Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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When I started reading this thread I thought to myself "all right, finally a conversation about the toxic language on this forum." After all, it's messed up how many people here use language that treats others as inferior beings. Then I kept reading and ... well look, iruinedyourday I give you props for calling out an important issue, but man you need to work on your people skills!
If you want to change people's minds (assuming they're not trolls or actual KKK), yelling/screaming/arguing with them won't work. That just puts them on the defensive, makes them argue for their position, and then they believe it even more strongly than before you started.
Instead, you have to engage with them: appeal to their better nature and try and treat them like fellow human beings instead of as adversaries.
So yeah, whether a forum post says "that loser is gay" or "that loser is a failure" DOES matter. No one wants to see themselves or a group they belong to used as a placeholder for suckiness. But the only way to make others see that is to show it to them, not to berate them.
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Sure, sure, I get it yea. We all need to work on our people skills. I am not even close to even close to perfect.
You cant say anything critical on the internet without someone interpreting you as a screaming lunatic.
Fact is I started the thread with a few jokes and after reading like 2 or 3 responses my mind filled with rage. I am dumbfounded that people are able to find offence in someone calling them a nazi.
Anyway - yea thanks for your feedback. I wish I was some awesome perfect person that is calm and collected and all that. But I'm not. I am one of you, a nerd on a forum. I just happen to think that the mods on this forum should ban people for having signatures that say '100% f----'.
Hence me telling that guy to go f** off, right up above. Sorry.
PS I have heard it all before either on this thread or via PM so please just focus on teh subject on hand - change the discussion to be more in line with how you would like it to be (the last few comments have been and it is exactly what I was hoping for).
Cant promise I wont fly off the handle and yell via the internet at someone though because well people are people.
*EDIT* Also, just also - I really want you loramin (and everyone else discussing my tact) to think hard about this question. If someone is part of a minority and when they do speak up and you think its OK to tell them to change the way they speak up for any reason - are you really being fair? are you not just enabling a new way to silence the minority from being able to speak out? You don't know them, what they've gone through, or what state they are in. By changing the subject to their personal style or grace asking them to conform
once again to a model you see fit, you are doing the same as someone who is telling them shut up or sit down?. I want you to seriously think about that - it may not be your intent but it is a very real consequence. It matters not for how they speak but only what it is they have to say.