In the P&E thread about the American Experience that you’ve now instructed me to stay out of, you also wrote that I was insulting another poster personally:
Moderating:
You’ve stepped over the line again into personal attacks. This is a warning for failing to heed moderator instructions to stop personally attacking other posters in your discussions.
You are also directed to stay out of this thread.
I don’t get it. I was hypothesizing about a far-future event, the death of everyone now living, being the point at which I (a future corpse) might receive an apology from another future corpse, an event which is extremely unlikely to occur, it being impossible for one corpse to apologize to another. This was just a long-winded way of saying that the question under debate was impossible to resolve within the parameters that the other poster was insisting upon.
No insult was intended, unless (and tell me if this might be correct) it is considered an attack to suggest that we will all be dead at some future date.
I would request that you ask LSLGuy if he thought I was attacking him personally there. I doubt he felt so, nor that anyone else reading the thread thought that I was attacking him personally.
Of course, I could be wrong, and that wasn’t the basis for your instruction, in which case I ask that you direct me to your source. Maybe it was suggesting he owed me an apology if he were wrong? Or that he would never apologize (being dead)? Are we not supposed to mention anyone’s death far into the future? Or correct anyone’s misquoting of Marx? Or allude to a Kansas tune? Please help me out here so I don’t inadvertently attack anyone personally again. Thank you.
I think you have it here. It was your assumption that he would never apologize if he was wrong. If you meant that comment in a different way, that was far from clear.
I’m going to go a little further and say that in my overall reading of your posts, you are often pushing the line on making personal attacks on posters. It may be that you’re not aware of how often you do it.
I encourage you to read your posts closely to make sure they can’t be interpreted as attacking another poster before hitting the ‘Reply’ button.
In all forums, but particularly in GD and P&E, your arguments should be as poster-neutral as possible to avoid making them heated. These forums often host discussions that become heated even without the addition of questionable comments about the potential personal behavior of another.
Okay. I don’t think you read that right. I was trying to say that he COULDN’T apologize to me if he were proven wrong, because he and I would be corpses long before we reached the point of having sufficient evidence to satisfy him.
But you didn’t make clear what you meant. The comment was flagged, meaning at least one other person viewed what you said as a personal attack. And I, too, did not see it in the way you are now explaining.
The point is, you can make your arguments without ever referring to how much evidence would be sufficient to satisfy him. That’s a point that isn’t germane to the discussion and is subject to a less charitable interpretation. Stay away from making arguments like those.
That might have been what you intended, but what you actually wrote comes off as extremely antagonistic. What you basically said was that he was wrong and that he would never admit it.
The bit about the word “dustbin” also comes off as pedantic nitpicking, which furthers the impression that you were intending the post as antagonistic.
I’m not seeing your post as a long-winded hypothetical.
Obviously that can’t happen (barring some sort of zombie thing), so the implication of this is that they are wrong, they owe you an apology, but they are never going to recognize that they are wrong and will never apologize until the day that they die. That’s not a hypothetical. That’s flat out telling them that they are wrong and can’t admit that they are wrong.
That may not be what you intended, but it is what you wrote.
I guess this is my problem with the modding here. You got an impression of my tone which was subjective (and also wrong) and rather than inquiring about the tone i was trying to strike, you (Asperglow) made an executive decision and I got banned from the thread. It was unnecessary.
It was in Great Debates, so there’s bound to be strong feelings behind everyone’s posts, else why be there, but I don’t believe I got personal with anyone. I believe Asperglow’s strong reaction (and yours) to my posts there may have something to do with my implication that the topic is too vaguely framed to stay in Great Debates–it’s more of an IMHO kind of topic in my view, in that it rests on one’s opinions rather than anything capable of being shown by evidence or reasoning. It’s an unfalsifiable proposition, as stated–the U.S. (in the view of some) cannot be declared a failure until and unless we are flattened into nuclear-radiated ruins or ruled by explicitly fascist dictators for untold generations–so why have the debate at all? Sorry that I let my frustration with the topic tempt me into the hyperbole that set you off, but I think you were overreacting. A “tone it down” was called for, not a threadbanning.
No, a thread banning was what was called for, based on what you wrote. All of the rules lawyering in the world isn’t going to change that. You wrote somethng antagonistic. Period. That may not be what you intended, but that is what you wrote. This one is on you.
But you did get personal. You flat out told them in a very antagonistic way that they were wrong and would never admit it. Not what you intended? Mods aren’t psychic. We can’t tell what your intent was, and it would be ridiculous for us to question every single post that we moderate as to what it’s author actually intended. We moderate based on what you write, and what you wrote was antagonstic.
This ATMB thread is about your complaint regarding the moderation for your post being antagonistic towards another user. I am failing to see how a question of whether or not the topic in question is debate-worthy relates to that. What’s the relevance here?
I’m saying that my frustration with the “debate” was probably the underlying motivation behind the tone that you found so belligerent. I wasn’t attacking LSLGuy personally nearly so much as I was trying to say that no one can ever show the experiment to have failed until we’re living in a nuclear wasteland, by which time we will all be dead, and all apologies for being wrong utterly useless.
It’s a judgment call, of course, to send a great debate to imho, but I think your judgment in not doing so is at the root of the problem here.
OP, you don’t come off sounding so good, even if you didn’t intend it as a personal attack. “You were wrong and you will never admit it” sounds antagonistic and reactionary. You certainly weren’t in a “come let us reason together” mood. The mods restrained you before you lost control. Go work off your aggression and take some deep breaths. Swallow your pride and move on. No online debate is worth bursting a blood vessel over.
Was something compelling you to post in that thread? Perhaps you need to stay out of the threads that are frustrating to you if you can’t control your tone.
Really? You were responding aggressively and scornfully to anyone in that thread who expressed the slightest hope or optimism for the state of the ‘American Experiment’. You called a comment of mine, a fairly innocuous quote from memory about Obama saying progress in racial issues was a series of two steps forward, one step back, “silly and vacuous”, and ‘paraphrased’ my post back to me inaccurately, completely twisting what I said.
Ironically, you accused several posters in that thread of being inflexible and refusing to be dissuaded of their opinion, while at the same time being belligerent to several who differed even slightly from your viewpoint, and calling them wrong. That’s not debate; that’s bullying (with a hefty dose of projection).
Well, this is a relief, to find someone affirming my belief that the mods’ action (Asperglow’s) was premature, stepping into the thread in anticipation of what she thought I was going to do rather than what I was doing at the time. A smoother move, in my view, would have been to ask if I were demanding an apology from LSLGuy, to which I certainly would have said “Of course not” and I would have apologized for writing my post clumsily, explaining that I expect no apology from anyone because the question under “debate” is insusceptible to resolution, as constructed. Instead, Asperglow leapt to a conclusion, which happened to be the incorrect one. But at least I understand now where things went wrong.
Uh, no. You looked ready to fly into a rage, instead of anticipating an apology scenario.
Look, I realize you feel you have to be your own advocate, but I’ve seen other posters go down this same road. They were unwilling to bend on a mod conflict, and it eventually led to them being shown the door. The mods aren’t going to cave at this point, so let this drop. Nobody will think any less of you for putting this behind you.
I think it’s only fair to expect the moderators to judge you by what you wrote and not expect them to judge you by what you had meant when you wrote something. Mind-reading isn’t a superpower handed out to mods. And even if it was, if other posters can’t read your mind, your posts are still disruptive.
Count me as someone who can’t see the posts in question as anything but clear personal attacks.
I’ve been modded before when I posted something that came off differently than I meant it to be. I try to be more careful next time. Doubling down and defending it and being defiant is a very bad reaction.
You’re upset about being banned from a debate that you didn’t want to participate in?
See, these are the kind of posts that really rub people the wrong way and come across as antagonistic. This isn’t at all what Knowed_Out was saying, and you know that. But you deliberately twist their words and ascribe to them positions they clearly are not taking. Maybe it doesn’t run afoul of a specific rule, but it’s really irritating and not conducive to a good discussion.
@slicedalone, in case you are interested in constructive criticism: While we are often in agreement in principle on various topics, you just as often come across as someone who wants to be seen as clever and edgy and the smartest guy in the thread, above all the lesser minds. Without pulling it off, I’d add, and creating a dismissive, antagonistic vibe.
You also have a habit of paraphrasing others with a straw man. “So what you’re saying then is…” And when the target refuses to address your straw man, you declare victory. All things considered, it’s not a good look.
Anyway, you may decide to ignore the mods’ feedback. But those who ignore mine do so at their mortal peril. Mark my words!
ETA: As @TroutMan indicates, you do so in this very thread.