It doesn’t say shit, there are completely different social dynamics at play.
Online has a big buffer that isn’t around IRL. Many people don’t feel like dealing with others without out the benefit of it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt as to why, before I start calling them gutless.
Absolutely not. It seems obvious to me.
The only reason one would carry on arguing vociferously online, but not (under the pretense of “being above it”) dare continue offline, is cowardice.
This is not about disrupting a Dopefest party, or social etiquette. Have a little consistency, ferChristsake. If you’re going to talk shit online, then you should have the guts to do so offline as well.
You can take the quotes off that when referring to me:) I’ve interacted with him enough on the board, off the board, about the board, around the board, through the board, beside the board, along the board, because of the board, and on things that had nothing to do with the board that if we’re not friends now, I dunno that we’ll ever be. BTW, we wouldn’t be piling on you … I have a sneaky suspicion that I’d rather be on top of gobear than on top of you:D
That being said:
Oh, bullshit. It’s not hiding behind a computer … it so happens that this MB is accessible only by computer/PDA/etc. You wanna publish your address so we can go to where you live (unless it’s prohibitively far away or we’d rather not waste the time) and tell this to your face? You’ve already got one standing offer.
I know gobear. I like him. I defend him when I feel he is right, I defend him when I feel he is being wronged. I certainly do NOT defend him carte blanche, as his most recent long pit thread shows. Hell, if gobear went after you for something that was bullshit, I’d tell him I felt he was wrong. I’ve told him I felt he was wrong before, and over more important matters than “what does leander think?”. If gobear were to accuse you of being someone’s sock, or having a sock, I’d defend you because that’s uncalled for (I do not believe he would do this, and I am deliberately using that far-fetched example). What you see as The gobear Clique is actually him garnering support because he is intelligent and can express himself in that manner. You, OTOH…
I’m sure it does. You seem to be the only one pressing this as being truth. Might want to think about that.
Oh, you get to be Arbiter of Truth? W00t!
It’s not about lying down to appease us, it’s about realizing how stupid it is to call people who “hide” behind a computer gutless, when you yourself are doing the same thing.
I could agree with your point to a certain degree, but you’ll lose some people with that obnoxious delivery, so tone it down for yourself, not for us.
Hey, if someone came in here and was calling you some gutless chicken shit, I be saying the same exact thing to them.
[trying to tone it down]
Let me give you an example, then, that may help clarify things:
A few years back, Joe_cool was here, spouting off some of the nastiest, most vile shit I’ve ever read on these boards.
Now if he were to say, “I’ll continue to spout off nasty shit on these boards, but if I ever meet you in person, I’m just going to ignore you and pretend you don’t exist.”
What conclusion would you draw from that? Would you still defend him?
[/trying to tone it down]
I’d conclude that he was an asshole, on the boards and off.
That is honestly the only conclusion you would make?
Yes, because I wouldn’t give them anymore thought.
It’s not like Gobear is physically threatening someone online and then running away when he sees them IRL.
Leander, I get the distinct impression that you’re in desperate need of a particularly potent Singapore Sling.
You’re the one spouting here, Leander, since you seem to be doing your best (such as it is) to . . . what ? Goad me onto threatening you or something equally ridiculous? Girlfriend, please, that’s forbidden by the rules here, and should I puff up my chest and issue some schoolyard taunt, you’d be the first to run shrieking to the mods to get me banned. In any event, should you ever dare to show your face at a DC Dopefest, rest assured that if it will make you happy, I’ll be quite rude to you in person.
Maybe I’ll challenge you to a reading contest.
Color me a little confused. The Cut Direct is a supposedly classy way of being rude to someone by pointedly ignoring them, right? The way I understand it, it’s just a way of making your feelings clear without being confrontational about it. Seems reasonable enough to me, I guess. What confuses me is this: If you’re going the nonconfrontational route in meatspace, why wouldn’t you do the same online? I mean, getting into flamewars hardly seems classy or polite. Wouldn’t it be far simpler to just put them on your ignore list? And if you’re going to be confrontational online, isn’t a bit hypocritical to then employ the Cut Direct in meatspace?
I don’t know gobear from Adam. Neither, should it be said, have I ever had any run-ins with you.
But I do know boorish assholery when I see it.
Kick it back a notch, Emeril. You’re intimidating no one, and coming off as a ranting maniac.
Chill the fuck out.
I was ignoring him, but you can’t be seen to ignore someone if you can’t y’know, be seen. Moreover, the mods would be on me like a duck on a Junebug if I were to announce that I was putting li’l Leander on Ignore.
But yeah, the kid’s getting tiresome so I will not deign to respond to his childish taunts again. Aquila non capatat muscas.
Loosely translated, this means “No water muskrats in the Capitol!”
I thought it meant “Dont drink aquavit while balancing a bottle of muscatel on your head.” Idiotmatic for “Never mix; never worry,” a rule regularly stomped on at Dopefests.
Thank you. This is a nice way of making the point.
I just happen to find it cowardly as well as hypocritical…
Well, if you really must make a point of him knowing you’re ignoring him (I’m still a bit murky on the benefit of this, exactly), couldn’t you just pop in to say that it’s not worthy of a reply and leave it at that? Doesn’t name-calling and other forms of poo-slinging put you down there with the rest of the monkeys and pretty much defeat the purpose the Cut Direct, ie. do away with any vestiges of class?
I don’t understand the belief that online interactions have to be entirely “real” – exactly the same as IRL – or entirely “fake” – put on by dramatis personae (in other words, actors) who don’t really mean the things they say. It’s the old argument that this is either “just a message board,” and therefore without true value or effect, or it is “just like speaking face to face.” In reality, of course, a message board is somewhere in the middle. Most of us wouldn’t know each other if we were locked together in an elevator, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t form opinions of each other based on what we do know, which is what we post here, and how we post it. I don’t understand what the Pit has to do with it. People may be ruder in the Pit and online than they are IRL, just as they are more willing to post “TMI” posts in MPSIMS and online than they are IRL, and for the same reason – the anonymity. But the basis of their opinion, as well as the conviction with which they hold it, are still assumably genuine. This forum may allow us to post more frankly, or more rudely, or with more hyperbole, but if we are not posting essentially honestly, then we’re just a bunch of posers, right? And it devalues the opinions of all of us as posters, because it leads us all to question when others among us are being genuine and when we are being disengenuous. We must assume that the people we converse with (both here and IRL) generally mean what they say, no matter how brutally or nicely they may say it. Why? Because you never know when people mean what they say, and it is hugely insulting to assume that they don’t.
So I have formed opinions about people here, just as I assume some have formed opinons about me. And those opinions are based on what people say, and how they say it (what else could it be based on?). To expect me to disregard those opinions should we meet IRL, is to expect me to assume the person I have “met” here was not the real person, but a sock puppet or a troll.
But if I were at a Dopefest and I met someone who, based on what I knew of them here, I could not like or respect, would I go out of my way to spend time with that person? Of course not. I would meet them and move on. Life is too short to have to choose either the hypocrisy of pretending you like someone you actuallly don’t, or the rudeness of making explicit the fact that you don’t like them. Best just to smile and nod at the introduction, and then move on; surely there are other people to talk to. So don’t expect me to assume you’re someone different IRL than who you are here, and don’t expect me to poke you in the snoot or otherwise noticably insult you should we happen to meet. In return, if you have made clear there is some facet of my personality or beliefs that you strongly object to, I will do you the favor of not subjecting you to my person for any length of time. Seems like a reasonable exchange to me.
There are a few people on this board whom I would be loathe to meet in real life, not so much for the beliefs they hold, but for the venomous way in which they proclaim them.
I count amongst my RL friends folks of all political leanings. Golly, my very best mate is a rabid Libertarian (although we don’t use that term in Australia much), whilst I am a paid-up member of the Socialist Party. Discussions around my table can get quite animated at times.
But we don’t call each other derisive names, or denounce each other as worthless piles of ignorant shit such as happens here on the board oh so often. My experience here with a certain few people has left me with such a bad feeling about THEM as rational human beings that if I were to be introduced, I would likely turn away and decline the pleasure of meeting them.