board77

If that is the way you truly feel, hal, (and I disagree completely that that is the case) I seriously question why you continue to post here. I do not want you to leave, but I simply do not see how you can elicit such a conclusion about the entire board from an argument you have had with one person.

Perhaps your question was clear to you, but not to everyone else.

I had something else to add but after thinking about my words I decided they were incredibly bitchy because I've been annoyed at lots of things this week so I'm just going to get offline and calm down.

well, it's mostly about the rangers at this point.

It's a simple thing to split a thread when it gets off topic. It's not hard to see it as off topic. And it was continuing to go FURTHER off topic.

now there is no topic, so people can say whatever they want. Maybe I'll try a different way to ask my question, because this way clearly did not work.

There's a certain bit of irony, of course, because the entire point was that people ignore the actual subject, and focus on something else to make the subject undiscussable... and that's what was done here, exactly.

halplm wrote:

well, it's mostly about the rangers at this point.

It's a simple thing to split a thread when it gets off topic. It's not hard to see it as off topic. And it was continuing to go FURTHER off topic.

now there is no topic, so people can say whatever they want. Maybe I'll try a different way to ask my question, because this way clearly did not work.

It's even simpler to say, "Actually I meant..." OR to not get so upset when people don't answer exactly as you wish they would.

I probably overreacted, because the first responders didn't even read the thing, and the second responders did exactly what I was saying was a bad thing...

but whatever

One should seriously consider taking a good, long, honest look at oneself if in situtions you believe you're always right and everybody else is always wrong.

indeed, Eru, they should.

I simply cannot agree with you, hal. I saw a sincere effort from several posters (TED and Dawn for example) to respond to your original topic. If they misunderstood the topic of the thread, then it is YOUR responsibility to clarify what you wanted to be discussed. Splitting the thread would only add to the confusion and would not be helpful. I would much rather take a hands-off approach unless there has been a pointed effort to derail the topic. In this case, apart from the posts already split into Bike Racks, there was no effort to derail the thread whatsoever. The Rangers have not made an unreasonable decision.

I split out the bickering Lidless, you and I were involved in. I left the rest because it seemed to me that it was addressing the topic. If it wasn't, well, the thing to do would be clarify what exactly you were trying to get at.

I'm going to lock this and you can try again.

You want to talk about irony?
http://board77.org/viewtopic.php?p=180105#p180105" target="_blank

Holbytla wrote:

You want to talk about irony?
http://board77.org/viewtopic.php?p=180105#p180105" target="_blank" target="_blank

Holby, that is an underhanded attack on a poster. I think it should be removed. Eru bowing to it doesn't help either.

Hal, I really have no idea what you wanted in this thread. My first post was because of what I think is an egregious misuse of the Joe the Plumber situation. My second post was to try to answer your initial post to the best of my ability. If I got it wrong, then simply replying to my post would clarify the situation. Posting comments like "clearly people think it is okay to attack the poster" are not helpful to a discussion. Never once in my time on this board have I ever seen that view held by at least the majority; maybe a member at some point, but I certainly won't be so bold as to dictate another's opinion (I cannot substantiate this claim about this mystery member, so take it as a hypothetical).

I think the big problem here is miscommunication coupled with issues that one person thinks is important, but others do not. Sometimes that is the way it goes on a message board. I post in some threads to say hi or an update on my life or to comment on the thread, and my posts get ignored often. I don't make a big deal out of it because it isn't a big deal. Too often on this board people pre-suppose the opinions of their detractors. That's bad.

If you think your opinion is being stifled or that you are being treated poorly, you have to adjust your style to get the kind of treatment you want. Maybe people are just being mean to you, maybe they are responding to the tone that you exhibit. Regardless, if you temper your style and rational, then the meanies will be quickly exposed and the others will respond pleasantly. You can't force other people to respond in a certain way, only yourself.

Underhanded? Attack?
No. It was proof to me that he was trying to exert control over subject when it suited his needs. Nobody here gets to control content.

I wish you'd post more, TED.

It had little to do with the potential discussion. The discussion was not about splitting threads, so the link is irrelevant. It looked to me like you wanted to stick it to hal by showing an thread where he states how he doesn't like splitting of threads in a thread where he asked irrelevant threads be split. That's how I saw it at least.

Well if Hal is offended by it, I will remove it. And I posted that after the topic was deleted, so there really was no topic at that point. I did answer his question in my first post and then after that the topic veered all over the place including split threads.

Holbytla wrote:

Underhanded? Attack?
No. It was proof to me that he was trying to exert control over subject when it suited his needs. Nobody here gets to control content.

I don't know that it was an attack, it is indeed ironic.

The two situations are very different however. That being opposed to splitting threads, is when they are long, and many things are being discussed.

This situation, was my thread being derailed after one on topic post, from that point forward, every post was moving further form the topic.

I know what the topic I wanted to discuss was. No ranger can determine that something I don't believe is on topic, is in fact on topic. It's MY topic.

Furthermore, most of the initial responses (after the first), were very confrontational and mean-spirited, which makes any thread difficult to keep on track.

The fact TED did exactly what I was complaining about did make me very angry, because I've been angry this continues to happen. The fact it would happen exactly when I was trying to get people to address it, caused me to lose my cool, which I fully admit.

Hal, I apologize for doing what you were trying to discuss, but I need to know--was it the first or my second post? What is this topic about or else I may continue to post in error?

As to Holby's post: since hal doesn't care, I am in the minority.