I agree that if he (or anyone else) had referred to Stoid as “abrasive/borderline disruptive” in General Questions, it would’ve been out of line. That forum is a cold, impersonal place with institutional green walls and a faint antiseptic smell, ostensibly reserved for factual questions and answers. (And occasional stupid jokes perpetrated by incorrigible nitwits like Yours Truly.)
It might be just that. There was another now departed (thank the Mods) long term poster that almost never technically broke the rules. But he sure as shit liked to get as close as possible as often as possible in a many ways as possible. IMO the “don’t be a jerk” rule was inspired by folks just like him.
And you know what? I am perfectly fine with somebody who is always on the cutting edge getting slapped down when they tiptoe across the line for a minor infraction. I think people who live near the line need the line moved further back for them. Yeah, you can belly ache about how nice PosterBob, who is almost never near the line, got away with calling somebody a poopyhead in a moment of weakness. Don’t dance just this side of the line and you too can call someone a poopyhead once a blue moon and not get an official warning for it.
You seem to know/admit your behavior grates and what it is you do that people find grating. Quit fricking grating then. You’re not saving the world, you’re just irritating people and risking getting suspended or banned.
Its not that complicated.
I don’t dance on this side of the line. The reasons people find me grating have nothing to do with the way I act* towards them* it’s just their reaction to me being me. I"ve examined the things that people react to at great length, in and out of the Dope, with assistance from others, and while some may dislike my style, my behavior is well inside the line. See CKDexter’s post above, which could have been written about me. (But was written about Dio, who was, in addition to being me on steroids and meth when it came to being self-righteous and stubborn, was also amazingly insulting and nasty, which I am not and don’t come close to.)
As I heard someone on This American Life say yesterday and related to wholeheartedly, the things which some people find irritating about me are exactly the things which other people love about me: I’m not gong to try and reinvent my genuine self to prevent some people from having a bad reaction to me when I’m not doing anything wrong.
I think people should be able to speak the truth, and Tom did, so while I appreciate that anyone’s noticing, it doesn’t really bother me.
But to be clear, Tom spoke the truth in a respectful and useful manner, I don’t think that people should be allowed to casually say things, even if true, if the obvious purpose is to be hurtful or score points (even though doing that makes the person doing it a total loser in every sense of the term, as I previously described).
Well, when you genuine yourself right off this board don’t come a complaining to me.
PS. And to be more realistic, its “when you think you are not doing anything wrong” which does not have a one to one correspondence with reality.
Oh, I’ll certainly agree you arent even in the same league as that “other guy”, for what thats worth (then again who was/is/ever again could be?).
Agree! I support mildish truthful insults! But, I guess Vinyl Turnip is right, GQ should be relatively free of such things. But no warnings for “scold.”
And Vinyl your wiseacre comments crack me the hell up, I just wanna’ give you a noogie when I read them.
Wrong and annoying are not the same thing. Since the things about me which irritate have pretty much entirely to do with the way I defend my position when I take one, and it doesn’t include being directly and personally unpleasant towards other people, I am not doing anything wrong.
I hang out here in part to debate things because I find it stimulating, as well as to learn things. Within that context, my behavior is not remotely wrong. Within the context of the rules of this board, my behavior is not wrong. Within the ethos of this board, my behavior is not wrong.
If I was coming here to see how many people I could get to like me, my behavior would be wrong.
True - but it’s noteworthy how often these tendencies can be found in close proximity.
Actually, resorting to personal attacks is an “instant lose” only if it’s done as a substitute for reasoned argument. Insults may be an unpleasant or inappropriate accompaniment to shooting down someone’s stubbornly held misbeliefs, but insults alone do not invalidate a debate position, nor should tone be used as an excuse to dodge valid points presented with a veneer of snark.
I see the latter commonly, on this board and others. If there’s a series of well-reasoned, civil rebuttals with one having a seasoning of snark, the person whose position has been demolished will jump on the example of incivility, exclaiming how his/her opponents are a bunch of meanies, ignore the valid rebuttals and effusively thank the rare poster who has agreed with him/her. It can get tiresome.
:rolleyes:
You know what? There’s also a difference between trying hard to get somebody to like you and being considerate enough to modify your presentation when people tell you said style is pissing them off. While the actions may be the same, ones being a suck up for suck ups sake. One is considering other peoples feelings (oh the inhumanity).
Oh, and this is the last I am going to say on this topic for now. I’ve said my piece. I’m not saying these things to attack you. You can obviously do or defend whatever you want because it doesnt impact me in any significant way.
Meh. I think people can be doing something that’s 100% wrong/against the rules but not the least bit annoying in the same way they can be 100% inside the rules and be totally irritating.
Everyone has their standards, and since we don’t have an actual scoreboard or referee around here telling us who loses and who wins, we all have to call it for ourselves. As I said, my opinion and my rule is that making it personal is pretty much an instant loss - primarily because I see it most often as a substitute for a solid argument or a prop for a weak one. But it’s also a direct reflection of the fact that the person resorting to it has become too emotionally engaged and/or feels ego-threatened, no matter how solid their arguments are, and in my view that’s just as much of an instant loss because the person has lost control of their rudder in what really ought to be an impersonal discussion of ideas and facts. they may still be in the contest, but since there is no finish line, how you play the game matters as much or more than anything else.
The only personal attacks I’ve ever seen were not mere tactics in a game, the attack clearly sprang from emotion/ego, and that’s losing, even if you have good arguments. All it is intended to do is create negative emotional responses in your opponant, or somehow make the attacker feel better about themselves (although how that whole dynamic works I’ve never been able to grok at all) and that just drags a debate, which would otherwise be challenging and lively, into something unpleasant and disturbing. That’s a loss.
An extremely close and important friend of mine thanked me very sincerely recently for making her aware of something important and true about her that helped her change her behavior: she sucks at debate *because she cannot keep her emotions out of it. *She would become genuinely angry and frustrated, take things personally, nurse wounds and stress out. Many people are like that, in fact I’d venture a completely unscientific guess that most people are actually like that, which is in no way a bad thing, just a fact: some people are good at debating for the fun of the exchange and challenge, some people identify too closely and allow it to upset them and that’s not surprising, since debate can look and feel very much like fighting or arguing.
My friend doesn’t debate anymore and she’s happier for it, incidentally.
Agreed.
You state that you can be all of these things, and folks give you very specific feedback about how your posting behavior demonstrates those things - and you push back. Oy.
While “following the rules” is a good first step to not being perceived as a “an abrasive/borderline disruptive poster” it is NOT the only thing.
In this instance, I saw this as: “Stoid asked a question AND tried to control / interpret the answers HER way. When a poster pointed out that this didn’t make sense given the nature of the Spanish language, and spelled that out, Stoid tried to once again control the situation, claim she was right anyway (which she can’t really know because she doesn’t speak Spanish; hence the OP) and say something mildly snarky to the poster.”
To me - that is “abrasive/borderline disruptive” given Stoid’s history. I would’ve been surprised if most other Dopers got a warning about “scold” but given history and, even in the Spanish thread, you were trying to control things you didn’t know about, you came across, once again as abrasive.
You want to say that you can see you are arrogant, etc. - why can’t you see that you behaved that way in the thread in question?
I have no dog in this hunt - I honestly don’t care. But I am amazed at how intelligent and self-aware you claim to be, and yet you can’t make this most basic of connections…
So what you are saying is that you were too emotionally involved in the Spanish thread? I agree.
I really can’t tell if this is intentional irony or not. If it is, then bravo!
Some things are nearly impossible to convey in writing exactly the way you want them to be heard, and the following statement is one of those things unfortunately, but it’s the truthful response to this: I do not set out to piss people off. At all. It is not fun or entertaining for me, it is not why I engage in the sort of conversations that lead to some people becoming pissed, it is not my goal. So if people reading my posts find themselves getting pissed at me, in the absence of my misbehaving towards them, then it is for them to determine why they are feeling that way and decide how they are going to deal with it. I’m sure you know the old saw about trying to please everybody.
I am not responsible for anyone else’s reaction to me, especially and particularly if that reaction is to the way I argue my position because it’s not about you at all, not in the smallest way. It’s completely about me. If other people go into reaction over things that are entirely about me, then that’s about them.
I am very much aware of other people’s feelings: that’s why I don’t attack them personally. That’s why I don’t mock them cruelly. That’s why I don’t shred them publicly. That’s why I don’t join in the “fun” when they are being ripped in the pit. Because I don’t think that’s fun. I don’t think it’s rewarding or amusing. I think it’s ugly and small and mean and sad and don’t want to participate in that because all it would do is make me feel ashamed of myself for deliberately setting out to hurt other people to satisfy some need in myself that they are in no way responsible for.
And even when other people are incredibly irritating and obnoxious and drive me crazy, I don’t seize that as an excuse to be nasty to them, I just don’t engage them at all, because choosing to put myself in their path and then blaming them for my being annoyed would be ridiculously unfair to them and for what? To give me a punching bag I don’t need or want?
But no, my concern for other people’s feelings does not and never will extend to doing whatever is necessary to make certain that no one ever finds me irritating, and it’s a balance I’ve struck that I’m entirely comfortable with.
I don’t feel attacked at all, and I think it’s an excellent thing that you are unaffected, that’s as it should be.
The condescension thing comes up in my real life, in instances and with people I care about where I really don’t want or mean it to and because I know it can be there I try to suppress any hint of it and fail. But don’t assume from that that I’m looking for ways to take steps to not be perceived as an abrasive/borderline poster, because I’m not. I think I’ve been pretty clear that I accept that some people are going to find me to be exactly that so long as I choose to engage in debate and I can live with it.
Why do you think I can’t see it? (Although in that particular thread I didn’t think I was right about anything: I know I don’t know Spanish, I do appreciate the immersion method and how it is supposed to work and embraced it enthusiastically. I just felt stuck at one particular junture - BigT came in and did a pretty perfect job of expressing and explaining my problem.)
Except that I do. Nowhere in any of this have I been confused about how I am perceived and what I do that leads to this perception.
Whether your dot-connecting from arrogance to insult is valid makes no difference. If in this one instance my well-established and acknowledged arrogance was the underlying trigger to my one instance of impolitic phrasing, ok. I have been duly smacked for the actual broken rule.
Yeah, I’m decidedly human after all.
No, it’s not at all ironic, because generally speaking (the Spanish thread being one of the exceptions) I do not take things personally. Even when people are working really, really hard to make me take it personally and I think you are well aware of how many do exactly that. If I was a fragile and delicate butterfly inclined to fall apart over people making it personal around here they would have locked me up in 2002.
Well then, don’t be surprised if folks treat you like an abrasive/borderline poster, because you are - so just let go of getting huffy if you get cited as such…
Moving on.
I’m shocked that anyone would start an entire thread about the meaning of a word, which is easily determined with Google in about 5 seconds. Then a thread about being warned for being insulting. Shocked I tell you.
It’s my understanding, from reading the rules, that insulting other people on the board is limited to the flame pit. Of course my grasp of the rules may be at fault, but if this actually is the intent of the rules, then the post I quoted is a rule violation. Because it is clearly insulting.
In essence it says “you are an abrasive/borderline poster”. I’m not sure what “borderline poster” means, but I bet it is an insult. OK it might be true, but truth doesn’t mean an insult isn’t an insult. In fact, telling the truth about somebody is the worst insult of all sometimes.
My concept of the whole INTENT of the rules is that except for the pit, everybody play nice. Most people know how to be insulting with out actually calling names. Which is sidestepping the rules of course. The bottom line is focusing on people is against the rules (again, except for the flame factory arena).
This is a good rule, because unless you are involved in whatever petty bitch fight is going on, it’s boring as hell to see a thread clogged with back and forths between people you don’t even know at all, and care about even less.
I guess it’s a matter of perception - which in a written medium is tricky.
I’m interested in the whole idea of insult. Many people, yourself apparently included, seem to feel that any comment about a person that is unflattering is insulting and I don’t think that’s correct, and not in just a strictly technical sense.
In the case at hand, while I actually disagree with the adjectives that Tom chose as exactly the most accurate way to describe me as a poster, I understand the general idea he was going for and it is close enough to the truth that I wasn’t going to argue with it or feel insulted.
Using another example related to me, I am fat. Referring to me as fat is not particularly flattering, but since it is true its not insulting in and of itself. There are many ways the fact that I am fat can be referred to that ARE insulting, just as there are ways that my posting and general history on the SDMB could be referred to that would be insulting. But the truth, stated plainly to a purpose, is not automatically an insult just because it is unflattering.