To be clear, I would not have commented on the other comment by itself. Still, I do think there’s a general pattern on the forum where some threads by default tend to spiral out by commenters gradually modeling each other as more and more adversarial, unless we make a significant active effort in assuming good faith and being kind[1], and I think that thread might have become an example of that.
I agree that there’s an important difference between calling someone disingenuous and mentioning that a comment reads to you as disingenuous, but I still think that discussing things on the object level (like you mostly do in the rest of the comment) is kinder and helps to prevent such spirals.
To be clear, I would not have commented on the other comment by itself. Still, I do think there’s a general pattern on the forum where some threads by default tend to spiral out by commenters gradually modeling each other as more and more adversarial, unless we make a significant active effort in assuming good faith and being kind[1], and I think that thread might have become an example of that.
I agree that there’s an important difference between calling someone disingenuous and mentioning that a comment reads to you as disingenuous, but I still think that discussing things on the object level (like you mostly do in the rest of the comment) is kinder and helps to prevent such spirals.
Someone wrote somewhere that discussion norms are ectotherms: need to constantly receive energy to survive, I’ve found it a helpful metaphor.
Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah you are right, and the ectotherm thing is a good analogy.