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Yes.

14 (18.9%)

No.

27 (36.5%)

I had no idea it existed until I read this.

33 (44.6%)

Total Members Voted: 73

[wierd]

See, we are making progress.

Here, I will try to help.

For the trolling implication:

Let's broaden the scope a bit. We will frame it as "religion, and faith."  In this scope, any conversation about religion or faith is acceptable. Is it trolling for an atheist, or an agnostic to attend and voice an opinion?

The assertion that no god exists, or that they do not believe in a certain god is itself still an assertion of religious significance, and important to frame the discussion.

I would say the atheist and the agnostic should not only be allowed, but welcomed and respected, even if disagreed with.

You are saying the atheist and agnostic attending can only mean they are there to troll.


For the prior query, i outright acknowledged that the opposing view was valid. I simply didn't do without additional consideration; It is ok to give up after trying, and finding it is beyond your ability. It is not ok to give up before finding out. The reason is that the latter denies self growth, and should thus be avoided. Not everyone is a mega athlete-- so, not everyone can run a decathalon. Does that mean you shouldn't exercise?

[Leafsnail]

I guess buddying with the other players in a game could be useful, to help you more easily see which of them are available to respond.

[wierd]

Progress to whom? There is no change in idea or viewpoint, only a statement of confusion and an assertion about isolation made posts and posts ago where no disagreement was present. You have then framed understanding beyond the scope of gg's confusion and the major point of the conversation.

The way you are interpreting others' posts is not the way others are interpreting their own posts. Break of communication.

Indeed. The progess is that the confusion is being resolved. One cannot frame a counter argument of merit, if the other party does not comprehend.

I admit to often having this problem, and even had a PM discussion with Misko about it. It appears my brain just works differently from other people in general. I don't think that makes me wrong. Different is not wrong. It just causes confusion.

Where I draw a line in the sand, is when people refuse to contemplate "different", because of its "differentness".

The atheist at the faith convention still holds faith of a different sort. The theist believes a deity exists, the atheist asserts that they have no faith in the existence of the god. The existence of the atheist is important to the discussion about faith.  At the very least, it bounds the discussion, and prevents that bounding from being placed in irrational places.

Look for instance, the ultra-radical conservativism in the US, and the pandemic no true scottsmans involved, where highly conservative politicians are called "RINOS" for not being conservative enough.

If the outside bound is not applied, (an actual liberal, and not just a "not quite as conservative" conservative), then the bound has to be placed inside, which then creates a perverse ideological zeno's paradox. I would like to avoid seeing that happen wherever it can be avoided. That is accomplished by being exposed to the real outside opinion, and coming to understand it.


At this point I myself don't really understand the objections either.

GG has openly stated that being willfully insular is a bad thing, and leads to trolling. I agree with that. But he then went a full 180, saying he doesn't understand why a person opposed to adult MLP should be allowed to post on an MLP forum.  Did the concept that the fanbase of MLP is more than just the adult ones not occur to him? Perhaps some of the child fans of the show think it is strange for adults to like it too? Why prevent that conversation from being possible, and immediately jump to "troll! Burn it with fire!"?  I am honestly confused by that.

[Zangi]

GG has openly stated that being willfully insular is a bad thing, and leads to trolling. I agree with that. But he then went a full 180, saying he doesn't understand why a person opposed to adult MLP should be allowed to post on an MLP forum.  Did the concept that the fanbase of MLP is more than just the adult ones not occur to him? Perhaps some of the child fans of the show think it is strange for adults to like it too? Why prevent that conversation from being possible, and immediately jump to "troll! Burn it with fire!"?  I am honestly confused by that.

Because if anyone is going to start that conversation with legitimacy, it would be someone that is already established within the particular community.  Not some stranger that comes out of the blue and for all they know is probably is some troll with nothing better to do. 
Actually, given how toxic some people can be when it comes to particular fan communities, it is a reasonable reaction.

[wierd]

That makes some sense, but still boils down to "it puts me outside my comfort zone, thus bad.--deny!"

(This is exactly the pathology behind racism, where the different skin color makes people uncomfortable, and where segregation is enforced. It is also the pathology behind sexism, where having the wrong genitals means "unwelcome! Your opinion does not matter, stop trolling", and also with sexuality, where "homosexuality if the devil! Jesus hates homos!" Comes into being.)

It also still results in the perverse zeno's paradox I mentioned earlier, and incorrectly bounded ideas of what is "normal".  (An extreme example of this was the nazi purity ideology. Not only "white" supremecy, but also "no, you aren't white enough! You aren't a TRUE aryan!", where "purity" is a constantly shifted goal pole.)

It's the reason why cherry picked statistics aren't legitimate datasets as well. The concept has far reaching impact. It shouldn't be taken lightly.

[misko27]

As always I think there is a middle ground between "consume all" and "Only speak with my bros (and sis)".

Yes you can prioritize chatting with friends, and yes you should listen to people you disagree with. Both are healthy. Doing one exclusively is questionable.

[wierd]

That I can live with, as long as the grounds for using the ignore button aren't "they hurt my feelers!" Or "I can't understand what they are saying, and keep spouting incomprehensible bullshit."

You shouldn't obscess over slavishly understanding another's opinions, but you should at least try to understand them. If, after that attempt you determine they are not rational, or that they are being purposefully mean for no objective reason than just their personal pleasure,Yes, by all means click the ignore button.

GG did not do that here, and DID try to understand me, despite the mutual difficulty. I appreciate that, and would like to thank him.

[GlyphGryph]

Well thanks for the conversation. Im not sure if anything was gained on my end, though.
Also atheism is not a type of faith and all that rot, but tangent.

Heres the biggest problem with your reasoning - for the most par, the people doing this are the ones who are ignorant, at the very least ignorant of the fact that they arent bringing anything new to the table. If you go on an fan forum to say you disagree with certain people being fans of a thing, esp. with MLP, what are you hoping to accomplish? What of value are you actually ovffering to the community?

If you arent offering anything of value in return, all you are doing is trolling for a response.

Do you think they are unaware your opuinioon exists? (because seriously I am sure they know) Do you think you have a meaningful argument that they havent heard before that will open them up to sommething they hadnt considered before? Or do you just feel that you are important and special people should HAVE to pay atttention to you, even if your opinion offers nothing of value.

Conversation is an exchange of ideas, and if you arent offeringanything ofvalue you arent worth listeing to. Its that simple. If you engage in a market transaction in which you can only lose money, you have failed - there is no failure in avoiding such a transaction completely. The same is true of conversation, and even this conversation - if I come out of this having accomplished  nothing but overcoming the confusion this conversation has generated, having learned nothing of interest or of value, then I have failed. There are countless conversations where such an outcome is from all appearances inevitable, because the other party is simply not interested in that sort of conversation.

In this conversation, that isnt so important - I am mostly in this thread to pass time and entertain myself, so its not an issue. But if you had insisted on continuing this conversation in one of my forum games or the Cataclysm thread? Then you not only wouldnt be offering nothing of value, you would be actively hindering the ability for others to impart valuable pieces of information to me on top of it.

If a person makes of actively hindering the exchange of ideas, this isnt an attempt to eliminate insularization but an attempt to dictate that every conversation be of value to THEM regardless of the damage caused by others. That sort of egocentric trolling is definitely worth ignoring for anyone who  honestly wants to expand their ex0osure to a variety of viewpoints, because yes, said person is being nothing more than a bully and they are doing it at the expense of valuable viewpoints which could otherwise be shared by those who are driven off by their drivel.

If you cannt convince a person you have anything valuable to say, ignoring you is in no way a failure on their part. Its that old joke about how the only  common thread in all of certain persons failed relationships is themselves. I dont know how old you are, but eventually its likely you will realize that a large chunk of the people who want  to talk but dont care overmuch why. If   you engage all of them, you will gain  nothing and they will drain you of everything. Thats the entire reason I come to places like this - to go to a place where i can actually be exposed to ideas that are not just new but potentially valuable.

If someone is worried  about getting ignored by me, its not because we disagree, and the real reason has an easy solution - stop trying to waste my time.

So, again, what is the goal of posting "I DISAGREE WITH YOUR FAN PREFERENCES" on a fan forum? (Which, I should remind you, is a forum for fans, which you are assuredly not, and is NOT generally a forum to discuss the fandom itself, though some might be that too) What are you actually offering of value to the people there?

[wierd]

in this case, it was a devil's advocate (since, again, I don't hold such a view). The purpose of the suggestion was to demonstrate that insulation is being done there, and nothing more. As for why a person with a legitimate reason besides trying to evaluate the group's behavior under a stimulus, I can only conjecture. Again, I don't hold such a position or view.

Some possibilities I have seen raised, may be that adults have more resources to expend on their fanaticism, and that the fallout of that resource expenditure can be very unwelcome; eg, "please remember that not everyone loves MLP, and some people really don't want to see pinky pie flying the tardis, M'kay?" And such.  (That is an actual opinion expressed by a friend of mine. Much like The Doctor probably shouldn't go visit in places he shouldn't, Pinkie Pie probably should stay in pony land.)  There is nothing really innately wrong with taking something you like and making tributes to it-- but in places of general assembly, like a public forum not dedicated to MLP, it probably isn't the best idea to expend lots of resources spreading pony propaganda. That could be a legitimate thing that they would like to address, especially after having been so accosted. (The other deviantart blog I mentioned but then couldn't find a link to was exactly about that-- MLP being crazily over-represented at DA, which is not a subforum for MLP fans. MLP can be there, but it probably shouldn't be epidemic, for the same reasons you just asserted above, and which I can agree with.)

If the community consensus is "MLP is WINNNN!", and this view goes uncontested, or such contestations are immediately maligned as "hating!", you end up with what happened on both of those DA blogs. This is because people that don't feel that MLP is win, will openly say so, and assert that they would like for you to stop.  In this sense, "sex is fine and dandy, but rape is bad. Please stop raping-- adult MLP fans are more likely to perform intellectual rape on other genres, and I am opposed to that. If you would please stop that, I wouldn't have a problem."

That kind of thing is decidedly not trolling.

And yes, if the message is continually "MLP is GREAT!" At 100% volume to drown everything else out, then the only recourse left is to show up on the doorstep and let them know. That isn't trolling, it's self defense from the pink pony menace.

It's similar with nationalist propaganda. "America is #1", and "usa, usa!". As was said at the nuremburg trials, "tell a big enough lie often enough, everyone will believe it." More or less.

When every door is shut, and every means of being polite are excluded from you (because you aren't a pony fan, how dare you!), the only method left is to be impolite.

That's one of the reasons for things like Landoverbaptist and TheOnion. Both are decidedy trollish. Both are conveying a message about an insular group of people. (Religious fundies, who rail about "true christians', and the press, who rail about "real journalists'.)

[GlyphGryph]

You do realize that that whole perfect paragraph there is like pretty much exactly the standard "troll", right? The whole "go some place that is for other people to do their thing away from outside bullshit, and then forcefully act contrary just to stir shit up even though I don't really believe in what I'm arguing". Like, you are literally saying right now "I am not a troll, despite all the trolling I was doing."

The other reason you offer for posting on their forums was to purposefully force your opinion on them and change their behaviour.

And you tried this on a group that has retreated into this insular community and been forced into such a defensive and reactionary stance specifically because of frequent and repeated attacks from outside forces who can't stand that they like the things they like or who want to torment them just because.

Dude, I hate to say this but you either a troll (as your first paragraph suggests) or an incredibly misguided and rather selfish jerk (as the rest of your post indicates), and it's kinda looking like both?

And trolling as "self defense" is an incredibly stupid justification.

If this is a true story, I think they were perfectly right to ban you, honestly.

[wierd]

No, a person's rights end where another's begins.

Here's a different situation:

You live in a cul-de-sac, and the neighbor throws a party. Not just occasionally. *EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.* it isn't just a party. It's a party with glass breaking bass, and drunken fistfights. Nightly.


When is it OK to go next door and tell them to stop? Afterall, its THEIR house, THEIR party, and YOU were NOT invited. 

[kaijyuu]

Appropriate steps. Go to the next one if the first fails.

1) Ask them to stop.
2) Talk to the landlord to get them to stop.
3) Move out.

[GlyphGryph]

Did you talk to the specific people involved?

Or did you just do the equivalent of sitting on your porch and shake your fist at the next teenagers to walk by and say "they should learn some respect!"?

Because no one infringed on your rights here, you know. Other people being a dick doesn't magically make you not-a-dick when you act like one.

And the appropriate place to tell them to stop would have been in the deviant art thread, presumably, not following some of the guests home and knocking on their door at a random time during they day to rant about how much you hate that they go to parties.

[Elephant Parade]

No, a person's rights end where another's begins.

Here's a different situation:

You live in a cul-de-sac, and the neighbor throws a party. Not just occasionally. *EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.* it isn't just a party. It's a party with glass breaking bass, and drunken fistfights. Nightly.


When is it OK to go next door and tell them to stop?

...Immediately, obviously? I think this is a flawed comparison, though. I mean, it's not like that forum is holding fistfights that you can constantly hear. I mean, people from that forum might talk about the show on other forums, but that's more like somebody in the room holding a conversation you're not interested in.

Going on a forum specifically to disagree with everyone on the forum seems silly, honestly. They don't gain anything (they know that lots of people dislike the fandom) and you don't gain anything either.

As for somebody's rights ending as soon as somebody else is involved, it's not quite that simple. I can't punch somebody in the face for talking about a book I don't like, but if they're hassling me about it, I can tell them to stop.

[GlyphGryph]

Oh, I have a suggestion!

Have you considered ignoring them, since you clearly aren't interested in listening to their contrary (admittedly off-topic) positions and would rather they prevent themselves from piercing your insular little non-mlp world?