Welcome to Gaia! ::

A hypocrite I am, here are some disclaimers:
I'm posting this as a separate thread because the rant thread no longer seems to be serving as a rant thread.

I was originally going to post this in ED, but halfway through I realized I wasn't creating a discussion and more just ranting, so I finished it out as a rant. Here it is:

There is a plague that has befallen the ED for quite some time now. Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn, any thread that’s title is remotely controversial has a “READ FIRST POST!” in tow. Even threads that may not have the most intriguing, controversial, and bizarre titles contain a disclaimer on the inside, emblazoned in red, bold, all caps, or some combination of the three. It usually includes things like “idiotic posts will be ignored” or, “before you post, please hear me out” or, the ever dreaded, “I don’t want to hear ‘just because the bible says…’ opinions.”

Well guess what, kiddies, people have opinions and they are going to post them, whether they read every word you type or not! And I believe that deep down we all know that. So then that asks the question, why do we do it? Why do we preface our threads with disclaimers and warnings to deter people from misinterpreting what you have to say, or responding before reading your argument in full? Do you think it will actually inspire responders to read the entire thread? I know that I actually avoid posts that have “read first post!” in the title because those threads tend to be contrived, lengthy, tangential, and ultimately not worth my time. But that’s just me.

Or is it?

Usually those “READ FIRST POST” and other disclaimers are added onto the thread and thread title after a few people had read the title of the thread as well as the first few sarcastic and controversial paragraphs/sentences before getting to the actual intellectual argument and responded. Maybe the solution to this problem is to quit dancing around the subject with metaphors, bad satire, and convoluted statements and just get to the damn point.

And it’s not just in ED. Every time I see a disclaimer for just about anything, it’s usually used as some magical device that absolves the author of all inability to argue his or her point adequately. And what a pompous device it is, too! It usually carries this air of condescension that says “if you can’t understand the level of my writing, then clearly you do not have the caliber to make an informed opinion on my argument!”

I hate that there’s this idea that anything that’s written in a way that leads you away from the authors argument, and then transparently – through some thin veil of cleverness – brings you back to the original point in cheap wit is considered “good writing,” and all those people who lack the vocabulary and reasoning skills to understand a complex and misleading argument are too dumb to get it. Good writing, to me, is when someone can write at sixth-grade level reading and still impress an intelligent adult. Or rather, someone who can make a difficult argument easy to understand and make it eloquent, to me, is a good writer.

This is true. I think it should be expected that anyone responding to a thread reads the entire op and some of the current discussion out of courtesy. But they don't. I just feel that it would be easier to just ignore anyone who clearly hasn't read the first post.

There's no real "line" to be drawn. My point is, in a perfect world it can be expected for all people to read the entire first post and then form their opinions. But clearly they don't. So just ignore the ones who haven't, and respond to the ones who have. There are plenty of people who prowl ED every day, and there are at least a select few who actually do read the entire first post. Even if it's just one person, that's still enough to spark a debate/discussion, and that should be enough, right?

Well I would imagine that an idiot with ADD's post would be a far cry from someone who actually read the first post. If something is just maddeningly stupid, there's pretty much no point in responding to it. Obviously you can't always pick your battles perfectly, but I think it's more effective to respond to posts that at least appear to have some backing and intellectual thought instead of slapping a disclaimer on the front page that no one is going to regard anyway.

Yeah, I guess that's a big problem on such a large site like Gaia. Too many people.

Haha, me too. But my ADD is pretty mild (but enough to make me into a braindead blob if I don't take my adderall when I'm already suffering mad senioritis.).

Aww, thanks. But it is pretty bad. I don't take any ADD meds, so I can get a little loopy sometimes. And I tend to ramble. A lot.