[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
That is one of my pet peeves, as well. It sounds so obnoxious. I think some people don’t take the time to read their posts and imagine what it would sound like if they said it out loud. (Or maybe they do, and they just don’t care, which makes me feel bad for their friends, family, & coworkers.)
[/QUOTE]
As with everything except bare, naked facts, it’s a matter of interpretation. I say it IRL and nobody’s ever gotten offended. IMHO it’s way, way gentler than any number of the alternatives usually used to get the same point across.
That said, I agree iwith the OP and with many of the initial posters; **Ichbin Dubist, Antinor01, TroubleAgain, Shoshana, featherlou, and especially eleanorigby, who said
** all had great points. Now, however, this has dropped into the Pit and so will likely end up like so many other Pit threads, in a no holds barred pitched battle.
Yes, the Dope is cliquey. There are two sides to ‘community’. One is exemplified by the thread the other day where members got together to send money to a member in need. The other is that the clique will circle the wagons and actively repel people they decide don’t fit in with ‘the group’ because they don’t share the same ideas.
For a while, I thought the Dope was less a ‘community’ and more a gathering of independent minds that were loosely associated; in other words less likely to act like a mob. I was incorrect. Of course not everyone does jump in when hive mind gets going, but it certainly does happen sometimes and isn’t very appealing.
I think what’s hardest is that I seem to be under the impression that smarter people would necessarily be more compassionate and more accepting of other people. Maybe that’s ignorance on my part or maybe that’s some Pollyanna gene that I can’t fight. Anyway, SDMB has certainly enlightened me in that regard. OTOH, there are some posters whose POVs do seem to come from the kind of attitude that I hope to find in compatriots; one of kindness and compassion.
I look forward to reading those posts. I wish we could subscribe to posters rather than to threads.