[weatherboi]

Originally Posted by Girl_On_Fire

Wasn't able to quote directly from weatherboi so I'll just copy and paste:

It could also be because said offender has a pattern of being offensive and continually entering a gray area, playing devils advocate or plays the innocent uneducated community member. I think that may be what you mean by "honest belief that someone is trying to start an argument" I would like to focus on that. What do you (general you)think that is all about?? What is it that keeps a community member poking at the sore??

I don't like the sentence, "plays the innocent uneducated community member". I think this makes too much of a judgement on the part of the "general you". I agree there are plenty of people out there who like to start stuff just to start stuff. For no other reason than to pull the pin on a grenade and watch the chaos. I'm also sure there are plenty of other people (like myself) who genuinely don't realize when they're being offensive in a post due to lack of education, misunderstanding, etc. The sentence implies that everyone knows better and I think this is one of the primary reasons for the jumping of the gun that goes on in some of these threads.

I am not implying that all people know better. I have seen some community members here string along many people in the community including myself. One especially comes to mind, she claimed to be a physics student and professional football player. She was new and everybody tip toed around all her nonsense for quite some time until it was revealed she was just here to create chaos.


For people like me (and I'm not the only one, I've seen it on other posts I didn't start) it can be like being sucker-punched in the stomach to see a vehement response filled with exclamation marks and accusations and all-caps.

Understood, I can see where perceived harshness could feel yucky to you if that is your reaction. I don't take exclamation points or ALL CAPS as symbolizing a vehement response. Accusations are different, because that requires being able to defend written thoughts that are either being misunderstood or not. I think when we start threads we need to be prepared for anything because there are many members here that participate and not all people participate the same.

That could send a young, naive, uneducated, socially-clueless, and/or what-have-you person running for the hills right away with no dialogue actually having transpired. Trust me when I tell you from years of experience, this is incredibly damaging and confusing.

Well, we all have things that come up and send us running. We all have things in life that can be damaging and confusing. I have trained myself to stay out of those arenas when I am not prepared to handle the heated debate or the feedback. Nobody but ourselves can police what is good for us and what isn't. We can't expect total strangers to change themselves in this venue if they are playing by the rules and following the TOS.

Again, not everybody is genuinely clueless. However, in my line of thinking, unless the thread topic starts with something like, "I Think all Queer People Should Die" it would help to take a deep breath and ask a few questions of the person before taking out the verbal hatchet.

Think of it this way, if somebody really is trying to start something, they'll get bored pretty quickly by benign responses and questions and escalate immediately. Then you'll know how it was meant and will be able to respond accordingly.

This is not my experience. Usually for me, the benign approach escalates because the person is not receiving the kind of attention they were seeking. I have seen it happen in a thread and I have seen it happen to someone that gets singled out by a person. You can treat them benignly, nonchalantly, call them out or any number of ways to try and handle it gently, but if the person is set on getting the community or one community members attention it can turn ugly if they are doing so by crossing boundaries. Understand I do not have you in mind when I am talking about people doing this.

I am not really comfortable expecting members to post a certain way if they aren't breaking any TOS rules. I can only control what I post. I am comfortable if a community member requests something from me, I have no problem trying to accommodate them to the best of my ability if it is a reasonable request.