Getting soft...

[jay]

Feh. Once upon a time, I frequented Usenet and local mailing lists, was involved in various discussions, and knew how to defend myself. Ideas were filtered several times before posting. Weaknesses were studied, anticipating possible challenges or lines-of-attack. Nits that could be seized on by net.nuisances were carefully combed out, especially spelling. Statements were personally qualified to avoid generalizations, sometimes redundantly-so in the same sentence.

Then came LJ... and I've gotten soft, and sloppy. Not on my toes, not as careful about attack-angles or spelling (or missing clauses!). After all, the folks on one's LJ reader list are called friends, and they tend to be a bit more sympathetic, supportive and are self-selected.

But on Usenet and broad mailing lists, it's still harsh out there... not only are the random readers not my friends, they may be overtly hostile, looking for opportunities to throw scorn and snideness in my direction. I've re-learned this the hard way over the past week or so. If I'm going to spend significant time and energy in those forums, I have to get back in my older, harder mindset.

Comments

Re: A "CLUE" for you too

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

1) What I'm getting here is that voluble yelling and emotional outbursts don't register as being "actually destructive" to you. Is that a correct interpretation?

No. When "voluble yelling and emotional outbursts" are used as a means of getting attention, the appropriate (in fact, the only EFFECTIVE) response is to ignore them. They can certainly be destructive in their own way, especially when repeated over time.

What I was trying to say was that active PHYSICAL destruction like your example of a small child peeing on the carpet requires a DIFFERENT approach. The key there is to respond to the action with an appropriate consequence (having them clean it up might be part of it for instance), and not to give in to the temptation to "make a scene" about it, which would only reinforce the notion that such behavior will get them attention. In actual practice, this is much easier said than done.

Regarding my personal motivation: You can see quite easily for yourself what I wrote above and come to your own conclusions. There was no communication on this topic prior to that post. I claimed no "community will," labeled what I had to say as coming from my own experience, and even stated outright that he was free to ignore what I had to say, as it was indeed unsolicited.