Anybody who posts anything about how a subject SHOULD be perceived BY YOU...

[sibelian]

... rather than how it is perceived BY THEM...

...


(Please complete the sentence)

[LuvNewcastle]

1. ....needs to edit their post?

[Fumesucker]

2. Should walk a mile in my shoes

[madokie]

11. Thanks for the link

I'd forgotten about Joe South.

[cali]

3. people often mistake opinion for fact. people don't understand that truth

is subjective and they mistake truth for fact. this happens every day, multiple times a day, on du.

[Niceguy1]

43. that's my biggest

Complaint about du, and fact checking is often opinions on opinions..

[Egalitarian Thug]

46. Truth is not subjective, sorry but you're simply wrong on that. The perception and acceptance

of a particular view point is subjective, but has no bearing or effect on the truth.

"What is, is" - Aristotle

[Nuclear Unicorn]

50. The problems arise when people mistake their perception and acceptance for truth.

[TxDemChem]

4. Is likely a troll

who believes the tactics used by Faux Noise will work on everyone

[sibelian]

16. Thanks *kind of* what I think

or at least it's a strong indicator. But I wasn't sure if that idea was reasonable so I started this thread.

It seems sensible to suppose that we can spot sock puppets and paid disruptors from the ordinary members of this site by their need to make a difference in the "opinion space" around them. But we ALL want to do that, so... a firmly guided focus on changing other people's positions (which is almost never acheieved by sock puppets or trolls) os often taken as evidence of trolldom. This troll-spotting instinct might be a blunt instrument.

Having said all that, the most recent troll-expunging was well received.

[TxDemChem]

32. I'm glad you started the thread

I would come across posts on various sites where a commenter says something to the effect, "if you are a (blank), then you have to think/feel/know (blank)." A bit too pushy, regardless of the side of the argument.

[sibelian]

47. I think one of the side effects of prolonged Internet discussion board exposure

is a kind of streamlining of how one responds to posts that feels like a streamlining of one's own opinions, but ISN'T.

[TxDemChem]

59. I can see that.

I have had to take breaks from the discussion boards to allow myself to regroup.

[Myrina]

22. ..... and one could argue that is also the case on some parts of DU ...

...because if you don't believe what they believe when they posted their link (upon link upon link upon link) and berate you for questioning them and/or their data, you immediately get called a troll or a paid 'sockpuppet' rather than just being allowed to disagree.

n'cest pas?

[TxDemChem]

36. That's the part that gets me on DU.

Sometimes we will disagree with our own party, but it definitely doesn't warrant an attack. Anytime I see that here, I don't even post a comment. No reason in fighting each other.

[Laelth]

5. ... really is trying to help you see the world from a different prespective?

All of us who describe the world are describing it from our own point of view, and we are implicitly suggesting that the reader should see it in the same light, or, at least, consider the subject from our point of view. This seems quite natural to me.



-Laelth

[randome]

6. You said it best.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[sibelian]

15. I suppose I'm more thinking about a more aggressive focus

on the shifting of the subject of the disagreement. When the audience becomes the subject of the discourse, as a matter of course for certain posters, over several rounds...

At least, that's what prompted this post. I said "They're incredibly easy to sopt" on a thread that featured a discussion of sockpuppets (by Atman) and realised I was partially basing this troll-spotting instinct on the tendency of actual trolls to make thrashing, desperate attempts to undermine the judgement of their respondent (which always fail), not by clarifying their position, but by doggedly and ineffectively delegitimising the opponent's position. In this process, the subject drifts. "Hair on Fire".

Naturally, we expect a certain amount of "free space" in the discussion of the subject or their wouldn't be a subject under discussion. A debate where two people just constantly reiterate their own positions in different words isn't a debate. What piqued my interest was the extent to which the shifting of the subject from the subject to the respondent could be taken as evidence that the discussion was losing quality. Or being trolled.

I don't know if that tendency is enough to "call bullshit" by itself. So I started this thread to see what other people thought.



I suppose I should really have said all that at the beginning, but I had faith that the initial post was laden enough with specificity that it was clear I suspected something peculiar might be going on. It's natural to find things wrong with other people's arguments, but not if that's the only thing you do, I guess is what I'm thinking.

Anyway, this was all kicked off in my head by the whole "oh, it's an all-about-nothing, hair-on-fire, emo-progs galore subject" type posts from certain very dedicated and otherwise seemingly uninterested people brought out by the NSA debates.

[Atman]

27. Good observation.

In that sock puppet thread, a certain poster who has posted similar deflections in the past, reared her head again. In one quick post (one of the first responses to the thread, in fact), she began a sub-thread about me, attempting to minimize the actual subject of the original post (which was just a re-post of another article I had found). She has done this on other threads I've started as well. Hmm.

"...this was all kicked off in my head by the whole "oh, it's an all-about-nothing, hair-on-fire, emo-progs galore subject" type posts from certain very dedicated and otherwise seemingly uninterested people brought out by the NSA debates." Bingo.

[Tigress DEM]

51. That isn't the problem the OP is addressing.

Offering a different perspective is great. You go on to say describing it from your own point of view and that is the positive corollary to trying to tell people how they SHOULD feel.

Implicitly suggesting and banging someone over the head with how they SHOULD feel implies going to extremes to belittle someone for feeling differently.

Valid political discussion vs slamming words at someone.

[Orrex]

7. Should be forced to change their profile pic to a giraffe for three days.

[pintobean]

8. huh

[sibelian]

13. Back off to facebook with you!

I became a giraffe this morning!

Anyway, the answer is obvious. Once you know what the answer is.

[Orrex]

14. Yeah, I thought I was so smart.

On the plus side, I have a friend who's a professor of astrophysics, and now she's a giraffe, too.

[sibelian]

17. At least the long neck

will aid her in the avoidance of light pollution.

[Blue_In_AK]

37. Oh, yeah, I'm a giraffe, too.

[11 Bravo]

9. Is a Bill O'Reilly-class egomaniac.

[Skidmore]

10. ...should understand that they live in a glass house

in the bottom of a quarry. That works in the inverse for those who insist that another person's assertion of their stated intent cannot be accepted. We all mash up prose at times. And we all disagree at times. That is okay. Mankind has survived in spite of tbe need to speak for others.

[sibelian]

21. Walt Whitman?

Is that you?

[Zorra]

12. Should not start a religion. nt

[pipi_k]

18. Makes me want to

slap them upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper.


I don't get real aggravated about a whole lot, but that's one of the things that pisses me off.

A LOT.

OK so I know that many people will think that maybe my arguments are meant to change someone else's mind, but they're not.

All I ask, really, is that the person I'm discussing something with be able to see that most issues really DO have another side to them, and hardly anything is as black/white as people think.

[sibelian]

23. I second that emotion.

I know that it's definitely a sensitivity in me. I don't know how often I'm guilty of the sin myself, as I dive into the red mist of INTERNET WRONGNESS CORRECTION... more often than I care to remember, I'm sure.

Having been brought up politically firstly by the tenet of "quote your experience as your reality" and then SECONDLY by "some things are just true, dammit, and pretending everything's negotiable is another way of lying," I sometimes see the structure of subject-mangling before the subject.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Is a bully, cyberstalker perhaps

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. ..should eat more fiber.

[sibelian]

25. ...but what if they don't think they should?

Does it behoove you to admonish them?

[Blue_Tires]

24. Is BAD and should FEEL bad...

[Agnosticsherbet]

26. Is living in an authoritarian frame of mind, or is your mother. n/t

[Spirochete]

28. Probably puts their coat on backwards

so they can smell their neck.

[snooper2]

29. should learn whittling?

[penultimate]

30. should be listened to and have their opinion accepted as fact, because they are always right.

Just my opinion... I mean fact.

[L0oniX]

31. My favorite is how some assholes read into what you say ..something other than what you said...

and then try to insult you and reframe what you said. Ignore list is growing because there no good reason to converse with those kinds of people or read what they say.

[quinnox]

35. Oh yea, there are a few here who specialize in that

But there are ways to deal with that, just make up shit and give it right back to them. Maybe they might get the point.

[sibelian]

49. Absolutely.

Last edited Tue Oct 29, 2013, 12:18 PM - Edit history (1)

I actually had a long conversation about this with an DU member who reserved the right to reinterpret whatever I said into whatever she felt entitled to take offense at. She was quite clear about it, what I thought I meant wasn't what I said actually meant. There was therefore clearly no reason for me to actually converse with her as she was using me as a way of talking out loud to something on the inside of her own head. That's fine, but I'd rather people acknowledge my attention as something to be put to good use rather than wasted on their own entertainment.

[L0oniX]

57. Exactly!

[ScreamingMeemie]

33. ... is framing the debate incorrectly.

[1000words]

34. ... has an agenda.

DU is full of folks with an agenda.

[Rex]

38. I see everyone noticed, which is why it is so funny!

[sibelian]

41. Oh.

Are you talking about a specific example?

[Blue_In_AK]

39. I can think of one right off the top of my head.

I want to smack it upside the head.

[DeschutesRiver]

40. Will be put on ignore. Same for any other kind of rude response. Nt

[joshcryer]

42. Is this about the Booker Libertarian thread?

[Egalitarian Thug]

44. Is likely a DU icon with 50,000+ posts over the last 11 years. n/t

[B Calm]

45. +1 I know one!

[sibelian]

52. Post count.

Such an unreliable indicator of quality or honest intent...

[L0oniX]

58. 50,000 K&R's along with the :rofl: smilie.

[RagAss]

48. deserves beer and travel money.

[seveneyes]

53. Knows what is best for you, and if there is any doubt,

The government will make the call for both of you.

[raccoon]

54. is arrogant. nt

[gulliver]

55. I perceive such people as...

...teachers, parents, etc. I'm always willing to take advice. You should be too. It's for your own good.

[sibelian]

56. ...

...nah.