Are people being combative and unsupportive on this site?

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Are people really combative and unsupporting on this site?
Yes 46%  46%  [ 18 ]
No 54%  54%  [ 21 ]
Total votes : 39

JohnisBlind
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13 Sep 2010, 4:05 am

I think so. Too much negative vibes. I am going to go to some other support sites besides this one.



Moog
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13 Sep 2010, 4:12 am

Ha! More generalisation.

There are those that are, and those who aren't.

Unfortunately the fights seem to draw the most energy.


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StuartN
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13 Sep 2010, 4:25 am

"Are people really combative and unsupporting on this site?"

There are threads and topical forums where the entire purpose is to be combative and undermine other participants, just like real life.

In the main, people posting genuine questions are getting genuine answers, and receiving the support they ask for.



jmnixon95
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13 Sep 2010, 4:43 am

Wherever you go, there will always be the few who are. Otherwise, 95% of the people here aren't "combative" or "unsupportive".



ToughDiamond
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13 Sep 2010, 4:53 am

I've seen both kinds of behaviour - supportive and combative (I prefer the term "competitive," but no matter.

I've not felt troubled by the competitive behaviour - once or twice I've been contradicted in ways that didn't make sense to me, and I felt that somebody or other just wanted to look smart at my expense, but mostly I seem to get either ignored or agreed with, and the occasional prickly comment hasn't really bothered me.

I don't think it's wise to have high expectations of WP. I don't mean that the people are bad, just that we're mostly autistic with poor "mind reading" skills, and although we're often stronger with the written word, we're still going to fail to read other people's emotions for much of the time. Not that it would be too hard to find a non-autistic social site that was a lot worse than WP. Have you seen the crap they post on YouTube about whether a song/singer is good or bad? That gets a lot worse than anything I've seen here.

Sometimes I think we should divide the site into 2 sections - polite and rude - that way the ones who like heated debate would know where to go. People react differently to having their ideas challenged, for some it's like being pushed away, for others it's a kind of bonding. If I had to choose between a lifetime of being completely alone and a lifetime with one person who was an adversary, I'd probably choose the latter. It would suck, but even negative human interaction is better than no human interaction at all.



Ambivalence
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13 Sep 2010, 5:04 am

I fight a constant battle against posting combatively myself :wink: , but sometimes it is necessary. :?

And some things depend. There's a number of things which are sacred to me - science and language stuff - which I feel a strong compulsion to correct when people screw 'em up, and a number of things which are absolute berserk buttons for me - I hate, I cannot stress how strongly I hate, the memetic lies that do the rounds of the internet ("back in the middle ages, they believed..." that sort of thing), and stupid conspiracy theories that display a complete failure to understand the world (which is to say, the overwhelming majority of them), and the (general) bigotry of the religious. Seeing lies and idiocy propagated annoys me immensely, and I think that challenging them is the right thing to do. When people are being stupid, sitting back and letting them get on with it is not necessarily a neutral thing to do; silence can be, to differing amounts, a tacit acceptance of the stupidity expressed, and that may be worse than telling them straight away that they're wrong. *shrugs* I try to avoid PPR (though I find it fascinating) so as to be further removed from having to make that decision. :)


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Moog
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13 Sep 2010, 5:06 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
I've seen both kinds of behaviour - supportive and combative (I prefer the term "competitive," but no matter.

I've not felt troubled by the competitive behaviour - once or twice I've been contradicted in ways that didn't make sense to me, and I felt that somebody or other just wanted to look smart at my expense, but mostly I seem to get either ignored or agreed with, and the occasional prickly comment hasn't really bothered me.

I don't think it's wise to have high expectations of WP. I don't mean that the people are bad, just that we're mostly autistic with poor "mind reading" skills, and although we're often stronger with the written word, we're still going to fail to read other people's emotions for much of the time. Not that it would be too hard to find a non-autistic social site that was a lot worse than WP. Have you seen the crap they post on YouTube about whether a song/singer is good or bad? That gets a lot worse than anything I've seen here.

Sometimes I think we should divide the site into 2 sections - polite and rude - that way the ones who like heated debate would know where to go. People react differently to having their ideas challenged, for some it's like being pushed away, for others it's a kind of bonding. If I had to choose between a lifetime of being completely alone and a lifetime with one person who was an adversary, I'd probably choose the latter. It would suck, but even negative human interaction is better than no human interaction at all.


I see the PPR forum as the 'rude' section :lol: I never go there.

I think a 'wild west' or 'anything goes' section would be good, a place where all the jerks and trolls can go and be jerks and troll each other.

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People react differently to having their ideas challenged, for some it's like being pushed away, for others it's a kind of bonding.


Fire and Air types tend to love 'combat' (I'll call it 'friction'), Water and Earth folks don't.

Carlos Castaneda wrote though his Don Juan character that having 'petty tyrants' in one's life was a good thing, because it helps you build 'character' and patience.


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auntblabby
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13 Sep 2010, 5:40 am

Moog wrote:
Fire and Air types tend to love 'combat' (I'll call it 'friction'), Water and Earth folks don't.


what about all the "all or nothing" scorpio water signs? seems to me they do their share of battling also. i should know, i am one.

Moog wrote:
Carlos Castaneda wrote though his Don Juan character that having 'petty tyrants' in one's life was a good thing, because it helps you build 'character' and patience.


yes, that is the lesson we signed up for before we were born, to incarnate with a bunch of neanderthals to learn "long suffering." :lol:



Moog
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13 Sep 2010, 5:59 am

auntblabby wrote:
Moog wrote:
Fire and Air types tend to love 'combat' (I'll call it 'friction'), Water and Earth folks don't.


what about all the "all or nothing" scorpio water signs? seems to me they do their share of battling also. i should know, i am one.


I don't know. I believe that Scorpios tend to be a bit 'indirect' about their combat. Though, I was very combative when young, and I have a Scorpio ascendant. Not so much any more; my sun progressed to balancing Libra, Mars from crabby Cancer into fun loving Leo. This is why I prefer the word 'friction'. I like frictional contact, but not combat. Make love, not war. ;-)

My statement above is too great a generalisation. I'm as guilty as any.

What's your Mars sign, and ascendant? PM me if you like, this is really getting off topic. :lol:

Quote:
Moog wrote:
Carlos Castaneda wrote though his Don Juan character that having 'petty tyrants' in one's life was a good thing, because it helps you build 'character' and patience.


yes, that is the lesson we signed up for before we were born, to incarnate with a bunch of neanderthals to learn "long suffering." :lol:


:lol: Hey, don't knock Neanderthals, I happen to like to believe that they were a better brand of human than Sapiens. Some speculate that autiz people might be throwbacks of some kind, an earlier form of human.

But yeah, agree, there's something about suffering. Our karma gave us some real hurdles to jump in this incarnation...


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pat2rome
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13 Sep 2010, 6:09 am

Some are, some aren't. Some combativeness may be justified, some might not. It all depends on the context of the behavior, the areas of the forum in which it occurs, the frequency and the degree of it, etc. That's why you really can't boil it down to something so simple.

For example, if someone is saying "man I hate NT's they all can go die" I'm sure as hell going to be combative and unsupporting (I am not implying that you have done this).


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auntblabby
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13 Sep 2010, 6:14 am

Moog wrote:
I like frictional contact, but not combat. Make love, not war. ;-)


i like frictional contact as well, but this world ain't givin' me any anytime soon, other than the mean kind. :wink:

Moog wrote:
don't knock Neanderthals, I happen to like to believe that they were a better brand of human than Sapiens. Some speculate that autiz people might be throwbacks of some kind, an earlier form of human.


the way i see it, AS is Windows PC whereas NTs are Apple. as proof, if Eve were aspie she'd have never gotten herself or Adam involved in that whole forbidden apple scene. :)
maybe Neanderthals were like Windows 3.11 whereas the HS that superceded them were more like Windows NT. just some clumsy computer analogies here :roll:



Last edited by auntblabby on 14 Sep 2010, 8:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Lene
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13 Sep 2010, 6:27 am

PPR and L&D are generally where you'll find the hecklers. The Haven too can be a bit hit and miss.

General Autism or the mature adult discussion is a better shot- although you'll probably get advice more than support.



Keeno
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13 Sep 2010, 6:52 am

I definitely notice more of an element of combativeness lately.



Dox47
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13 Sep 2010, 10:47 am

It depends on where you post and what you post. If you post in L&D that you're a great guy and it's women's fault that you can't get a date, support is not what you're going to get. If you post that in the Haven or Members Only you're having a tough time with life and aren't sure what to do, you'll probably get a sympathetic ear. PPR get's a bad rap because it's very nature is oppositional, people don't tend to be looking for agreement and understanding when they talk politics, there's a reason many bars prohibit 2 out of the 3 title subjects from being discussed.


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Oren
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13 Sep 2010, 10:51 am

I haven't noticed yet, but I wager the combative makes for more interesting reading.


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13 Sep 2010, 11:11 am

JohnisBlind wrote:
I think so. Too much negative vibes. I am going to go to some other support sites besides this one.


Bye bye.