Commence Intelligent Discourse V1.0

[AmyPrib]

Originally Posted by Collmandoman

Should somebody be allowed to flame and belittle another because that individual was provoked - or how about if they harness the power of the bright green rep dot.

You focus on the green dots quite a bit. Do the green dots really matter? All it means is that someone liked what they had to say.

Originally Posted by Collmandoman

You would think an individual with forum reputation would actually act more mature to others. If the people in charge of this forum do not start to treat all individuals as equals - and the childlike bullying from several adults ceases, and finally we stop using GP as a weapon of defense then you an embarrasment to FIRST and its ideas. Yes that's a pretty big statement.

I challenge everyone on this forum to treat everyone else no matter how belligerent with actual GP respect.

If we don't- this community is never going to progress - and continue to oppress unpopular opinions.

I preface this with "this is not an attack".
I tried to have a conversation with you. It became clear that you didn't want to tolerate any questioning or debate because you assumed "attack". You called me part of the "elitest group who makes up CD" and essentially a bully, but you didn't address the issue with discussion, rather name-calling. You were able to gather that from the extremely short conversation we had. As soon as you decided that nobody else is worth listening to, you blocked/stopped me from talking to you at all. Is that mature? It started as simply asking what I missed when you replied to my post but you accused me of jumping on you because I was insecure about you publicly addressing me in the post. I could care less, did I publicly defend myself every other post? The public addressing wouldn't need to be done either way if one made use of private discussions. For such a private person, you prefer to deal with personal issues publicly. I couldn't ask questions or learn about your actions because "you don't have to explain yourself to anyone", yet you insist and expect from everyone else. I just don't get it.

The original post clearly shows that you feel the need to defend your opinion everytime someone disagrees. You can't state your opinion and leave it. Someone disagrees and you're being attacked. I am not sure why you feel so attacked to start with, but the presentation of your thoughts fosters argument. There are many disagreements in these forums, but there are few times where someone gets bent out of shape. As many have said, as well as I have said directly to you, it is not the content of your opinion, it is the presentation. But, as you said, you are not here to please me or anyone else.

People earn respect. It's very difficult for people to shell out respect and warm fuzzies to the "belligerent" folks (using your term). It's not ok for the belligerent people to spew it left and right and still expect praise or equality. There is a certain amount of respect everyone is entitled to, but with abrasiveness, negativity and personal shut-out, it's sure to drop.

I don't see the oppression of unpopular opinions. I see good disagreements and debates, and then I see them turn nasty for whatever reason. And again - most of the nasty cases I see are not the content, it's the presentation. I can't speak to the inequality issues you see, but human nature finds it hard to treat various attitudes equal. When posting in CD, one is expected to adhere to civilized discussion and a sense of GP. It is a part of FIRST.

I haven't seen discouragement of posting opinions - only encouragement to improve the manner in which they are displayed. That encouragement may be misconstrued as attacks, and without discussing it with that individual, it will continue to escalate. I hope for sanity's sake, everyone can learn to take a step back, evaluate what they say before it's said, and have the ability to listen to others. Nobody's perfect, everyone will slip up esp when frustrated, but sometimes you just have to take things at face value and let it go.