I was responding to Jeff—and thank you, Jeff, for clarifying that downvotes can hide me.
In my response to him, I was expressing my concern that a subset of the Forum has the power to hide my self-defense, so that my correction of their misrepresentation goes unnoticed, while their misrepresentations stand in full view.
Another EA Forum post, just recently (“Bad Omens in Current Community Building”) was trying to bring to the community’s attention that, among other things, EA is sometimes perceived as cultish or cliquish. I hope you can all see that, when my correction of others’ misrepresentations are downvoted to obscurity, then that concern of cliquishness is real.
I should also add this note: there is a double-standard in communication, here. I was asked repeatedly to ‘calm down and speak nicely, because only then will we listen’ - meanwhile, the ones who misrepresented were given a pass to lead the listener by the nose along imputations such as “because you posted a lot, no one is going to listen to you.” They got that pass, easily, with the header “being brutally honest”/”honestly”. Should I just begin all my posts with “just being brutally honest”, so that no one uses my tone as a reason to ignore the content of what I say?
Hi Anthony. I would say that in the responses I’ve read where they use words like ‘honestly’, my reading of the tone was that they were going for a “tough love” approach. Using the word ‘honestly’ (when not said to manipulate people) often indicates the person is aware that what they’re saying may been seen as too harsh, but that they think what they’re saying is of enough value to others that it still merits saying (and sometimes may only have that value if said bluntly).
In contrast, my interpretation of the tone in your comments, using the word ‘disrespect’ a lot, asking for an apology etc, was that it was solely about providing value to yourself. For most people I know, the concept of feeling ‘disrespected’ by others, and going around demanding apologies for it, would never occur to them. Having that mindset is something I associate with arrogance, aggression and self-righteousness. I think in general people in this forum are wary of engaging further with people who appear to lack some level of humility.
Perhaps in certain circles it is expected that you ought to defend yourself in that way, in order to show that that what someone has said about you really is incorrect? But in the absence of social pressure in that direction, doing so suggests personality traits that some might be wary of.
I was responding to Jeff—and thank you, Jeff, for clarifying that downvotes can hide me.
In my response to him, I was expressing my concern that a subset of the Forum has the power to hide my self-defense, so that my correction of their misrepresentation goes unnoticed, while their misrepresentations stand in full view.
Another EA Forum post, just recently (“Bad Omens in Current Community Building”) was trying to bring to the community’s attention that, among other things, EA is sometimes perceived as cultish or cliquish. I hope you can all see that, when my correction of others’ misrepresentations are downvoted to obscurity, then that concern of cliquishness is real.
I should also add this note: there is a double-standard in communication, here. I was asked repeatedly to ‘calm down and speak nicely, because only then will we listen’ - meanwhile, the ones who misrepresented were given a pass to lead the listener by the nose along imputations such as “because you posted a lot, no one is going to listen to you.” They got that pass, easily, with the header “being brutally honest”/”honestly”. Should I just begin all my posts with “just being brutally honest”, so that no one uses my tone as a reason to ignore the content of what I say?
Hi Anthony. I would say that in the responses I’ve read where they use words like ‘honestly’, my reading of the tone was that they were going for a “tough love” approach. Using the word ‘honestly’ (when not said to manipulate people) often indicates the person is aware that what they’re saying may been seen as too harsh, but that they think what they’re saying is of enough value to others that it still merits saying (and sometimes may only have that value if said bluntly).
In contrast, my interpretation of the tone in your comments, using the word ‘disrespect’ a lot, asking for an apology etc, was that it was solely about providing value to yourself. For most people I know, the concept of feeling ‘disrespected’ by others, and going around demanding apologies for it, would never occur to them. Having that mindset is something I associate with arrogance, aggression and self-righteousness. I think in general people in this forum are wary of engaging further with people who appear to lack some level of humility.
Perhaps in certain circles it is expected that you ought to defend yourself in that way, in order to show that that what someone has said about you really is incorrect? But in the absence of social pressure in that direction, doing so suggests personality traits that some might be wary of.
[Jeff deleted his response, yet it was still helpful!]