Here’s an example. In response to someone who made an inapt analogy between confronting a whistleblower (which the accused doesn’t get to do), and confronting the cop who issued you a speeding ticket (which they do get to do), I wrote:
Nobody objected: I explained in calm, complete terms why I thought the analogy didn’t work, and then I offered to make it more apt.
You, responding to the same analogy, wrote:
This still reads to me like you’re accepting that there’s a right to confront a whistleblower (in the second independent clause). To the extent that you show a flaw in the analogy, it’s in that final snarky cryptic txtspk sentence.
Lots of folks, looking at that second independent clause–AND ALSO REALIZING THAT THIS HAD BECOME A MAJOR GOP TALKING POINT–thought you were defending the reverse of the analogy–that “the right to face one’s accuser” included both facing the ticket-writing cop and Trump’s whistleblower. Folks corrected you on it.
Rather that saying, “Oh shit, I see where it sounded like I was saying that Trump has a right to face the whistleblower, I wasn’t, I was just being snarky and pedantic at an irrelevant point,” you spent the next few pages telling people what bad readers they were.
There is no way that this series of posts made the thread better. Instead, it comprised a multi-page derailment, as people grew increasingly irritated at your shifting the blame for your poor communication onto them.
You do this so often–derailing threads about Trump’s corruption with penny-ante bullshit–that it looks deliberate.
The mods seem to think it’s not. I don’t disagree; I just disagree on whether your intentions are relevant, given your continued propensity to do this.
Contrast this against Max S’s series of posts in that thread. He’s caught some pushback, it’s true, but overall I find his posts thought-provoking and intelligent and honestly presented, if sometimes infuriating :).