Mr Oldschool
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 108
- Location
- Southern Oregon
Sorry if I got the wrong word, but my point remains...it *wasn't* personal. Yet you (and many others) viewed it as such.
Yes, the topic wandered. They tend to do that with open ended questions, such as the one you asked. But I can't for the life of me figure out why you think it wasn't civil. But again, that's the natural reaction around here to any disagreement. It's just the way this forum is wired.
Can I just say, if memory serves, I believe I was more on your side of the disagreement, for what it's worth, and I'm not against you here. I believe you when you say you weren't making it personal; but, from the outside, it looked like an argument, it looked uncivil, and it was starting to look personal. I think it looked more like the other guy was taking offense and was coming back and challenging you on everything you said, but nobody was letting it go.
Part of the inherent problem with message boards is that word choice is almost all we have to go on to try to determine the tone or inflection meant by another person's post, and it is very easy for people to think that someone is insulting them when it couldn't be further from the truth. When I think someone is mistinterpreting something I've typed, because I care what other people think of me, I do what I can to back up and clarify.
In any case, the topic wandering a little is fine, but there was what looked like an argument over "whether young people have it easier now than they did in the Depression, and whether that is a valid thing to compare" in a thread asking "whether hat tipping is still practiced and what hat wearing means to the individual." A lot of people couldn't understand the relevance there. Personally, I just didn't want to get into the middle of it because the "let's agree to disagree" compromise wasn't working and nobody was coming together. Those sort of disagreements get messy. It's like when you watch two of your friends get in a fight with each other. It makes people uncomfortable to watch it.
Oh yeah, I also wanted to just clarify, when I said "have it out" I wasn't meaning like "duke it out", I meant to "talk it out". Perhaps I used the wrong phrase, I thought it meant the same thing. Sorry if I was wrong about that.
Does that cover everything?
EDIT:
And as usual, by the time I've written my response, everyone else has posted and made my statement irrelevant or redundant. In this case both. Okay, so neither of you took it personally. Good, glad to hear it! Really! As I said, it looked like it was getting bad. It looked like it was getting personal. The fact that it was very sharply back and forth with immediate responses that seemed to be picking each other apart were what made it look that way to me.
Kumbaya anyone?
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