Jerry 🦙💝🦙Jun 28, 2023

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but here we are.

If you get into a disagreement with someone here or for whatever reason the person you’re messaging with asks you to disengage, just stop. I’ve been around since the dawn of online arguments and I’ve never seen a person realize the error of their ways because someone was trolling and/or being an asshole to them in the replies.

If someone asks you to stop, stop. If they block you, take a cue from Elsa and Let It Go. Don’t find alternate ways to continue engaging. I’m sure it the parting shot feels good, or you think you have the perfect reply to help them see the reality of a situation, but it isn’t so.

Please, just stop and think: AITA in this situation?

Show threadJerry 🦙💝🦙Jun 28, 2023

That post about disengaging got a LOT of comments. I can’t respond to them all, so doing it here:

There is pretty bright line between holding a politician or other public figure to account for bad policy decisions and harassing someone in the comments section of a website. I don’t know how this can be confusing. I don’t know everything though, so I can’t discount that I’m wrong.

There is a difference between arguing toward a resolution of a disagreement and harassing someone in the comments of a website after they’ve asked for the engagement to stop. The former is how we advance civilization, the latter is YouTube comments. I also feel quite confident that the comments section harassment hasn’t changed someone’s mind to the way of the harasser.

Yes, someone publicly announcing their are blocking you is not the best way to handle things, but that doesn’t make it acceptable to find an alternate means to continue engaging the person, rather it’s a good indication that you really should also block the person and move on with your life.

Yes, I agree that it is ridiculous that some people will post an opinion publicly and then complain that any replies they don’t like are “reply guys”.

Yes, I agree that if someone posts that the sky is blue and you reply that the sky can be gray on cloudy days and a beautiful orange during cloudy sunsets and then immediately reports your post is not appropriate.

It’s really not that hard to be civilized. I do think other social media platforms have primed many people for confrontational engagements.

Show threadJeff AtwoodJun 28, 2023
@jerry may I gently introduce you to Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Incorporated? https://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-construction-kit/
Civilized Discourse Construction Kit

Occasionally, startups will ask me for advice. That’s a shame, because I am a terrible person to ask for advice. The conversation usually goes something like this: We’d love to get your expert advice on our thing. I probably don’t use your thing. Even if I tried

Coding Horror
Show threadMichał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Jun 29, 2023

@codinghorror oh man, you're behind Discourse? That somehow makes a lot of sense.

Used it back in $OLDJOB, wrote a plugin making it possible to authenticate against (and pull in group membership from) an OIDC IdP. Got released as FLOSS eventually, not sure what happened with it since (the repo is now gone).
https://web.archive.org/web/20220422153823/https://github.com/occrp/discourse-oidc-basic

Anyway, blast from the past. Setting up a separate Discourse for a different thing these days.

@jerry

GitHub - occrp/discourse-oidc-basic: A basic OpenID Connect plugin for use with Discourse

A basic OpenID Connect plugin for use with Discourse - GitHub - occrp/discourse-oidc-basic: A basic OpenID Connect plugin for use with Discourse

GitHub
Show threadJeff Atwood
@rysiek @jerry glad to hear it! Feedback from active admins and users is pure gold to us and always highly prioritized, so feel free to stop by https://meta.discourse.org as needed 🙇
Discourse Meta

Learn about and discuss Discourse, the next-generation open-source forum software.

Discourse Meta
Jun 29, 2023 at 12:43amWeb
Show threadMichał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Jun 29, 2023

@codinghorror đź‘Ť

@jerry