Reflection

I really enjoyed doing these blogs. I thought that it was a good opportunity to become a part of a community. It was a great way to learn about digital citizenship, because we were able to see it and later become a part of it. I will continue to post and see where this assignment takes me. I am excited to know the correct verbal language for the term "digital citizenship." I knew the idea of it, but I never had the correct vocabulary for it. Now I can take about it and become a part of this.

Who Should Pay for the Wedding (Continues)

So I have some updated information from last week! I told everyone that I was going to try and stir up the forum a little bit by posting a controversial comment, and I have the results for everyone!

Just a quick reminder of her post:

I am very disappointed that my father has not asked me what I have envisioned for my wedding and what estimated costs had I planned on. I feel like it is a discussion he should initiate but he has not. He has a substantially large income annually and spends more on traveling every year than I have even budgeted for my wedding, so money cannot be the issue. Has anyone encountered this and if so how did you go about starting the conversation? Thanks for any insight or suggestions!

Cheers, The Future Mrs. Rackey

I decided to respond to her post by writing:

"I think that it is horrible that your father has not offered to pay for your wedding. He should initiate the conversation, so you don't feel obligated to pay for the whole thing yourself. I am sorry that you are in this situation. If he has a large annual income then there is no reason that you should be paying for it. I disagree with everyone in the forum, that you should be paying for your own wedding, after all it is your parents responsibility. The rule that "if your old enough to get married, you should be able to pay for it"should be thrown out the window. " 

-Truly shocked bride to be!

My results:

People did not strike back as hard as I thought they would. I thought that people would go crazy over this comment and raise havoc, but people responded somewhat kind to my over the top comment. 

Some of the comments are below:

"I can't believe that you think it is her fathers responsibility. What happened to respect and manners in this world?"

"Are you kidding me? Her father should pay for the wedding, because of his annual income? If they want to get married then they should pay for it themselves." 

"I guess some people were never taught boundaries when they were kids, this type of entitlement is sick." 

"You don't want her to ruin her relationship with her dad, poor advice like this should not be followed."

While these comments were not hateful, they certainly were not the nicest either. I think that these people still conducted themselves appropriately and just expressed their opinions. There digital citizenship was still good, but they had their own strong views on the subject. 

I think that it is interesting that when comments are not controversial little to no comments are made, but when something hits the wrong cord with community members then you get a hit of comments. It was fun to see others reactions to this comment, even though I don't agree with my own comment myself. Next week I will be off to a new forum! 

Who should pay for the wedding?

This week I decided to look into the forum "who should pay for the wedding" this kind of goes along with my past blog about "who should have final say over the guest list?" Some said that it should be who is paying for the wedding, but what happens when nobody knows who will be paying for it, or how to bring up the conversation among family members? This can all be a disastrous fight that nobody wants to come near.

So, what did the community members say to this eager brides question? 

Below is her post:

am very disappointed that my father has not asked me what I have envisioned for my wedding and what estimated costs had I planned on. I feel like it is a discussion he should initiate but he has not. He has a substantially large income annually and spends more on traveling every year than I have even budgeted for my wedding, so money cannot be the issue. Has anyone encountered this and if so how did you go about starting the conversation? Thanks for any insight or suggestions!

Cheers, The Future Mrs. Rackey

Some of the community members responded by giving her advice on how to approach her father, but of the members attacked her question, and thought that it was totally wrong that she felt so entitled. 

Below are some of their responses to her question. 

It is 2012.  Brides and Grooms pay for their own weddings.  The idea of daddy paying for it went out the window when girls stopped marrying at 19 and 20 and going straight from their parents' house to their husband's house.

He has no obligation to contribute anything financially to your wedding.  Plan the wedding that you and your FI can afford, and go from there.

Dad is not required to pay for your wedding.  If you're old enough it get married you're old enough to pay for the wedding yourself.

When you start badgering them bout money etc it makes you look entitled. You need to plan on paying for it yourself. You do not ask people for money for your wedding.

Did you read the OP?  Her father never said he'd pay for her wedding and she wants to ask him.  She's assuming that because he has money to spare (in her opinion) then he should pay for the whole thing. And I stand by my advice that B&G's pay for their own weddings today.  If you have a family that can afford to host your entire wedding and they have offered to pay for the whole thing, then great.  In this day and age though, nobody should expect it.

These are just some of the responses to her question. I am not going to post to this forum yet, but in a few days I have decided that I am going to stir up the forum a little bit, and post something to hopefully make the community members strike back. 

I don't truly believe this, but I am going to post something like...."her father should pay for it, she should expect him to, thats horrible that you would even have to pay for any of it." I think that this will really strike a nerve with some of the members considering their strong views. I really don't believe in that comment, but it will make for an interesting view into their digital citizenship. 

Responses and Moving Forward

As I thought, there were no responses to my last post. Mostly, because it was a comment, and not necessarily a questions or controversial topic. Since my last post, there has still been a great display of digital citizenship. People are not arguing, respond respectfully, and there is no need for any censoring of comments. Everyone seems to be sharing ideas nicely and commenting respectfully. I decided to review post responses going back a month, and there was still no negative digital citizenship being displayed.

I have decided not to post this week, and find a forum that has good discussion going on. Then next week i will post, and hopefully I can spark some debate in the community. I want to get to know the other members of the community, and see how different people respond, so I can find the right thing to say, in order to spark a response. I think that it will be interesting to see how people respond to a comment out of the ordinary. Will they ignore it, attack the comment, help fight for the "victim" being attacked, or use their good digital citizenship to disagree.

I am not sure which subtopic I will go to this week within the forum, but I will let you know next week what has happened. I'm sure something interesting!

Color Schemes

As promised, I decided to pick a different subtopic from the wedding forum.

The subtopic that I posted under this week was..."color schemes." Before going into this subtopic forum I pretty much assumed that it would display good digital citizenship, because it is not a controversial topic.

While looking through the community, people were discussing color choices, what went well together, what clashed, and colors are good for different seasons, why they chose their colors, etc.

I decided to share why I chose the colors I chose, and so far nobody has responded, but I am still on the lookout. Some people had really cute stories why they chose the colors they chose. For example, one couple chose yellow and purple for their wedding, because her fiance purposed at a Laker game.

I shared that I chose purple, because it is my favorite color, and when my fiance and I were dating it became "our" color overtime. We decided to use every shade of purple in our wedding, and my fiance's favorite color is silver, so we are adding in silver trimmings, and white as a complimentary color.

I will be watching the community to see if anyone responds to my post. Not all posts are responded to if a question is not directly asked. I see great examples of digital citizenship in this forum, and community members are being very nice to one another, and congratulate each other on their upcoming ceremony/wedding.

Guest List

This week I decided that I was going to post on the forum. I have stuck with the "guest list" forum, because I wanted to see if others would have good digital citizenship when I posted my opinion on the forum.

As a refresher: People in the community were arguing over who has final say on the guest list. I myself, do not have issues with this, but it seems to be a huge issue within the wedding planning community.

Four days ago, I posted "I believe that it is up to the person who is paying for the wedding to have final say over the guest list. I believe that a "wishlist" should be compiled of all parties involved, and then the bride and groom should pick from their families "wishlist" as long as it is within budget and people allowed. If the brides parents are paying then they will have final say of how many people can attend, and vise versa, but it should be up to the bride and the groom to pick who attends their special day." 


A lot of people within the community agreed with me, but one individual said, "if the bride or grooms parents are paying then they should be able to say who is or is not coming, and should be able to edit the list." I am not sure that I agree with this, but I still see this as good digital citizenship, because I was not attacked for my opinion. I was actually expecting more controversy than that, but I am glad to see that people's opinions are not attacked in here.

Next, week I plan on visiting another subtopic to see if I get the same response!

Wedding Guest List

This week I decided to narrow the forum down into a more specific category. I thought that the "wedding guest list" would be a pretty interesting subtopic to look in on, so I looked around at different comments within the community. This forum was mostly about who is allowed to invite to the wedding, who should be invited, which parents get final say, who gets final say if the couple pays, how to avoid family conflict over the guest list, etc. Luckily, I did not have much of an issue with the guest list for my wedding. We split the number right down the middle, and as long as each of us stayed in our number we were okay.

A lot of people within the forum were having arguments over the guest list and their in-laws putting their opinion in. The community members were not arguing with each other, but they were complaining over their current situations within their immediate and extended family. One bride to be was upset, because her parents were paying for the wedding, yet her fiance's mother thought that she should be allowed to have final say over the guest list. The bride to be wanted advice on how to handle the "oh so delicate situation," and other community members gave her advice on how to approach the situation.

All of the members were really supportive, but there was one member who agreed with the mother-in-law, and a few of the other members on the forum kindly disagreed with her and told her why. I thought there would be more of a debate, but everyone seemed really supportive.

Next week, I plan on looking at another subtopic of wedding planning to see if the digital citizenship changes.

Wedding Community

I joined a "community" on wedding planning, since I will be getting married in August. I am always on this site looking at different things such as ceremony ideas, music, proper etiquette, etc. so I thought it would be really beneficial to blog about it as well! So far the site is set up very logically, and it is pretty simple to use! Within the "community" there are different topics to read, as mentioned previously, and there are many people within each community sharing their beliefs, customs, ideas, etc. From looking around at two or three different communities I have found that in general the digital citizenship is pretty nice. After all, most people getting married are excited, and want to share their ideas with others! I have not found anything "bad" yet, but I am sure that I will come across something at some point. Theknot.com is a great resource to get information. If you are not sure about something, it gives the answer. If you're running out of creative thoughts, it gives you more. If you're not sure what song to choose for the first dance, it gives you a list. People are extremely helpful and give information about venders they used, who not to use, where to buy discounted items, who its ok to invite/not invite, etc. Since I have been on this site, I have not written anything myself, but merely observed others conversations when a topic interest me. I am excited to become an active member, and maybe post some questions/comments of my own!