154: My Durp Snark brings all the boys to the yard and they're like, it's better than yours

[Someone]

Yeah, I know, I stick my flounces about as well as UltraVile, but now I've had some time to get my thoughts in order.

1) C2H5OH's last couple of posts were just vile and hateful and I reported him for it. I'll go Weedy one better and say he should be banned for that.

2) I'm not leaving because of MrDibble. I don't even disagree with him most of the time. I don't care for his posting style, but with that in mind I should have just kept way out of it and/or put him on ignore. That's on me, not him.

3) Since the dawn of Covid and the last election, people overall have been more snappish, impatient, quick to anger, and quick to assume ill intent. it's apparent in spades at the Dope and since the snark threads reflect the tenor of the Dope it's starting to creep in here, too. TroutMan and someone else (can't remember who, sorry) recently pointed that out and it got me to thinking they've got a point.

4) It's been affecting me and I don't like it. I'm enough of a grouch without it extending to my leisure activities. I want to amuse people with witty snarkasm, not piss people off.

5) Some of the best advice I ever heard was, when you find yourself getting mad at a thing, put it down and walk away until you're not mad at it anymore. So I'm logging off for a while, and in fact will be away on vacation with spotty internet access so I'm taking a break, and when I come back it might be as well to avoid the snark threads.

6) Thanks to the people who had all the kind words. You rock. The rest of you suck (KIDDING!!!)

[Someone]

Originally Posted by Someone

5) Some of the best advice I ever heard was, when you find yourself getting mad at a thing, put it down and walk away until you're not mad at it anymore. So I'm logging off for a while, and in fact will be away on vacation with spotty internet access so I'm taking a break, and when I come back it might be as well to avoid the snark threads.

I endorse this advice. I haven’t had to do it on the Dope yet largely by virtue of my liberal use of the ignore feature. There’s still plenty of discussion to be had—and not too often derailed by the people I have on ignore—with people who aren’t transparently racist, misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, otherwise bigoted, or just plain too stupid to be worth engaging with.

On one other forum I participate in, that is sometimes not the case. It’s made up of naval officers, who tend to skew conservative, and unfortunately conservatives tend to skew in the direction of… all those things I just listed. But worst of all, the *moderators (and in fact the site owner/admin) on that forum are themselves some of the worst offenders, which means (1) that I cannot even ignore some of the worst offenders, and (2) somehow accusations of being "political" in forums that are supposed to be non-political only get sustained when it’s one of a small number of moderates (that’s about as far left as we skew on that forum: to the middle) responding to the kind of Trumpist vitriol that could actually draw a warning on the derp if it’s OT-enough or vile enough. (ETA: To be clear, it is the responder, that is the anti-Trumpist, who gets the rebuke from the mods, not the instigator).

I do not remain on that latter forum because I value the conversation. I remain solely to expose others to my POV, which frankly I think they could use (not because it’s mine, but because it’s different from what is typical in that circle), but I don’t for the most part engage in long back and forths anymore because too many of them are, again, the sort of bad faith/dishonest interlocutor that might actually draw a warning on the Dope, but will likely as not with be an actual moderator on this other forum.

Point being, sometimes I take some time off. Because it’s not my job to devote my leisure time to engaging with racist assholes on the internet to the hazard of my own mental and emotional well-being. I’m satisfied just occasionally pointing out to them that they are racist and why. Maybe some day down the line that kernel of an idea will take hold, perhaps prompted by a conversation with someone closer to them in real life. That’s the hope, anyway.

*This, by the way, is part of the reason I try not to go too hard on the mods on the dope, even when I think they’re letting people get away with some things that they shouldn’t. Things could be so much worse.