Darth Wong wrote:Sometimes, people are too quick on the trigger. But they are not expected to read hundreds of novels, all of the tech books, etc. They are only expected to read THE MAIN FUCKING WEBSITE, and a lot of them don't even bother doing that. So no, I do not intend to start treating idiots with kid gloves because they're too goddamned lazy to read the main website but simultaneously too fucking arrogant to admit that they don't know the subject well enough to argue about it. And if you think that people who fit these criteria are a good source of new members, you're on drugs.
I wasn't just talking about StarWars, I was talking in general and using StarWars as an example. Like the time that Tevar mentioned to have a oujia board experience and you grilled and flamed her for several pages in a thread like she had kicked your dog, when in fact the obvious thing to do is shrug your shoulders and go "Eh". You don't believe in oujia boards, but who cares if she does? It's not like it actually, in fact, makes her a stupid person. At worst, it is eccentric or silly, but perfectly bright people have been known to believe really bizarre things before (think of a UFO enthusiast for example). Nor does it actually effect your life in any way. So why the ire? I mean, it's not like they've actually insulted you and you've got nothing riding on it. In real terms, much of the stuff we talk about on this board is trivia. It really honestly worth blasting anyone over.
Seriously, just think about how you would act if you were talking to someone in person. If a person says something that you consider ignorant, do you scream and smack the Golden Light of Reason into them or are you civil? I'd hope the latter. It's not about "treating people with kids gloves", it's that being civilized doesn't stop when you log on to your computer.
And yes, it has cost good members before and will probably continue to do so, because chances are that you will never find a person, even a smart one, that doesn't have some quirk in their personality that has them believing in something eccentric that the angry debators on this board consider "ignorance". It's half the reason we get so few female members who stick around or take part in any actual debate, because the moment they say something, a pack of asshats descend like a swarm of piranhas, and needlessly flame, which
no one would bother sticking around for, but women in particular. I mean, who would stick around on a board where a casual belief in wiccan, for instance, would draw six angry assholes calling the person stupid and viciously demanding that they are stupid? Or someone wandering into the N&P forum, posting something about economics theory (which is a subject that five economists will give you twenty answers for, many of them contradictory) and get "HOW THE HELL COULD YOU BE SO STUPID?!". More to the title of the thread, it doesn't make them less intelligent, they could be bright capable people with alot to offer our little community, but they
won't stick around with people immediately going to full flamewar mode like they have a thousand bucks riding on the conclusion of the debate.
Also, I tend to reserve my worst ire for those who spout misconceptions which would be easily rectified from exposure to real-life knowledge, such as the pinheads who think that reverse-engineering is easy or who ignore the first law of thermodynamics.
Sure, it's not a bright position to take, but is that any reason to flame them? You once complained that you've encountered lots of people who you've dressed down on a topic, then five minutes later you catch them making the same argument like yours didn't happen. You want to know why? Chances are, they stopped listening to you the moment you started cursing and telling how stupid and ignorant you thought they were, and thus none of the facts or explainations you've said had sunk in due to them checking you off in their brain as an asshole. As a general rule, people don't listen when someone is blasting them, they turn their brains off and let it pass. However, they might have
learned something if you didn't immediately skip past personablity and go straight to full on Marine Corp beachhead. That's human nature, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and people listen more often if you show some respect and are civil. Take Kurenko, for example. I have never once seen him do the online version of raise his voice or be anything other than a complete gentleman, even when he knows vastly more about a subject than the person who's argument is correcting. That's respectable, and what he says sinks in. Or seanrobertson, whom I've hard several discussions with on issues of StarTrek, but at no point did he ever get angry or even lose his sense of humor, so we could joke with each other in the thread even after we take opposite views. I don't know about anyone else, but that's when I want to hear what the man has to say. But Incredible Hulking a person just doesn't work if you want people to hear what you have to say, even if you think they are being dumb.
As I've said, we'd probably have a larger pool of worthwhile posters if people realized that. Particularly female ones, which this board sorely needs. Women make everything better, after all, but they don't deal well with getting their head chewed off at the first sign of weakness. You can poll the female members of the board that we do have on that.
As for your assertion that most people are intelligent, that is simply untrue. Half of the population is downright stupid, and of the other half, a lot of them are ignorant.
Actually, I was refering to the population of this message board, where most of the member are, as a general rule, pretty bright guys in real life.
) but I read Dalton's ASVS FUQ page a lot (particularly Chuck's Gospel), and Wayne Poe's hatemail page as well!! I think, compared to those, SD.net is relatively tame (except of Mike, I guess).
