly season for me just now until 31 January so I do not have so much computer time.

Also

I felt the forum took a strange turn of direction recently that has dampened my enthusiasm a little just now

I use forums to to get information and opinions.  It seems that the MM2H forum is being directed to become a fact based information service for the MM2H Visa.

Where as I accept that that was probably what the original intentions of the forum was, it has/had exceeded its original programming and became a window for a lot of areas of Malaysian life and even ex-pat life in general

Now that some of these additional topics have been taken away and we are advised that we should trawl the internet for information that does not meet the criteria I find myself having to log on to more forums to get the information that I would like.  Therefore I have a reduced time frame to log on here.  You then start to loose the thread of the conversations and after a while it just becomes about the same top ten posters making any contribution.  When a forum gets to that stage it usually only follows the direction that the top ten want it to go and it becomes a club rather than a forum

I will continue to log on to read the MM2H information when needed but I will now need to spend time elsewhere to get a fuller picture

Cheers

JJ

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hi,

Sorry JJ that your enthusiasm is dampened. 

I deleted the jokes section. I received just too many complaints about it being vulgar. It lasted quite a long time but sometimes you've gotta move on.

I asked that the section on Newspaper Articles be limited to those that related to mm2h rather than a posting of crime stories lifted from the local media, and without any added comment or perspective. What's the point of just posting who robbed what etc. without any perspective or comment. A daily posting of Malaysian crime stories just doesn't paint a balanced picture of Malaysia.

The chit chat board became a massive 15 or 16 pages so I've spent some time to allocate these posts to more relevant boards/threads so that they aren't lost. No topics have been taken away from chit chat, just moved to the relevant threads.

There has never been much more than 1/2 a dozen regular contributors since the start of the forum.

I'm in the process of breaking down the vehicle related posts into a number of child boards to make access easier.

I think that the forum now has more boards and topics for those that want to use them, either for mm2h reference or for general living in Malaysia stuff.

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I deleted the jokes section. I received just too many complaints about it being vulgar.

But I managed to sneak in a limerick.  I almost wrote an apology underneath 

Seriously Scott, as a Forum (which is based in Malaysia?) do you have to apply any rules to cover regulations by the authorities that be?

I don't frequent that many forums but one (that is Singapore based) has recently brought in an auto-censor.  Of course everyone is fooling about trying to get around the censorship.  The owner of a Thai-based forum recently got threatened with a jail sentence due to comments written by a poster.  That is scarey.  Lucky for him, the Thai authorities dropped the jail sentence.

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hi,

I don't know about any regs. Like all forums, this site has a rules section that all members are required to accept.

Quite honestly I looked through the whole funny bone thread, all 15 odd pages, and it was basically the same sex joke again and again. Jeez, even Bernard Manning and Les Dawson used to have new material every few months. And when a member complained of the racist joke he was told not to view the thread. Well, I don't want any part of the forum to need a censorship pass.

Les and Bernard also had 2 routines. One for the working men's clubs and public bars. And another cleaner version for TV and family nights out. These very funny men knew what was appropriate and what wasn't.

Same with the front page crime headlines. They just used up bandwidth space and without any added comment, opinion, perspective, they were just a repeat of the daily news. Why here? I didn't see the point and still don't.

If any members want to write informed posts on crime in Malaysia so that we can all discuss it, that's great.   

I think that the forum is now better balanced and more focused. It would be great if more members posted but forums generally have about 10% of members logging-in and about 10% of those posting. So this forum is pretty typical. All forums are the same. The posters appear to be a club, or small faction, or whatever. They're not. They're the folks who post and keep the forum going because most members don't post. It's a fact.

The result is that a forum then follows the direction of the members who post which is a self-fullfilling event that occurs because most members don't post. This ain't rocket science, it's just a fact of forums.

I did think of setting-up a social networking site but decided that it needed too much time. This forum, after all, is about mm2h, how to apply, what you need, and info on living in Malaysia. And as such I think that it's Ok.



 

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AS far as the Jokes section is concerned I have no problem that it has been pulled as the jokes had nothing to do with Malaysia anyway

The only problem I see with it being pulled is a.  It should have been moderated early on and b.  Back to the old argument of why do people look or listen to something that they know will offend them and then complain that it does

I do have a problem with the news Articles being pulled a.  because it was relative to Malaysia and many  items on here are not and they get left in

b.  It was just done with out consultation of any kind.  Even the Mods had contributed to the topic and it was still just pulled.  It may be that only one person has Admin rights but at what stage does a forum start to be 'owned' by its members and not one person.

If Admin has the inclination of pull whole topics when they feel like it then it certainly puts people off making significant contributions.  If some one has a gripe then they could air there opinions to get other people's opinions not just complain to Admin and hope they strike a cord

Fizzy and CA where are you - come and join the debate - you are MODs

Cheers

JJ

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Back to the old argument of why do people look or listen to something that they know will offend them and then complain that it does

Hi JJ

I have to disagree. The joke I responded to in a polite manner was a plain racist one with as punchline that Blacks and Indians are to lazy to work and therefore got burned to dead. I don't see the humor and would like to turn your argument around: Why do people post something that they know will offend others (you don't have to be a genius to figure out that racist jokes will offend people) and then complain that people are offended.
I agree with you that the jokes section could have used some moderation earlier.

Paul

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hi,

Over time, Funny Bone Corner turned into Sleaze Alley and like all run-down parts of town fell victim to re-development. Or in this case trying to re-balance the site towards a larger audience.

Every now and again, Admin looks at the site as a whole and tries to get things into the perspective of this being an mm2h information site.

Despite the propaganda by some agents, thankfully there's not many changes to the programme. So there are some areas of the site that only partly relate to mm2h, and some that don't. And the site is broken into categories to reflect this. Otherwise the site would be dead every day with members only logging in to see if there are any changes.

This is an mm2h information site. Folks join/view the site with the expectation of such information. They don't expect to come across dirty jokes. There should not be any no-go areas on the site.

I agree with you, JJ, and with stuurman, that the jokes section should have been pulled much, much earlier.

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Stuurman

My post in no way referred to you and your reply hints at your sensitive nature and I am surprised your have decided to leave sanitised Europe to live in a country that has a declared racist policy I would I have thought your ideals would not allow it.

But my post was only partially about the joke section. and yes I enjoy racist sexist ageist and any other "ist" jokes why not they are only words I have the ability to realize that's all they are and when I meet someone that is not the same as me I judge them on what I see.  Just as I don't get upset by being called a Mad Sailor or a Farang

Thank heavens we are all different and in some places we are allowed to celebrate that instead of having to pretend we are not "ist" when we are.  or are you Scottish - ist 

And just for the record I did not think that joke was funny either but so what

No problem - on wards and upwards as they say

Cheers

JJ

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Stuurman

and I am surprised your have decided to leave sanitised Europe to live in a country that has a declared racist policy I would I have thought your ideals would not allow it.

Did one fall out of the wrong side of bed this morning?

I may be incorrect here but would that "declared racist policy" you refer to be the same one that the Penang government abolished last year?  If not, as a relative newbie, I'd be interested to hear, quite honestly, what you're referring to.

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and yes I enjoy racist sexist ageist and any other "ist" jokes

Racist remarks are banned in Britain I believe - or does Scotland have a separate policy?  I don't follow Scottish policies too much so you may have to enlighten on that one.

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Back to the old argument of why do people look or listen to something that they know will offend them and then complain that it does

JJ

I replied to this part of your post with arguments because I disagree with you not because I thought you were directly referring to me.
I tried to explain why I responded and not looked the other way.
If you feel that you can draw conclusions from my response on my nature, ideals or wether or not I should have left Europe that's fine with me.
I don't mind to be called Farang, Mat Salleh, Bule, Gweilo, Ang Moh or whatever else either.
I don't mind a good joke as well.
I do mind plain racism packed in a bad joke and will respond to that.

Paul

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Good

Then we both have the right to reply, what ever our views.

Mind you calling Fizzy a stupid irishman  was not so nice

 

Cheers

JJ

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Then we both have the right to reply, what ever our views.

Agreed

Mind you calling Fizzy a stupid irishman  was not so nice

Did I? I thought he was Scottish.