Popping in again, can I throw three pieces of opinion into the pot?
First:
I think that there are a lot of humans walking around believing that all who disagree are wrong, but I think on a board aimed at Gifties, that there is a special twist on this....who wouldn't have preferred to go all through school with tons of opportunities to be disagreed with by peers who were wiser than we? Even teacher who told us that we were wrong, often we found to be ....wrong. I think that this leaves us isolated in a way that isn't good. Yes, some of us are born with this position as default, but I think that even those folks benefit by repeated exposure to wiser than us peers.
Yes. I really want this place to be (stay) a place where people will jump on statements I make which they think are false, and where it's OK for me to argue back with full strength if I want to. I like to read conversations where other people have that kind of interaction, too. I also like to be able to disagree with things other people say if I think they are wrong, but that is not so important to me - there is the whole internet full of people being wrong whom I can jump on if I want :-) :-) In too much of life, IMO, either nobody will disagree because it's considered impolite to do so, or if they do, they do so with such poor arguing skills that it doesn't add much value. Strong arguments are really important to me in letting me work out what I think!
Second: may I recommend constructive use of Hide All Posts By? You find this useful option on the page dedicated to each of us. I have it turned on for several posters here (no, I won't say which ones!) because I know from experience that their way of putting things often rubs me up the wrong way. You still see *that* such and such a poster wrote something at this point on this thread, and it's one click to unhide it, and in fact I often do so, but the fact that their posts start off hidden is a little reminder to me that I should make sure my guard is up before I read what those particular people write. I suggest that this is one good way to deal with people who make posts we don't feel are helpful, or which are borderline spam. Ignore them, and they'll go away, or change their ways; we have the technology to ignore them, so why not use it?
Third: personally, I don't like the suggestion of using PMs to deal with posts we don't approve of. I've never received such a PM, but if I did, I think I might find it hard to judge whether it was representative, and I would certainly feel that it was more of a personal attack than anything said in public, however it was worded. I did once receive a PM about another poster, suggesting that I and others shouldn't be responding. I suppose that's OK, but in practice I didn't much like it: although I saw the point the PMing poster was making, I felt that as an adult on a public board I could really make my own decisions about how to handle an interaction here and I rather resented being "told" to interact in someone else's style (even if it was worded as a suggestion - I forget).
