toddler stabbed to death ;-(

[totaleclipse]

fucking hell, it seems there has not been a day this week without this kind of violence to children in the headlines
news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1279789,00.html

Er, no, I didn't get my knickers in a twist about censorship, or anything else. If people choose to censor their own thread headlines, that's up to them. It doesn't bother me either way. But you shouldn't get your knickers in a twist and attack them if they don't.

Using a word like "adolescent" is not advisable when you end your post with "get over yourself". What next - "talk to the hand.."?

Did you read the thread I linked to, RNF?

Yes, I did, hunkermunker, or a few dozen posts anyway. It doesn't say anything that hasn't been said here. Yes, some people are upset by graphic thread titles, but if the title simply said something like "sad story about child", a lot of people would click on it out of curiosity, and then be upset. A look at the list of subjects on the Topics page shows this is a forum that covers every aspect of life, the bad as well as the good. If you come to a forum like this, you have to expect the whole range. There are at least a dozen sites I regularly visit where news headlines are prominently displayed, even though I don't go there for the news. Seeing those headlines is unavoidable. It would be different if this forum was dedicated to a limited number of topics, where certain things were OT. But you only have to spend a few hours trawling through posts to find out that nothing is OT. So, what I'm saying is that it's unreasonable to expect people who contribute to a section called "In the News" to be treading on eggshells. If you don't think those kind of posts should show up as active convos, that's something to take up with the mods, not with the posters. It isn't their fault.

It is their fault if they can't control the urge to make thread titles graphic descriptions of what the thread contains.

And it's about basic human decency, I think.

Clearly lacking in some people, it would seem.

MN doesn't have mods either. There may be rockers, I'm not sure.

So why keep bumping the thread?

I have opologised more than once, it was a spur of the monent thoughtless mistake, this does not mean I am lacking in human decency.

My feelings are all for the child and the family and anyone else directly affected by this tragic case. I don't have much to spare for MNetters who are upset at having to read about it. I hope that doesn't mean I also lack basic human decency.

i think you have all forgotten what the issue is about its about a child who was stabbed to death not what the thread should say. yes it can be upsetting for some but they can chose to read it if they want.

I'm not bothered so much about what title the thread has or whether it is depressing as such. It's a sad fact that lots of god-awful things happen all over the world and some of them have a right to be discussed here. Anyone is entitled to start on discussion on anything in the news.

It's just this strange habit of scouring the news for sad things that have happened to kids and posting a link to it just for the sake of it. It doesn't seem to have any point to it apart from everyone can post something along the lines of 'Oooh - thats awful'. Well - of course it is. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

There wasnt any discusion point raised or any viewpoints expressed to start a debate. It just seems to be wanting to be sensationalist for the sake of it.

(I think that makes sense anyway......)

FWIW I think it's OK to do these headlines. You really have to have your head in the sand to have not heard about the story in most cases.

Yes, stories are not pleasant but it is human nature to talk of shocking things. I don't see why there's a need to validate something simply by debating it (as suggested on the Hunker's thread).

I know it's not particualrly nice to be reminded of such things but this is basically a chat room and in RL people will just have conversations about such things in a similarly non-discursive way because it's our way of confronting things.

So IMO it's not necessarily rubbernecking, just a written form of common conversation and the moment we start to restrict that on MN then there's not much point to us posting anything.