Raukoamin, please relax ... I've been in agreement with most of what you've written since Page 1. Why you've chosen to latch onto this one item, I'm really not sure and it really doesn't matter to me. Admittedly, my last post was more or less non-productive, but I decided to post it anyway to see if you'd respond, and as expected you did.
So why did I post it? To make this point: If people took more time to think about what they wish to say or write and post before they actually did so, we likely wouldn't need to have a thread like this at all.
Here is a little background on me. I'm a quiet person. I spend a considerable amount of my time watching people in order to understand why they do what they do because there has always been something about me that does not allow me to associate with others well. I'm not timid around people, but I tend to be shut-off from others, so while I appear normal and confident in myself (some people who have trouble with social iniquities often have obvious physical characteristics or signs), my reserved nature tends to lead people to believe that I am snobbish or full of myself ... this is far from the truth.
Instead, I like to consider every situation I am in, analyze my feelings or reactions to most things, listen to what others are saying about whatever, and think about my responses before I respond because I am fearful of inappropriate responses due to misreading a situation. Obviously this doesn't work well in certain social situations and my ability to connect with people is often a very slow process. Granted, I have learned enough about myself after 30-some odd years that I can handle some situations better than I could ten years ago ... but I digress.
Even here I use the same methods. If I am interested in a thread, I will read every post and usually twice before I even post myself. This is because it is too easy to miss certain nuances the first time through, and we do not have visual cues to work with in communication. When I post, I take my time in writing to be certain I've chosen the words carefully that I need to express myself so that others can understand what I am talking about, since I too do not have visual aids to pass on with my text (this is why most if not all forums have emoticons). Finally, before I submit my post, I will read it more than once and make changes where needed, consider the ramifications of what I am saying and how it will affect the reader (this is important to me), and finally submit it. This is partly why I do not post often.
For a thread such as this one, because I consider it important I will read new posts, go off and do something else for awhile during which I consider what response I wish to make, and maybe come back in a few hours with an idea in mind of what that is and go from there.
My point? I'm an extreme case ... most people do not need to take this to the level that I do. Some people who don't probably should, particularly in a forum where most members believe they're dragons of some form or another, but I think in most cases people just need to wait a few minutes before typing, and maybe wait a few more before submitting and think on what they have produced, because what they type is all they have that defines them in this place. Every word is what they are to everyone else, and if the community is important to them then so should be what they say or post.
Where might this thread have gone if I had considered my first response to Selroth early on? This is one of the few times I did not spend much time from thought to submission. I disagreed with his response to Airy, regardless of the fact that I consider Airy a friend I felt it was not appropriate. What if Selroth had considered his reaction to Airy for a few extra minutes? What if Airy had decided against his post after reading it over a second time? Obviously we can't really answer this since we don't know how long Selroth or Airy spent thinking about their posts, or even if they would have chosen differently if they had. I likely would have come to the same conclusion myself about my own post (minus a comment here or there), but that is beside the point.
It's tough to have some self-control in a place like this. One is out to prove him/herself in the community; some maybe more than others but true to a certain degree for most ... everyone wants to be accepted, to feel welcome. So they come in, they see a thread start to develop, and sometimes those threads move so quickly that you have to jump in or your already on page 3 and what you wanted to respond to is no longer relevant to the current conversation. Holding back doesn't seem like the optimal choice, but still I think that giving oneself a little extra time might lessen the number of incidents and re-occurrences of such incidents.
Of course, this is all just speculation from my point of view. Some people likely don't analyze their actions as much as I do, so given five minutes or five days their reaction or response may not change from what initially developed in their heads. I like to have an optimistic view of people, yet I find that it doesn't reflect reality all the time and dependent upon the group or community I apply it to.
Still, one has to commit an egregious act against me or someone else before I will hold a grudge. Over beliefs, very rarely would I ever hold animosity to another person unless that belief was just plain evil by most people's standards. So even if I disagree with someone here, especially here, over anything regardless of how heated the disagreement might be, when the dust settles I can apologize for my part, shake hands, invite you to my home for dinner, move on down the road, let bygones be bygones, whatever cliché works best for you ... because by God there are far worse things for us to be divided over than anything that could possibly happen at this site, and for my part I won't allow it to be. I've been slow to make friends here, but I'll be damned before I create enemies by my actions.
Maybe that is the key, because as you said, Raukoamin, and Spitfire, and myself here and in a few other threads on this site, every member must be responsible for their own actions in order for this to work. And being responsible requires some effort on the part of each person. And effort requires consideration and consideration requires time ... even just a minute or two unless you're me. ;)
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Topic: Hostile posts. (Read 4682 times)
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