ThatDamnedPanda
Posts: 6060
Joined: 1/26/2009
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RedMagic1
The OP said that a poster was often bombarded by negative comments, undeservedly. Undeservedly in zach7's eyes, perhaps. That's not a criterion I use when I write. Far too many people think it is "mean" to speak frankly and to the point about something. Non-confrontation is a form of escapism, and prevents people from having deep interpersonal relationships.
Ok, but what about common courtesy? Is that a form of escapism, too? If forming deep interpersonal relationships is something that matters to you (as you suggest it is), do you not find that simple courtesy in communication is a helpful means of achieving that?
What about objectivity? If speaking "frankly and to the point" is important to you, wouldn't you agree that it's useful to make a sincere effort to understand what the poster is trying to convey before you speak frankly and to the point about it? Because if you don't make such an effort, how do you know what it is you're speaking frankly and to the point about?
That's all he's talking about. And me too, for that matter, because I agree with him 100%. He's simply saying that in a lot of threads, people make no apparent effort whatsoever to really read the post to which they are responding. They frequently pile on and criticize, even flame, the poster for things they didn't even say. And it's fascinating to see how many of the posts in this thread - not just yours, but many others - are a perfect example of part of what he's saying, although admittedly to a much lesser degree than I've seen it happen a number of other times. People are disagreeing with him, and criticizing him, for things he didn't even say, because for whatever reason they didn't really read his post before telling him why they think he's wrong.
He said - very clearly - that he isn't talking about disagreement or criticism in general, but a recurring pattern in which people jump all over a poster with no apparent relationship to what the person actually said. How many posts in this thread addressed that specific point? And how many posts disagreed with and/or criticized him? Add up both categories, and check the totals. Every post that disagreed with him without addressing what he was talking about is a good example of what he's talking about. All of them meant well, but few of them got the point. At least in this case, nobody lit him up, but still, the point stands - most of the people who responded weren't responding to what he really said.
It happens quite a bit here. There was a perfect example of it just a few days ago, in a forum i won't name because there's no point in embarrassing any of the people involved. Someone posted a question, and got a few well-considered, intelligent, relevant replies before the bandwagon pulled up and the "bash 'em" brigade hopped off and started piling on. And it was clear as day that not one - not one - of the people who were weighing in on the last half of that thread had really read the OP, because every one of them not only missed key pieces of data, but even misquoted the OP, each of them in the exact same way. I honestly think they just skipped the OP altogether and just started responding to each other, while the OP stood all alone by the side of the road watching the thread drive away. I don't even understand why people would waste the keystrokes responding to something they didn't even read. Why bother? Why criticize people without making any effort to find out what they really said? It's pointless, and it negatively affects the quality of the discussions here, not to mention the personal relationships you value. That's all he's saying, and he's right.
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Panda, panda, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?
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