From my (limited) experience here, it’s not the downvotes that make me feel the site is antagonistic… but the tendency for certain people to beat one over the head with the truth, rather than gently steering me towards it.
Having now experienced both of the above, I can say that the head-beating is both less effective, and more likely to make me hesitant to comment again...
...thankfully I can ignore that feeling if I choose… but if I weren’t so enamoured of reading the posts here, I might easily be put off.
Style loses out to the truth; if you get beaten over the head with the truth, the truth is right there—if you are gently steered towards it, you will go off-course a significant fraction of the time. I understand your position, but what I am trying to say is that “less head-beating, more gentle steering” is not the solution, but “I choose to ignore that feeling” is.
Well, no, ignoring (perceived or intended) rudeness on the internet is not really the perfection of rational behavior, it’s more of a survival skill that everyone, rational or not, learns very quickly. With that in hand, I can then learn to behave rationally from a community that doesn’t prefer politeness over truth.
Yes, the two can be combined, but there are cases where they can’t be (and of course those cases vary wildly on the people involved).
When I was young, I found that I could pick up mathematics very easily, and I simply couldn’t understand why other people bitched and moaned about it so much. After all, it was a really easy skill that anybody could learn if they just tried.
It wasn’t until many years later that I fully grokked that other people pick up certain skills at different rates to me. That what s so obvious and easy for me, might not be obvious and easy for another person. and vice versa.
I now try very hard not to assume that something is easy to learn… and therefore also try not to assume that somebody has also actually learned something that I have learned.
I mess up on that too—all the time. But I feel that it’s good to keep in mind when you can.
In my own case—the gentle steering was far more effective than the head-beating.
IMO there is no way that I would have gone off course with “here is a link showing you a proof of why X is not true” (where X is what I originally claimed) yet is was gentle enough for me to be quite happy to go off and read said link and find out for myself.
From my (limited) experience here, it’s not the downvotes that make me feel the site is antagonistic… but the tendency for certain people to beat one over the head with the truth, rather than gently steering me towards it.
Having now experienced both of the above, I can say that the head-beating is both less effective, and more likely to make me hesitant to comment again...
...thankfully I can ignore that feeling if I choose… but if I weren’t so enamoured of reading the posts here, I might easily be put off.
Style loses out to the truth; if you get beaten over the head with the truth, the truth is right there—if you are gently steered towards it, you will go off-course a significant fraction of the time. I understand your position, but what I am trying to say is that “less head-beating, more gentle steering” is not the solution, but “I choose to ignore that feeling” is.
Ah… so people arriving at this site should already have perfected the art of behaving rationally? ;)
and if they have not—it’s ok to beat them until their morale improves?
Well, no, ignoring (perceived or intended) rudeness on the internet is not really the perfection of rational behavior, it’s more of a survival skill that everyone, rational or not, learns very quickly. With that in hand, I can then learn to behave rationally from a community that doesn’t prefer politeness over truth.
Yes, the two can be combined, but there are cases where they can’t be (and of course those cases vary wildly on the people involved).
When I was young, I found that I could pick up mathematics very easily, and I simply couldn’t understand why other people bitched and moaned about it so much. After all, it was a really easy skill that anybody could learn if they just tried.
It wasn’t until many years later that I fully grokked that other people pick up certain skills at different rates to me. That what s so obvious and easy for me, might not be obvious and easy for another person. and vice versa.
I now try very hard not to assume that something is easy to learn… and therefore also try not to assume that somebody has also actually learned something that I have learned.
I mess up on that too—all the time. But I feel that it’s good to keep in mind when you can.
In my own case—the gentle steering was far more effective than the head-beating.
IMO there is no way that I would have gone off course with “here is a link showing you a proof of why X is not true” (where X is what I originally claimed) yet is was gentle enough for me to be quite happy to go off and read said link and find out for myself.