They're bad, but it's very easy to completely ignore them.
actually, they are not.
Of course, many threads on this forum are intrinsically bad. They have titles like, "Hot or not? Rick Perry" or "would you rather tongue-kiss your grandmother or give Orrin Hatch a handjob?" or "Is Torie a Horrible Person or a Freedom Fighter?" or "What do you think of the guy who wears a shirt from the band who is actually playing at a show?" or "Do you miss Pedophilia/Victorianism/bigotry of various banished posters?"
But these open letter threads are just about the most educational endeavors that exist on the forum. If you don't think grammar and logic and flexibility are weak on this forum then you haven't been paying attention.
I admit that I'd never posted in, or even seriously read, any of the open letter threads till today, but then I noticed a letter to Vladimir thread--thanks, kalwejt--and I clicked on it. I was so inspired that I crafted the (logically correct) response from Vladimir thread. It is absolutely an exercise in flexibility and in grammar and in logic. I notice that posters who generally act like they don't know what a dangling modifier is, or who don't know when to use the objective or nominative form of the personal pronoun, actually type gramatically correct fragments. Maybe it's the fact that they have the time to craft a response, or maybe it's that they actually take that time to think about what they're typing. Either way, it is clear to me that they're thinking about what they're typing. Moreover, they are being creative. Maybe you create a thread thinking you'll go with a "haha, you American pigs are counting your bronze medals while we're counting our gold" motif, but right off the bat grumpy gramps takes it into the gutter with a banging the hot girlfriend motif, which indicates that it is a sociological benefit as well. What is and isn't important to the American electorate? Apparently the anti-homo outweighs just about everything else. You can probably get that knowledge in other ways, but not so viscerally, and in real time as is possible in this sort of exercise.
Mostly I regard this forum as a place for catharsis and pop psychological malpractice, as evidenced by the many posts herein, but occasionally a chance for education presents itself. These open letter threads are relevant and current. They are simultaneously studies in politics and sociology and exercises in grammar and logic.
In a joint where all are apparently tolerant of the proliferation of alternate timelines, oldie fetishists, hero-worship, and critical examinations of Wal-mart stores in East Los Angeles, it is astonishing that culturally relevant threads in which posting actually requires wit and wisdom are suddenly under fire.
Poll
