Reply To: Please Change my Mind and Point of View

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 4]

I don’t see it so much on the forums but then again I don’t really see much of anything in the forums these days.

I think comments on articles can sometimes get a bit argumentative, but that’s always been the case – from day 1.  I think you just have to remember that written media is quite dry and quite a lot is lost with the absence of intonation, inflection and body language.  I generally err on the side of caution and unless something is very obviously and openly hostile, I just assume they weren’t trying to be offensive or insulting.  The alternative is to be angry about everything.

I don’t really know what was going on in the discord last night – it was my first time in the discord so I don’t really have a frame of reference by which to judge and I joined a little late so I kind of missed the start.  There were definitely some tech issues and I think that was causing a lot of frustrations so again, I was just trying to ignore that and appreciate everyone giving their time to take part.

I think I am playing devil’s advocate.  While I agree that a little tolerance on everyone’s part would go a long way, that tolerance can be applied in two ways.  First in how we speak/write but also in how we read/listen, we tend to focus quite heavily on the former but often ignore that latter.  You don’t always have to reply, you can just let things slide.

Sure, the odd argument happens but that’s just part of the human experience especially when you are dealing with people who are passionate about something.  I think it’s not so important to try and avoid all argument/disagreement, it’s about how we react and behave when it happens.  Generally speaking the BoW community is not a toxic community.  There have been isolated occasions when it has probably gotten toxic, I certainly won’t deny that but fortunately these incidents have been few and far between.   I have been on the receiving end of some fairly toxic comments and, whilst I am certain I never intentially set out to be insulting or toxic, I am sure people have felt like they have been on the receiving end of it from me (hopefully I am now older, wiser and calmer) and it’s horrible when it happens.  However it’s also been quite a long time since I have seen it happen so in that sense the community has probably improved in that regard.  Sadly it’s also true that the community has lost members over those incidents and having that knowledge has definitely caused me to reassess how I approach online communities.