That is your problem right there, you’re tyring to change people’s minds instead of letting them see your point of an argument.

Anyway, yes, I think I’m going to try consciously integrating these rules as a procedure before I post things online. I’m always paranoid about my words getting in the way of my meaning. It seems like stopping to proof and refine my message before sending has already helped me with conversational CYA. I think stopping to ask myself these specific questions you lay out in the Solutions section can make a pretty big difference.

Or maybe I’m hopeless, I suppose we’ll see. :P

I’m one of the chat mods over on the PCG Steam community and unfortunately the behaviours outlined in your post ring all too true. In my case there may also be an intersectionality issue going on, as it’s an almost entirely male community so there are a lot of – mostly subtle, some not so – ways in which sexism and gender prejudice can affect discussions too and these just add fuel to the flames.

With the immediacy of a chatroom vs a forum plus the difficulties expressing or interpreting tone on the internet, all it can take is one little spark to set off a heated argument way beyond the scope of the original discussion (and involving way more people).

I don’t know what the solution is, particularly for my preferred little corner of Steam, but this post is a much-needed and long overdue start. What you’ve written here is fantastic. It clearly took a lot of self awareness and compassionate attention to how people interact. Sadly these are not qualities in abundance in casual online communication. I daresay it would take just as much self awareness for somebody to read your piece and identify those behaviours within themselves and try to work on them. I know that I sure as hell suck at it in practice sometimes.

Thank you for writing this.

Sometimes it makes me realize I was wrong.
Sometimes it convinces people of a point I was trying to make, because they answer the question in the same way.
Sometimes it helps me understand what someone else is thinking, or what they’re having problems with.

By trying to strengthen my side of the discussion I got down voted to hell (yes Reddit) while I was trying to keep the moral high ground, keeping my cool and…well yea, it really ruins your evening when good intentions go horribly awry.

I should have consulted your youtube video…damn it hindsight! You did it again!

There will always be Gnome Chompski.