Threads about communication topics: where are they permitted?

[Boojatta]

Please have a look at the following thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=229&topic_id=12688&mesg_id=12698

This seems similar enough to some previous threads (...)

It's similar to one other thread that I know of because I wrote that other thread. A number of replies in that other thread expressed difficulty understanding it. I responded by creating a new thread that is of course similar because there was no change to the ideas, but merely a change to the way I expressed the ideas. After all, I was trying to respond in a constructive manner to people who said that they couldn't understand the earlier thread.

to essentially be a copycat re-post.

Isn't a "copycat" a humorous imitation? I intended no humor there. I simply revised my first draft thread in an effort to express the same ideas more clearly.

And off topic for this forum.

The following are some reasons that I chose to put the thread into the Women's Rights forum:

1. I have posted threads in the Women's Rights forum that evoked replies expressing difficulty understanding the threads. In other words, the topic has arisen in the Women's Rights forum.

2. General Discussion has a wide audience, but it moves very quickly. I would prefer to have fewer readers over a long span of time, rather than many readers over a short span of time. In other words, I want quality, not quantity. I consider the Women's Rights forum to be a place to go when I'm looking for that. Am I wrong to think this way?

3. Human Rights are a basic topic, just as effective communication is a basic issue on a message board. That the forum is focused not on human rights in general, but specifically on women's rights isn't a big problem. Approximately half of all adults are women.

[EarlG]

1. If you'd had problems with people understanding your threads

in the Women's Rights forum, it would have been helpful if you had mentioned that in your locked OP, since without that piece of information it really did look completely off-topic for the forum.

But regardless, the moderators figured that that was the third occasion in a fairly short period of time that you had posted your poll in different places on the site. You are correct that "copycatting" is usually referred to as a humorous imitation of an OP -- the more correct term in this case would have been "spamming."

[Boojatta]

2. Thank you for the reply, EarlG.

I don't recall a third occasion. I did a search and didn't find a third thread. Of course, I could be wrong, but I will assume for now that there were actually only two polls.

From my point of view, the important thing is that the two polls are different. Here's a link to the first version:

Poll in General Discussion

In that version of the poll, sixteen people (fifty-nine percent of the voters) voted for this answer option:

You seem to be trying to make a point, but I don't understand the poll question of THIS THREAD, and this is a fact about the message, not the messenger.

I could have assumed that all of those sixteen votes were jokes, and that the poll was perfectly clear, but I would rather not be complacent. I did some thinking and thought that I found a way to make the poll clearer. Whether or not the revised version of the poll is actually clearer is open to debate. Unfortunately that debate cannot occur in the GD version of the poll, which is now archived. It cannot occur in the Women's Rights version of the thread, because it's locked.

We have a bit of a self-referential situation here. The poll was about a hypothetical thread that people reply to by indicating that they are having trouble understanding the hypothetical thread. The poll thread itself became an example of that kind of hypothetical thread.

When people indicate that they cannot understand one of my threads, and they don't indicate where the trouble lies, I often cannot think of what needs changing. However, let's suppose that I am in the fortunate situation of thinking of what needs changing. If I'm within the window of time for editing, then I could edit the thread. Of course, if the thread is a poll, then an edit might make nonsense of some of the votes, but let's set this issue aside for now.

What if I'm not within the window of time for editing? I would think that the most constructive response would be for me to revise the thread and post the revised version as a new thread. It seems very odd that this response, which I and some other DU members consider to be a constructive response, might be forbidden on the grounds that it would constitute spamming.

Suppose that I alert on one of my own threads and request that it be locked on the grounds that as written it isn't clear enough. After it is locked, would it be acceptable for me to post a revised version of the thread?

I think that the issue goes beyond the two specific threads that I have linked to. Do you agree? Sometimes clarity isn't achieved on the first attempt. In that situation, what do you think should be done?