If you state an opinion, it’s thought that opinion should be scrupulously challenged.
If you state a feeling you had, especially a difficult or conflicted one, it’s thought that it should be welcomed and certainly not challenged.
Individually, these attitudes make sense, but together I would expect that they will make Forum posts much more focused on emotional reactions than careful and unemotional pieces.
To clarify, I want both and think emotional reactions can be very important. But at least once, I’ve seen a detailed but unemotional post buried under a less well thought through post describing someone’s emotional reaction to a similar issue. Perhaps we should be welcoming of posts that try hard to do careful and rational analysis, even if they seem/are misguided or unsuccessful.
If you state an opinion, it’s thought that opinion should be scrupulously challenged.
If you state a feeling you had, especially a difficult or conflicted one, it’s thought that it should be welcomed and certainly not challenged.
Individually, these attitudes make sense, but together I would expect that they will make Forum posts much more focused on emotional reactions than careful and unemotional pieces.
To clarify, I want both and think emotional reactions can be very important. But at least once, I’ve seen a detailed but unemotional post buried under a less well thought through post describing someone’s emotional reaction to a similar issue. Perhaps we should be welcoming of posts that try hard to do careful and rational analysis, even if they seem/are misguided or unsuccessful.
This. Emotional, controversial reactions are highly interesting, but they are the least useful posts.
I’d invert that heuristic and promote boring posts over controversial or emotional posts.