Sorry for the ambiguous terminology. OP as in Original Post, not Original Poster.
As a first guess on the philosophy thing, I imagine it is structural and cultural. AFAIK they don’t really have the kinds of discussions that someone can sneak a landmine into. And they seem civilized enough to not go off on tangents of cached thoughts. I just can’t imagine stepping on a philosophical landmine while talking to a professional philosopher. Even if their ideas were wrong, it wouldn’t be like that.
So I wonder what we can learn from them about handling landmines in the field, besides “sweep your area clear of landmines, and don’t go into the field”.
Additional ambiguity of “OP”: does it refer to the top-level comment or to the article the comment is on? Does anyone have a good way to make this clear when using the term?
I’ve never seen that as an additional ambiguity. I’ve always understood “OP” to mean “the original article”, and never “the top level comment”. But maybe this is because I’ve just never encountered the other use (or didn’t notice when someone meant it to refer to the top level comment).
Sorry for the ambiguous terminology. OP as in Original Post, not Original Poster.
As a first guess on the philosophy thing, I imagine it is structural and cultural. AFAIK they don’t really have the kinds of discussions that someone can sneak a landmine into. And they seem civilized enough to not go off on tangents of cached thoughts. I just can’t imagine stepping on a philosophical landmine while talking to a professional philosopher. Even if their ideas were wrong, it wouldn’t be like that.
So I wonder what we can learn from them about handling landmines in the field, besides “sweep your area clear of landmines, and don’t go into the field”.
Additional ambiguity of “OP”: does it refer to the top-level comment or to the article the comment is on? Does anyone have a good way to make this clear when using the term?
I’ve never seen that as an additional ambiguity. I’ve always understood “OP” to mean “the original article”, and never “the top level comment”. But maybe this is because I’ve just never encountered the other use (or didn’t notice when someone meant it to refer to the top level comment).