Taking it personally

Purple

Registered User
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This is a discussion forum for financial matters with other sections which are secondary to that main purpose.
If someone is giving factually incorrect information to a poster then they should (and are) handled appropriately by the moderators. There is a ban on the use of any bad language. There is a high level of balanced moderation.

Given all of the above why do some posters get so invested in, and emotional about, posts and opinions from other people posting here? This is the internet, it's not real life. Why on earth could the opinions of a stranger, or the AAM persona of a stranger, be that big a deal?

Without contrarian views this place would be dull and dusty but it's just the internet lads, not real life. We've all much more important things to worry about so don't take banter with strangers personally.
 
Everyone believes that their opinions are correct on certain matters and when challenged about their opinions they become defensive or nasty depending on the amount of time Invested in the questioned issue. Its human nature I suppose to find it difficult to accept when we are wrong and we try to pass the blame to someone else for our own short comings. It takes great courage to accept you are wrong as we all are some of the time.
 
It think it usually comes to more than just a difference of opinion, at least for me. Disagreeing with opinions, challenging opinions, all part for the course. It's in how they disagree. They never put forward their own points, anyone who disagrees with them isn't just wrong, they are an idiot. You see it in nit-picking of posts, deliberately selecting quotes to present the other person's opinion out of context, presenting strawman arguments etc

Those are the users that the ignore \ block function is for.
 
They never put forward their own points, anyone who disagrees with them isn't just wrong, they are an idiot. You see it in nit-picking of posts, deliberately selecting quotes to present the other person's opinion out of context, presenting strawman arguments etc

I really dont see this happening. Maybe my eyes just flick past the nit-picking.

Or maybe I am the one they are talking about. :oops::oops::oops:
 
its an ego trip, they're right and everyone else is wrong. In some cases I wonder if they have ever been told as a kid that they were wrong. In others its "notions". Not confined to the internet either.
 
One of the pitfalls of communication by text.
Its too easy to interpret comments out of context. What on the face of it is an abusive or derogatory comment, may have only be a flippant comment never intended to offend.
Alot of my comments in the Brexit thread could easily be construed as anti-British. Far from it, I have high regard for our British neighbors, their culture, history, humor etc.

I had cause to write a letter to an elderly relative recently. One A4 page, it took me near two hours, I had to give alot more consideration to what I was writing and how I wanted to articulate it.
Unfortunately, online posts can, and are, fired out at will (im no less guilty than anyone else, but I think im getting better :confused::))
 
One of the pitfalls of communication by text.
Its too easy to interpret comments out of context. What on the face of it is an abusive or derogatory comment, may have only be a flippant comment never intended to offend.

Some of it is down to that, but when you see the same behaviour repeated multiple times in the thread by the same user, well sometimes there's a wilful pattern of intepreting commments out of context :(
 
Without contrarian views this place would be dull and dusty but it's just the internet lads, not real life. We've all much more important things to worry about so don't take banter with strangers personally.

It comes with the Irish psyche:- It's my way or the highway!

Everybody thinks he/she (usually the He) is an expert on everything. How many people are in hum-drum jobs from year to year and can think of a better way of doing business but know that management just don't want to know? Or back in the day where I worked in the public service there was a Suggestion Box. So Joe-Soap in his lower capacity would put a good suggestion forward which would save time, money and improve the way business was transacted. Almost immediately it would be pounced on by the guys up the line. They didn't want to look bad to senior management being advised by somebody down the line. Some of these managers just bald-headed stole the ideas to improve their own CV. To them it was like the tail wagging the dog.

We are all protected by pseudonyms here. But, that is not good enough for some and we are subjected to their domineering attitude. I use the forum to be better informed and if I experience some fun along the way, then all the better. When people take things personally it is really an indication of what kind of people they are. How often did anybody apologise for being wrong? Do we treat people working in call centres worse by phone than we would treat a person working at a counter in a bank?

Bullies are bullies because they can.
 
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