The Good State of Offtopic

[Hygro]

lol! oh jeez probably what made me mad in the first place

 

[Synobun]

No, but a little less aggression in that thread wouldn't have gone amiss. I don't think anyone should be treated the way Mary was. There are times when people attack the messenger rather than the message.

I'm partly to blame for the subsequent pile-on that Mary faced in that thread. I regret being confrontational in that instance.

 

[Lohrenswald]

A lot of us came into OT swinging. And when you come in swinging you get checked. Some of us stayed anyway.

I don't understand this metaphor

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'm partly to blame for the subsequent pile-on that Mary faced in that thread. I regret being confrontational in that instance.

I don't think it was any one persons fault.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

"Come in swinging" means to start out making big moves that get a lot of attention and establish your rep, even if you step on some toes or hurt some feelings.
"Get checked" means that someone or some combination of someones gets through to you with the message that this isn't a place where that is going to end well.

It's like showing up on a prison yard thinking that you have to show right off that you are really tough and no one better think that they can just mess with you. Then you find out the reality this is a prison yard and if I keep picking fights in very short order I'm gonna lose one and that will be very bad.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I see

I didn't do that, I think, but I can't say I feel like not having done it payed off lol

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Some people are more sensitive than other. When arguing about tricky topics i try to start my posts with "i think..." or "in my opinion..." After that i can spout the most horrid thing and it will sound much more soft and reasonable.

 

[rah]

You just think it does.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Some people are more sensitive than other. When arguing about tricky topics i try to start my posts with "i think..." or "in my opinion..." After that i can spout the most horrid thing and it will sound much more soft and reasonable.

That seems reasonable.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's better to tack that concession on at the end of a post, imho.

 

[Hygro]

"Come in swinging" means to start out making big moves that get a lot of attention and establish your rep, even if you step on some toes or hurt some feelings.
"Get checked" means that someone or some combination of someones gets through to you with the message that this isn't a place where that is going to end well.

It's like showing up on a prison yard thinking that you have to show right off that you are really tough and no one better think that they can just mess with you. Then you find out the reality this is a prison yard and if I keep picking fights in very short order I'm gonna lose one and that will be very bad.

If you are telling other people they are wrong expect to get told you're wrong.

It doesn't have to be so personal that the message is you're not welcome or anything like that. Just knowing you're not going to gain the respect the people who taught you your biases made you think you would get by promoting their beliefs here where there's intellectual diversity.

Some people are more sensitive than other. When arguing about tricky topics i try to start my posts with "i think..." or "in my opinion..." After that i can spout the most horrid thing and it will sound much more soft and reasonable.

Sometimes when folks make it more diplomatic they're just being more personal and aggressive. Sometimes.

I see

I didn't do that, I think, but I can't say I feel like not having done it payed off lol

You can start swinging now tho.

 

[Estebonrober]

you all can call all these posts “opinions” if you like it doesn’t change you are all wrong about everything and only I know anything.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Sometimes when folks make it more diplomatic they're just being more personal and aggressive. Sometimes.

I once hid a dagger in a limerick.

 

[Lexicus]

All knowledge was revealed in the scrolls to me, and only me

 

[AmazonQueen]

I come from a long line of men,
who saw words not as decorations
but weapons, knives with which to
cut others down to size.
from the poem "Knives" by Kevin Higgins (ofc its not only men who use words to hurt others).

 

[Lohrenswald]

You can start swinging now tho.

Hygro

more like

wHY-even-make-this-thread-gro

gottem

Spoiler :

Just knowing you're not going to gain the respect the people who taught you your biases made you think you would get by promoting their beliefs here where there's intellectual diversity.

Starting to read this sentence it was so hard I was convinced you'd make some sort of mistake, but no, it's correct

 

[TheMeInTeam]

As to my saying she was basically run out of OT, that's how it looks to me. She was dogpiled in that thread and shouldn't have been.

Nobody was "run out of OT" by any objective standard. There are numerous posters here who have seen more insulting responses, more challenging debate, and fewer people agreeing with them on a particular topic.

It's reasonable to choose to post or not based on enjoyment though.

that certain individuals were 'toxic' and that she no longer wanted to be part of a toxic environment?

In the thread in question, Mary opened with a blanket claim of toxicity of other people, ignored arguments to the contrary, and even ignored outright tangible evidence. That is toxic behavior, and it is awkward to behave in that fashion and then accuse others of toxicity.

You don't get to decide how Mary felt about that situation. She's made it very clear elsewhere, and yes, she stated that she felt bullied.

People can feel as they please, but there are standards for determining whether "bullying" happens in reality. The claim has never been backed in this case, and is therefore not credible.

would not recognize that there are some issues when it's next to impossible to regurgitate abstract reports rather than look at the situation through your own personal experiences.

The issues being debated were generalizations to larger populations. This requires evidence, anecdotal experiences necessarily are incapable of meeting the standard of evidence needed to constrain anticipation on large groups of people. At one point she even petitioned for this evidence, then ignored it when it was provided and went back to arguing based on feeling. That was intellectually rude.

Mary said she felt bullied, so who are you to say she's wrong, especially when other people have also stated that she was bullied/ganged-up on?

You are bullying me right now. Who are you to say I'm wrong?

That is why this doesn't work. There needs to be some standard for this. Nobody was trying to harm, coerce, or intimidate any poster in that thread. There wasn't even a threat of these things.

It's so fascinating how the objective fact that other people have also observed that Mary was bullied/ganged-up on gets dismissed and ignored.

What *objective* standards allow you to establish that bullying occurred? Be specific. It's a non-trivial claim; you are asserting that there was a forum rules violation among other things.

As for "nicely and respectfully" you will have to point that out because I'm not seeing it. You're flat-out dismissing Mary's contention that she was bullied.

That is because she was not actually bullied. There are standards necessary to conclude otherwise. Nobody in that thread was bullied, and the rare times I've ever seen it on CFC got swift infractions.

Put another way: if I "feel" you are threatening me with physical assault right now, is that credible? Should anybody take that seriously, or dismiss it?

I hold that absent evidence, my "feeling" that you're threatening me with physical assault should be dismissed unless and until that evidence turns up.

If I'd just regurgitated the rules link and called that my response, it would have been very unfair to the infracted poster. Copy/pasting the rules with no other explanations, clarifications, or questions to determine if the infraction was indeed merited is not a useful response.

If that's the case, it is reasonable to apply this standard to claims of bullying, which didn't happen .

 

[Valka D'Ur]

repetitious stuff that's already been talked about

You are incorrect.

 

[Yeekim]

1) Make a thread about "Good State of Offtopic";
2) Watch the ensuing storm of insults, tears, infractions, and defections;
3) Laugh maniacally.

 

[timtofly]

Some must be addicted to abuse?

I read the whole thread, instead of sleeping. I am as obtuse as normal.