I have an opinion, so sue me

Emma,

Even when I have not agreed with you, and I disagreed with you pretty strongly in the first land thread, I have liked your posts and find your opinions to be well stated and you stand behind them firmly but are respectful. I am sorry that you had the kind of attacks levelled against you that you did - the discussion was going fine without that kind of crap. It is one thing for discussions to get heated - I think most people can handle the sarcasm and snideness that goes back and forth in the forums (well except for a few people). The attacks on you in that thread, and DogSpot also, were different and kind of out of left field I thought.

That someone even harassed you in world is even worse. I have actually had it happen myself, though at the time I found the experience funny because of who the person was harassing me. Taking an argument in world just seems so ridiculous to me. The only time I have taken something in world was to try to soothe an argument, not continue it.

Anyway, don't let it bother you too much - people blow a lot of hot air and get into this game of one upmanship and lately it seems that some people look for the most shocking thing they can say to just put an end to things. Kind of a scorched earth approach to getting a thread closed. DogSpot summed it up best - I have been really thinking about it, the forums have definitely become a cluster fuck.

Well, I have figured out early that a topic will have some good debate for a little while then it will just turn into personal attacks and such. Now as soon as I see that happening I just tend to stop my discussion on the topic because no matter what I say people will just try and get me to fight with them. It's not worth getting upset over something so miniscule as a forum discussion.

Must you be so bloody condescending? Must you - and others - constantly marginalize others in this fashion? Do you really think other people are so stupid?

Perhaps you don't get it, Forseti. Ever think of that?

I do get it. I reject it. Is there something about that you don't get?

Of course we can all boost our personal defenses. Have you failed to notice that my personal defenses happen to be extraordinarily strong, or I wouldn't even still be here? How many people who aren't so confident may well have long since slunk away by now?

The question is not how we can better be able to sling insults at each other with impunity, may the strongest survive.

I don't want only the strongest to survive.

I want the guidelines enforced.

I'm sick of seeing people treated like crap here, and one person after another leave. And other players refuse to even come on the forums.

I don't need any advice on how to grow a thicker skin.

I want a place where people don't have to grow a thicker skin, where it's not a playground for the meanest and nastiest, and anybody who can't take it can go away.

I don't expect to be able to "control" other people, as so many of you are so fond of psychoanalyzing me. Where on earth did this crap come from? I don't care how nasty people are on their own dime. I care about it when they come take the Forums as their own personal playground to do so. Because the forums should be a safe and reasonable place for everyone to express their views in an atmosphere of respect.

I want the Lindens to control people! By enforcing the Guidelines! What about that do you not get?

And it is in their best interest to do so.

It was in their worst interest to make forum banning mean permanent game banning. This doesn't give them more "teeth;" it actually removes their teeth, because it is something they really don't want to do. Like an ineffective parent, never paying attention to the small things, but instead just telling the kids that if they don't behave, they will <fill in the blank with something they will actually never actually do>.

And yes, I have been bothered in-game, too, but that is actually much easier to deal with. I just told the person not to bug me anymore.

Maybe, Forseti, you just don't get it, or maybe you just don't get where I'm coming from, or maybe you do get it but don't like it.

In any case, there is little need to treat me - or anyone - like a backwards child.

coco

There, Nolan, I went back and changed all those caps for emphasis to italics, which requires putting in all these time-consuming and not necessarily working [ amd ] and i and /i signs, and then spend time proof-reading it with a fine-tooth come, and even then sometimes the ['s don't take.

That's a pretty strong reaction to such an innocuous comment. But what else is new.

Wheee and another thread begins it's death throe.

No, you really DON'T get it. Emma has already been personally attacked. Past tense. Had you bothered to actually READ my post, instead of just thinking how you could contradict it on your psuedo moral high ground, you would have seen that the options I listed were what she could do to go on from there.

It is not innocuous when you take into consideration that maybe I have been dismissed that way a hundred times, and others get similarly dismissed.

coco

P.S. I saw them, Jonquille. I just think people should stop giving others advice on how to take it and survive, and start thinking about how to stop it.

AND with that I'm out of here. Carry on.

Does this mean you will stop telling other adults how they should behave?

That only means you've probably overeacted hundreds of times then. Pick and chose your battles and you'll probably be much happier.

Personally I find it better to learn to deal with and accept reality rather than resent everything and everyone for not living up to my idealised view of how things should be. It's simply not practical and you set yourself up to be disappointed on a daily basis. Is it better to find common ground and learn to get along with people you find difficult or is it better to expect them to change or LL to force them to change (neither of which is likely, if even possible at all)?

By that same line of logic, maybe we should stop teaching women self-defense because it's wrong for people to attack them.

So then forum nanny's are a good thing?

what I find ironic is that a thread decrying this type of behavior has devolved into it.

Well Joseph, please note I'm not really saying anything anymore. The thread is past page 4, so honestly it was to be expected.

Me? Bitter? Nah.