Offending & Being Offended...

[Alan Wanwierd]

hmmm....

meta-debate follows:

done some soul searching.. and thought about offending/being offended after a "thread deletion threat" for the "How Many Holidays" thread (which had gone WAAAY off topic)...

Whilst I realise I may offend people - and sometimes do try to "provoke" a response. I try and highlight somehow that I do realise that what I try and say may be offensive. Purpose of this being that people can in someway understand that although my opinions may differ from theirs - I do understand that an alternative opinion exists. I sometimes even express what I regard as over the top extreme opinion that I dont agree with myself in the interest of sustaining an interesting debate (this is when I typically add silly smiley faces to indicate a mischevious grin )...

Do I go too far? Is it reasonable bevaviour to do the "devils advocate" thing in a forum like this?

On being offended - I tried to determnine what triggers such a strong emotional response from me and I think that what seems to compell me to respond beligerantly, more than anything else, is the expression of an opinion that is not only contrary to my sense of what is right - but also expressed in a manner as to suggest it is a universal truth. Where an alternative viewpoint is perhaps even not known to exist by the writer.

Is this distinction too fine? Am I being hypcritical? I offend people and raise my eyebrows when they dont understand the manner in which comments were intended - but then get offended myself!!

[Warren Dew]

From a personal point of view I usually enjoy your posts. Then again, I'm not easily offended. I have to admit that the one time I have been offended here was at one of your posts (regarding what turbos are okay). After a day I calmed down enough to go back and edit the upsetness out of my response, but by then both it and your post I was responding to had been removed (whether by you or a moderator, I don't know).

One thing I realized in the recent "American politics" thread is that while there is more news coverage of American politics overseas than of overseas politics here, it's still very shallow. I think some of the things you said in that thread that were taken as sideswipes by some of the people responding, when perhaps they actually just reflected simple lack of knowledge about details of how American government works.

I felt I learned a lot about Indian politics from the various threads during the Indian elections. Unfortunately, the U.S. elections got so divisive that discussion on it got banned from this forum - probably the right decisions, but it meant that people overseas didn't have as much of an opportunity to see U.S. politics from the viewpoint of typical citizens.

[Dave Lenton]

I wonder if a lot of arguments and misunderstandings happen on forums because of the medium of communication. When writing on a forum text is the only form of communication. The words are only a small part of our normal communication though - tone of voice, expression and body language make up a huge part of the message we get across.

Much of the posts on this forum take a fairly conversational form, but are missing out on many of the other factors of communication that normally make up conversations. I expect that much of the reason why people get stressed is that they have misinterpreted something - e.g. person A has written something in a sarcastic manor, but person B has read it as a serious statement. Cultural differences and the fact that many people are posting in a second language can probably also lead to confusions.

Smilies help with this a bit, but then that relies on everyone knowing what they mean. Probably the best tactic is to always assume that other people are trying to be nice and that any perceived aggression or insult is either a mistake or a miscommunication.

[paul wheaton]

I'm ashamed to admit that I have not read enough to be able to form a proper opinion about most of the regulars. The only stuff I usually see is when it's borderline and a sheriff or bartender points it out to me to ask what should be done. Or, if somebody crosses the line too often and asks me what should be done.

But the general topic is something that interests me greatly.

Devil's advocate: There can be value in this practice, although some techniques are healthier than others. Too often I've heard/read "that's just stupid" where the honest message turns out to be "I don't understand your position." In my day job, it seems half the converstaions I'm involved in start with somebody saying "that's just stupid" and then we have a long bout of logic and reason and it turns out that it isn't stupid at all. Not the kind of thing that should ever come from an engineer, but there it is. Rather than trying to work with people and reach some common goals, the person who errantly utters "that's just stupid" is making it clear that they beleive that they are the authority and that the other party must convince them of their position.

The phrases "I don't agree" or "I don't understand your position" makes it clear that you are on equal footing and wish to exchange information in the hopes of coming to a better mutual understanding.

[Andrew Eccleston]

It seems to me that what leads some of these threads down the path to deletion is the same thing makes the rest of the Saloon such a great community. We�re all human. And us humans can be very... ummm... passionate about things. When we agree on things, like a passion for technology and helping others learn Java, we end up with this great sense of community. But, being human we don�t always agree with each other.

Some things, it seems politics in particular, bring out an especially passionate side of people. I think politics is one subject where people will argue just as violently when in person, where we have all of the avenues of communication we�re accustomed to. I feel it�s a shame that it has to degrade into an outright argument, rather than a discussion, but unfortunately that�s probably not going to stop entirely.

Just my 2 cents.

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Andrew Eccleston:
I think politics is one subject where people will argue just as violently when in person, where we have all of the avenues of communication we�re accustomed to.

Ain't that the truth. Prior to the election, I was having a political "discussion" with a good friend of mine who views herself as quite liberal. The discussion ended thus:

Her: I just think you're too f@$!ing brainwashed from being in the military.
Me: Actually I think it's just that I'm much more well informed than you are.

That was pretty much the end of that discussion, and perfectly illustrates your point in my mind.

Although in general I think that a lot of the time while talking face-to-face we just choose "not to go there", while we don't necessarily share the same inhibitions when we are typing on a forum.

[Bacon]

The cyber-punk syndrome is to blame.

I make a sincere attempt to communicate the same way on-line as face to face as on the phone or anywhere. My opinion: if you find courage in anonymity you are not demonstrating much character. I'd like to put a finer point on it, but I'll leave it at that.

See? Even in a thread about how to not be offensive, I'm probably offending someone. That's the trouble with having opinions...

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:
Prior to the election, I was having a political "discussion" with a good friend of mine who views herself as quite liberal. The discussion ended thus:

Her: I just think you're too f@$!ing brainwashed from being in the military.
Me: Actually I think it's just that I'm much more well informed than you are.

I bet discussions about crime control between liberals and ex-cops end the same way.

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:

Ain't that the truth. Prior to the election, I was having a political "discussion" with a good friend of mine who views herself as quite liberal. The discussion ended thus:

Her: I just think you're too f@$!ing brainwashed from being in the military.
Me: Actually I think it's just that I'm much more well informed than you are.

That was pretty much the end of that discussion, and perfectly illustrates your point in my mind.

Although in general I think that a lot of the time while talking face-to-face we just choose "not to go there", while we don't necessarily share the same inhibitions when we are typing on a forum.

That's only your view of the end of that discussion. Her view of it might be very different. She might feel that your reaction merely proves her point.

As a card carrying Canadian Liberal, I'd agree with her.

[Dave Lenton]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:
Her: I just think you're too f@$!ing brainwashed from being in the military.
Me: Actually I think it's just that I'm much more well informed than you are.

If person A and person B have an argument, there often seems to be:

1) A's point of view
2) B's point of view
3) the point of view of neutral bystander C
4) the compromise that A and B eventually reach
5) the version C tells his mate D
6) the version that is how A remembers it after 6 months
7) the version that is how B remembers it after 6 months
8) the version D tells his newspaper reporter friend

oh, yeah, and (9) the truth