Eikyu wrote:

It's true though that they (Bodhi especially) tried to continue the discussion on SS when they should have stopped and Fabrice gave him a fair warning.

Please.. It's "Double-S", not "SS". That was something different :x
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel Just sayin.

Another thread I haven't read.
But I DO like Blahah! Amaterasu bess HIS name!

Eikyu wrote:

Everyone is talking about Nestor and Bodhi's awful violations of forum guidelines, but as far as I know, they didn't resort to making personal attacks on their opponents.

Things did get a bit heated and yes, Nestor pulled no punched when it came to criticizing SS , but I don't see him/her using ad hominem (personal attacks) or insults. Here are some of his most offensive posts:

Nest0r wrote:

"it's definitely a ripoff. Exploiting new learners with false promises and bad methods in an overpriced system with zero accountability."

Nest0r wrote:

"Didn't you already write this comment? Making baseless accusations and projections caricaturing other users. Maybe you should try calming down and sticking to just assessing the system/arguments rather than attacking people. Of course, this is a brief moment where I'm not ignoring you and tokyostyle (didn't you leave this thread ages ago, multiple times?) so this recommendation isn't for my sake."

Nest0r wrote:

For example Tefhel, to me, basically everything you wrote is a highly subjective and highly negative and one-sided ad hominem. You're making anonymous accusations of hypocrisy that are unfounded, justified only by your snide caricatures.

Nest0r wrote:

Keep in mind that after 15 or so pages of the above, I think it's pretty reasonable that some responding anger has leeched into even our comments, but nevertheless you won't see us personally insulting you or caricaturing you. For example, I stated you were being one-sided, negative, subjective, and snide. I didn't say you were spitting in our faces, blathering on and crying and this and that.

Nest0r wrote:

No, you didn't hurt my feelings. I simply expect that when someone pops in to voice their insulting opinions, they have some justification for them. Unfortunately when confronted with this request, you are unable to provide it. Not a single quote or rationale. So I am fine with you holding your tongue in the future, unless you want to post something more mature and rational.

So Nestor, tried to remain polite and mostly kept attacking his opponents' arguments. I think he got some people angry because he dismissed his opponents' arguments as completely worthless and uninformed. I understand how this can be frustrating, but when you see the kind of personal insults that go on in other forums or even in this one, it falls well short of being truly offensive or inappropriate IMO.

Haha, that's nest0r.  Yup, I've seen far more personal and mean attacks on the interwebs compared to anything I've read from nest0r.

IceCream wrote:

Since Nest0r foxblocked my posts

So is there some way to block individual users posts?

I searched for 'foxblock' but it didn't turn up anything useful.

Oh and yeah, nest0r, would be cool to have you back

Last edited by caivano (2011 September 20, 8:50 am)

I don't visit this forum all that regularly but even I have gotten into a discussion with him. I'm not that surprised he got banned, he seemed quite abrasive to me and anyone that disagreed with him would be bombarded with scientific articles on language acquisition. To me it seemed like he spent more time reading about acquiring language than actually doing so himself. At the end of the day what matters is progress, no matter how it's attained so endlessly debating over methods is quite futile.

dtcamero wrote:

this thread is going to break the forum into pro and 反nestor factions, much as he/she/it did to break this place up into pro and 反ajatt factions.

Why are some people being so melodramatic? What factions?

Last edited by TheVinster (2011 September 20, 4:33 pm)

Kuma01 wrote:

To me it seemed like he spent more time reading about acquiring language than actually doing so himself. At the end of the day what matters is progress, no matter how it's attained so endlessly debating over methods is quite futile.

a lot of articles that were linked to were not necessarily related to language but to the act of learning itself.

a lot of the methods i've learned here, i've learned to apply and reflect on in other hobbies to great success. adopting spaced repetition learning to martial arts has helped me enormously; i'm picking up new things really quickly, i'm not forgetting old things, and it's not taking me a terribly long time to "review."

plus, in my opinion, debating over and exploring methods is the only thing to do on this forum. (well, that and bragging, but i'm not too interested in that. there's also OT stuff, but that doesn't count.)

i find that the only time debating over methods is futile is when it turns personal and people get attacked. take what you want from a method; experiment with it, ask questions, check your progress, let other people know of your experience. being bombarded with science is good because it gives you more references to read if you so choose.

perhaps progress matters at the end of the day, but what matters at the end of a lifetime?

Kuma01 wrote:

At the end of the day what matters is progress, no matter how it's attained so endlessly debating over methods is quite futile.

Debating when backed up by scientific studies or proven results is a great source of information and motivation, see nest0r for the science, mezbup for proven results. It's debating like in the 'how to learn Japanese the right way' thread which IMO is futile, people arguing from personal experience backed up by nothing. Different methods work better for different people but many people here take what works for them and think everyone else should do the same.

I also find that different methods work best at different stages of learning so there are going to be no general best ways for everyone, it's dependant on the person, the stage of learning, the persons situation, etc.

zachandhobbes wrote:

Tzadeck wrote:

I've learned from this thread that English really needs a non-gender specific third person pronoun.  Luckily Japanese doesn't have this problem.

Technically, "he" is gender neutral, as long as you consistently use 'he'. Sort of like 'mankind' is gender neutral. "she" can also be gender neutral if it is consistently used.

Yes and no.  'He' is generally used in situations when the gender is not known.  But, especially in academic settings, where feminism is particularly influential, it's best to try to avoid using 'he' in gender neutral situations.  The argument being that historically if you were talking about anything in public life, the word 'he' was used because only men did anything in the public sphere.  The woman's domain was the home, and because of that if you were talking about things other than childrearing, housework, etc., you would use the pronoun 'he.'

It's supposed to be consciousness raising--we should avoid using 'he' in gender neutral situations because if we are going to help get rid of sexism we need to remember that now women also operate in the public sphere.

"He" doesn't work as gender neutral if it's referring to a specific person.  You can't say "We'll have a new teacher next year, but I don't know who he is" and be gender neutral.  It only works as gender neutral in statements like "Everyone who studies Japanese should read whatever he wants to" or "Each person should bring his textbook" (although I personally prefer "they" and "their" in those statements).

yudantaiteki wrote:

"He" doesn't work as gender neutral if it's referring to a specific person.  You can't say "We'll have a new teacher next year, but I don't know who he is" and be gender neutral.  It only works as gender neutral in statements like "Everyone who studies Japanese should read whatever he wants to" or "Each person should bring his textbook" (although I personally prefer "they" and "their" in those statements).

I was always under the impression 'they' was accepted in ambiguous situations. I guess this must sound weird in other parts of the world or this wouldn't even be a discussion.

Anywho, does anyone know a way to contact nest0r? I need to get a hold of him.

Last edited by Cacawate (2011 September 20, 11:46 pm)

can't we just use 'it'?

Cacawate wrote:

yudantaiteki wrote:

"He" doesn't work as gender neutral if it's referring to a specific person.  You can't say "We'll have a new teacher next year, but I don't know who he is" and be gender neutral.  It only works as gender neutral in statements like "Everyone who studies Japanese should read whatever he wants to" or "Each person should bring his textbook" (although I personally prefer "they" and "their" in those statements).

I was always under the impression 'they' was accepted in ambiguous situations.

It depends on what you mean by "accepted".  By all rights, it should be completely standard.  It's been used since Middle English and continues to be used today, particularly in speech.  But as usual, the grammar police who think they know what they're talking about continue to rail against it, so it's still not considered standard in more formal situations, or in writing.