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    Your Elvenar Team

Ten ways to avoid drama in the forum.

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
As a long time forum user, here and in more places than I can remember, I've developed a few "hard lessons learned" in my on going effort to avoid threads becoming uncivil. Here's are a few.

1) Put a the best face on it. No matter what a person says it's up to you to interpret it. That means in almost all cases it can be interpreted in several ways. "If a person says "You're ignorant," instead of taking it as a truth (really, why would you take one person's opinion as a truth, anyway), why not ask them for their evidence of why they think that. Assume that their summation of your level of knowledge is based upon evidence and reasoning and ask them to lay it out for you. Sometimes, they actually do have some pretty good reasons for believing that, in this case, you are functioning out of ignorance. So take whatever is said and assume it's an honest view, honestly gained rather than somebody just emoting. Because sometimes it is.

2) Don't discount their response by claiming or implying the only reason they have that response is because they are going to gain something (greed) or merely responding emotionally. Telling the person their view is merely an emotional response, discounts that view and does a disservice to the discussion. In other words, assume it's an honest intellectual view and that it should be responded to with an equally honest and intellectual response. Once you turn to categorizing their response as influenced by some immoral or irrational motive you have changed the discussion to their character, not the subject at hand. This is called an ad hominem response and is considered, itself, illogical.

3) Use sarcasm sparingly or not at all. Unfortunately in a text only conversation sarcasm is easily lost and people often think what you are saying is exactly what you meant. "We believe him, of course," can be taken either way. When I come across this type of statement I try to determine, as we all should, the context and derive what is intended from that. But in text based things, the context is only in the letters and words given (and the emoji's I guess, for those who use them). That leaves a lot of room for error.

4) You are not required to respond. If you are insulted say nothing. One of the "rewards" of attacking another person in a forum is getting a rise out of them. If nobody responds the attacks do stop, though it may take a bit. Bully's and trolls thrive on getting noticed, so simply don't notice them.

5) Beware of your examples. I once used, by way of an example, a controversial subject to describe what I thought was a good example of a rhetorical mistake. My criticism of the rhetoric of the example (I actually agreed with the speaker) was taken to be a criticism of his point and after that it took a lot of effort to bring the discussion back to the original point. Way too much time because the bad example derailed the discussion. So choose wisely.

6) Praise in public as broadly and as often as you can, correct in private as narrowly and as seldom as you can. If you are praising you can easily be wrong about the praise because nobody gets too mad if you are praising something good. Just be sure you are praising something good. And if you are criticizing, you no doubt have an example or two of the behavior you are criticizing, so use them privately if at all possible, and be as narrow and specific as you can.

7) Show some humility, dude. Over time you develop relationships. Some of the people you will be at loggerheads repeatedly. Be willing to admit publicly that you were wrong, ignorant, or whatever, and be specific. Appolgies given seldom hurt you, apolgies witheld become dead weights and invite resentment.

8) Own your opinions as opinions. Last time I checked God doesn't have an account at Inno, so don't act like His or Her representative. When you say something be willing to say "in my opinion." If you are not willing to do that, you might like to have an authoritative source at hand. Most players in this forum are very good at this, but a few times I've seen things that could be opinions stated as facts and that just invites needless controversy.

9) Read and edit. ALWAYS reread what you just wrote. Ask yourself it's as clear as it could be, if it implies any insult to anyone, how the other person is going to take it. One half of your forum post is to express yourself, the other get the reader to understand what you just expressed. Unclear and repetitive rants are often seen as rants. Thus, because the reader sees them as an emotional expression he/she discounts their point.

10) Ask more than tell. Instead of telling a person they are wrong, ask them for their reasoning/evidence, etc. The more you ask (minus sarcasm, I have to add) the more you learn and the more you learn the clearer the question becomes until you arrive at some real, well thought out, position on the matter. And in the long run you might actually find yourself agreeing with that person.

Now of course, in all fairness, I don't always follow my own rules. Sigh. But I do try and think they are a pretty good set of things to consider in our forum interactions.

AJ
 

StarLoad

Well-Known Member
You should add 11) Never make a post longer than what can be read on one screen.

Just trying to be helpful, of course, if you have that already mentioned this then my point is made.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
You should add 11) Never make a post longer than what can be read on one screen.

Just trying to be helpful, of course, if you have that already mentioned this then my point is made.

Yep, but of course, number 9 implies you've eliminated the redundancies and wordiness to a large degree. The problem with adding number 11 is that you then have to leave out a lot of things, like examples and explanations. So you either trust your reader isn't too lazy to be bothered by the herculean effort of scrolling down, or that what you say in the short, pithy, one page (or less) essay, is so clear and profound it's instantly grasped by mere mortals. I am not that great of writer, let alone thinker, so I trust the reader will make the effort to read more than a short and pithy summation of some complex ideas. Sometimes one has to put some effort into learning and exploring. The spoon size feeding of understanding is for babies who haven't developed the intellectual teeth to chew on things yet.

AJ
 

Iyapo1

Well-Known Member
Out of curiosity, how many of your rules did you break in this post?
Yep, but of course, number 9 implies you've eliminated the redundancies and wordiness to a large degree. The problem with adding number 11 is that you then have to leave out a lot of things, like examples and explanations. So you either trust your reader isn't too lazy to be bothered by the herculean effort of scrolling down, or that what you say in the short, pithy, one page (or less) essay, is so clear and profound it's instantly grasped by mere mortals. I am not that great of writer, let alone thinker, so I trust the reader will make the effort to read more than a short and pithy summation of some complex ideas. Sometimes one has to put some effort into learning and exploring. The spoon size feeding of understanding is for babies who haven't developed the intellectual teeth to chew on things yet.

AJ


I am breaking 1 and 4.
 

Evening Star Selene

Active Member
Great post AJ! No matter how skilled we are at communicating, a reminder of the rules for common courtesy and logical debate is always good!
 

NightshadeCS

Well-Known Member
This post could be useful in many other discussions I hear or read these days, not just in this forum.

Thank you, @ajqtrz, for taking the time to type out your post.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
Out of curiosity, how many of your rules did you break in this post?

I am breaking 1 and 4.

Probably more than I should have done. Perfection isn't reached in a day. I could have left out the last line as it comes across as a bit of a sharp edged tongue rather than a calm response. It is one of my "pet peeves" when people "note" that my missives tend to be long. I'm always trying to get people to understand it's not the length but the poor wording and repetition that runes a good post. Sorry for the last sentence which certainly implied readers who can't scroll down are being too impatient, and are acting like "babies." On a positive note, if had read my various blog and forum posts even five years ago they would have been much more acerbic and ill considered. And since I measure success as improvement, not arrival, I'm okay.

AJ
 

Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
I really like this. Hopefully, (yes there is hope), the right people will read it. Oh, that's me. I'm a right person. Thanks.

You should add 11) Never make a post longer than what can be read on one screen.
I read this as #3 - sparring sarcasm ;) Wait, that was sparing. Never mind.
 
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