People think about where they have blindspots around reading certain styles of writing, and acknowledge that in those areas, they may not get the point being made, even if there is an important point
When someone makes a post that communicates in a way that you identify as your blindspot, you think about whether you can respond in the same style that they communicated.
If you can—do so. If you can’t—you don’t have to respond to the post at all. This is the crux of my suggestion. If you just see the world differently from someone else, so much so that responding to it would involve a clash of your worldviews, it’s okay to just leave it alone. I think “let it go” is an undervalued approach on every internet forum, and especially so here.
That’s my best guess at a strategy that works both for someone who systematizes a lot reading an “overly” emotional post, and for someone who systematizes very little reading an “overly” analytical post. But I agree this is something of a wicked problem and we need some way to tackle it. In the absence of an explicit approach, I think the OP is right to point out that people will just respond in an analytical way to emotional posts and that may not help anyone at all.
Throwing out one possible approach:
People think about where they have blindspots around reading certain styles of writing, and acknowledge that in those areas, they may not get the point being made, even if there is an important point
When someone makes a post that communicates in a way that you identify as your blindspot, you think about whether you can respond in the same style that they communicated.
If you can—do so. If you can’t—you don’t have to respond to the post at all. This is the crux of my suggestion. If you just see the world differently from someone else, so much so that responding to it would involve a clash of your worldviews, it’s okay to just leave it alone. I think “let it go” is an undervalued approach on every internet forum, and especially so here.
That’s my best guess at a strategy that works both for someone who systematizes a lot reading an “overly” emotional post, and for someone who systematizes very little reading an “overly” analytical post. But I agree this is something of a wicked problem and we need some way to tackle it. In the absence of an explicit approach, I think the OP is right to point out that people will just respond in an analytical way to emotional posts and that may not help anyone at all.