BTW, your posts can be long, but I think you first need to prove to us that they are worth reading. There is a couple of people on this forum who’s every post I’ll read no matter how long it is or what topic it’s on.
I see I can’t win. I’m gone. Good luck everybody. I really liked this site. I just don’t belong. We all see the world in different ways. I would have enjoyed one comment on what I wrote.
I see I can’t win. I’m gone. Good luck everybody. I really liked this site. I just don’t belong. We all see the world in different ways. I would have enjoyed one comment on what I wrote.
Good luck.
If by chance you stick around long enough to read this, here’s some unsolicited advice. When you start a new forum, take time to get to know folks a bit before you attack a long-standing member and moderator. If you knew Occam, you would not have seen his post as a personal attack, nor was it intended to be any kind of official reprimand. (Those are always in blue, but you also would have learned that eventually.) Best of luck to you.
I’m beginning to think I’m too sensitive to be an atheist writer. It’s just that I have so much to say. But I really think you are defending the indefensible. This is the line that got me so incensed.
“If you can’t state your ideas succinctly in a few short paragraphs, I’m not interested in wasting my time trying to sort out what you are trying to put across.”
This is the thinking of somebody brought up watching TV and playing video games. What’s maddening is how righteous and arrogant the writer is in assuming everybody has the same short attention span.
As FreeInKy said, only notes in blue are as a moderator, otherwise my comments are just as a member. Your conclusion that I was brought up on TV and video games is a little off since I’m 81. And that may be my problem. I’ve read so much over my life that I’ve found that people who have strong views often deluge the reader with every facet of a topic at times turning them off rather than giving a short overview to get them interested. You may want to review the paper you wrote, carefully extract only the points you consider most important, put aside the long qualifiers and explanations, then present that. Once the readers get hooked they’ll respond such that you’ll be able to fill in the blanks.
We frequently get first posters who come on with a very long tract who we can quickly recognize are only interested in giving their lecture and not in discussion or reading any views other than theirs. While you may be very different from them, you approach appeared quite similar to theirs. It’s usually more effective to read quite a few of the threads and posts to get some idea of the posters and topics, second, respond to some of them, and finally introduce your ideas.
I’m sorry if my “succinct” comment offended you, but at my age I just don’t have the time to spend reading long posts, especially since, as a moderator, I’m stuck with having to at least skim all of the posts every day.
Look, Occam, I don’t know if you have Alzheimer’s or Parkinsonism or what. But the more I read on this board the madder I get. I’ll have you know that I’ve been working on that essay over a year. Every sentence was well thought out, discussed with humanist friends and thoroughly researched. There really was a group of monks in Cordova Spain in 850 AD called the Zealots. There really is a Cuban expatriate professor named Professor Thiofilo Ruiz at UCLA. To my mind, these are both interesting and amazing stories well worth recounting.
For you to say you’re sorry the “succinct” comment offended me shows how detached from reality you are. It’s what came after that’s offensive and arrogant.
“I’m not interested in wasting my time trying to sort out what you are trying to put across.”
For one thing, if you were reading the essay as a member, why didn’t you just go on to another post? Why did you feel it necessary to insert your little digs? What the heck did you ever write? You had to use the term “put across” like I’m some kind of scammer or con man.
I’ll give you some advice: you just can’t step on the creative process like a lit cigarette and then take your foot off, say “I’m sorry,” and then expect it to glow again. There was nothing “to sort out” because there was no excessive verbiage or prolixity.
One last comment before I quit this broad. I grew up in NYC and we had an expression that comes to mind now. Occam will get the joke, though younger members probably won’t.
To wit:
Pun an Italian on a horse and he thinks he’s Eddie Arcaro.
I saw that you deleted your postings. Can’t you put them back?
I think you were treated too harsh. I think it is not a wise strategy too start on a forum with such long texts, as is mentioned before. But I also think there is much better strategy for those who don’t want to read it: just don’t read it, instead of making demeaning commentaries.
Now I will never know if there were any good ideas in it…
Occam, if your text is black or blue, you have the title ‘moderator’. You should be aware of that, and how people can interpret this, whatever your own conception of this status is.
