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communication

here's a good place for FRIENDLY, ENJOYABLE, and otherwise very GENERAL discussion!
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Leet
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communication

Post by Leet »

i have autism, and a large part of that for me is that i prefer communication to be direct, and will often perceive and focus on direct communication (i.e. the actual words being said and other quantifiable elements of a conversation) rather than implicit communication such as mood. the thing is, i don't really consider this a deficit or disadvantage, because mood can be a very subjective thing, and many times people will subjectively perceive implicit communication in different ways, which leads to more misunderstandings. i think focusing on quantifiable elements of communication creates more objective and understandable conversation.

now, i will acknowledge that trusting people to actually mean what they say relies on taking them in good faith, which isn't something we can always guarantee. even so, i don't think cynically assuming people are talking in bad faith and acting as though this is absolutely confirmed is a great solution to this. if you have to choose between assuming good or bad faith, i would prefer you to choose good.

often times on the internet, when i watch a conversation play out, i strongly feel like many people have a conception of a subjective mood of the conversation, and that they are responding to this rather than to the actual words people have said. this manifests in various forms. the most major is retroactively treating any sort of serious conversation like a heated argument in ways that retroactively frame it as such. "i'm staying out of this one!", "everyone who posted is stupid for caring about anything", "omg what happened here?/what did i miss?", reaction gifs, abruptly changing the topic etc. then, someone else comes into the conversation or thread, sees that post, and believes this in kind. they post a long emotional reply. the myth of the conflict is retroactively created, or at the least, granted new importance, when originally it would have been unremarkable.

i suspect the general response to what i just said would be, "well, you're talking about your autism. just because you don't see the conflict doesn't mean it isn't there." but my point is, is it really so bad to take peoples words directly? (instead of extracting a general vibe from those words and responding to that?) it may not be what comes naturally to normal people, but that doesn't mean it's worse.

now, i'm not saying there aren't people who make rude posts or insult others. but when this happens, i often see the same phenomenon occur where that person's posts are seen as representative of the whole conversation. i suspect that it is sometimes easier for people to say "this conversation has gotten too heated" than for them to just call out someone for being a dick. possibly because calling them out for this is seen as directly participating in conflict, even if it's fully deserved, while making a standoffish post about "drama" is not seen that way (even though it DOES do harm, according to my argument). when it comes to the talkhaus, i think back to a certain thread where this site was described as "a place filled with hate" or something like that, after four posts spread out over several pages were rude, by someone who IIRC said outright that they had not been reading the thread... (or more recently, "drama, huh. the talkhaus doesn't deal with that well" after a page full of constructive agreeable discussion)

it has become very hard to use the talkhaus when i feel like people are consistently walking themselves into arguments that they could easily avoid by just taking the words in front of them at face value. even most posts about "people always get into arguments here!" seem reluctant to ever talk about any reasons why, and just blame everyone equally for nothing in particular. this is very frustrating for me. when you've seen the same pattern repeat on the internet dozens upon dozens of times, and feel quite done with it, it's hard for me not to make comments along the lines of, "this post is making things worse, not helping", or, "this doesn't have to be an argument if you don't treat it like one", or "one particular person/post was the problem here". but most people must just find this annoying or confusing, because it doesn't help either, and in one instance just caused someone to tell me i was "pretending" not to see conflict, suddenly treating me like a disingenuous enemy.

i'm not dramatically leaving, but, well, there's a reason i might want to. quotes paraphrased. (kinda just expecting people to dismiss me for talking about autism frankly tbh)
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ano0maly
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Re: communication

Post by ano0maly »

I think this is less about your autism condition than about the community. There are things the community could do better - at the same time, sometimes incidents just happen in an online community, and honestly the way talkhaus has been in the last couple years was better than conditions of some other communities I was in or saw.

And I agree with your sentiment - it helps to try to reach a communication with one another, instead of talking over each other and trying to shape the other person's comments into something opposable so you have an excuse to yell at it or argue forcefully against it. But I also think that if the general vibe of a conversation is bad, it does help to try to put out the fire first and then examine what went wrong. This is what you yourself tried to do at times to improve the given situation, and it might be why sometimes people are turned off by the drama itself - it doesn't look good when it could have been avoided. But you are right, perhaps once you stop the arguing it may be important to look into what went awry.

I can't forcibly stop you from leaving, but if this is the reason you're considering leaving, I would be saddened because I think you're overall a valuable contributor to discussions. Maybe it would help to take a short break instead.
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Coryman
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Re: communication

Post by Coryman »

I heard a thing a few years back that really stuck with me since. "An argument is 10% what's being said and 90% tone". I think about that a lot, and there are definitely times where I leave what I consider an argument, only to look back and think "was anything bad actually said?"
So yeah, I feel like you're definitely on to something here. I've been pretty inactive in the Talkhaus for the last few years while, so I don't know the actual context, but based on other stuff I've seen I think I understand.
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Re: communication

Post by KobaBeach »

Leet wrote: 4 years agobut most people must just find this annoying or confusing, because it doesn't help either, and in one instance just caused someone to tell me i was "pretending" not to see conflict, suddenly treating me like a disingenuous enemy.
I'm sorry for this I was just really pissed off at Morsel's personal attacks just because I said I didn't like the Bowser boss like fuck off dude (@ him not u)

I do see what you mean and the stuff that's happened on JUMP1/2 is honestly why I've stayed mostly quiet in the "active" LP threads (M&L, DT3). VIP5 and Sonic are chiller and I feel like they benefit more from the ambient.

M&L just devolved into an argument about difficulty in games which like, I don't think Ashan's stance of easy mode being "cheating" is in any way respectful to people who legit can't play on harder difficulties and people who don't really care about turning every single game into a skill to hone (like me) but also the whole argument was just a headache and I just avoided it because I didn't want to make it worse.

I'm also on the spectrum (so is YK in fact, but I have Asperger's), so that probably also contributed to the JUMP1/2 nonsense.
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Re: communication

Post by morsel/morceau »

KobaBeach wrote: 4 years ago
Leet wrote: 4 years agobut most people must just find this annoying or confusing, because it doesn't help either, and in one instance just caused someone to tell me i was "pretending" not to see conflict, suddenly treating me like a disingenuous enemy.
I'm sorry for this I was just really pissed off at Morsel's personal attacks just because I said I didn't like the Bowser boss like fuck off dude (@ him not u)
Nice going using a thread which is appealing for good relations to tell me to fuck off and to allude to a paranoid narrative you have imagined in which I am victimizing you with personal attacks. Even though I do not regard it as a deadly insult, I do regret calling you a thread shitter (see below), although I do think it describes what you do rather well (see above). For one thing it allowed you to dismiss any thing of relevance I said as a 'personal attack', instead of whichever catchword you would have used to dismiss it otherwise (probably 'defensiveness'). A kinder way to have put it would be to have said you were a child in a crowd throwing stones. You seem to think you can say whatever you like to or about any one with no sort of comeback, free speech operating in one direction only.

I should also, to clarify, say that I did not even directly call you thread shitter, but asked you to imagine you were not one. This is not merely a jesuitical distinction. It was an appeal (to follow my metaphor above) to take yourself out of the crowd and put yourself into the procession.
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CrappyBlueLuigi
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Re: communication

Post by CrappyBlueLuigi »

morsel/morceau wrote: 4 years ago Nice going using a thread which is appealing for good relations to tell me to fuck off and to allude to a paranoid narrative you have imagined in which I am victimizing you with personal attacks. Even though I do not regard it as a deadly insult, I do regret calling you a thread shitter (see below), although I do think it describes what you do rather well (see above). For one thing it allowed you to dismiss any thing of relevance I said as a 'personal attack', instead of whichever catchword you would have used to dismiss it otherwise (probably 'defensiveness').
this type of thing is what this thread is meant to bring attention to. i'm not saying this to say "this is your fault" or "you posted wrong", but that the dialog presented here isn't direct and can be easily read antagonistically instead of constructively. i'm sorry if that's frustrating to read instead of having your points acknowledged (they're not bad points, and could really benefit from a constructive conversation between you and koba), but i think this thread should stay about its core issue:
Leet wrote: 4 years ago ...mood can be a very subjective thing, and many times people will subjectively perceive implicit communication in different ways, which leads to more misunderstandings. i think focusing on quantifiable elements of communication creates more objective and understandable conversation.

...

it has become very hard to use the talkhaus when i feel like people are consistently walking themselves into arguments that they could easily avoid by just taking the words in front of them at face value.
(truncated for emphasis)

(the rest of this post is not in response to morsel's)

i only noticed this thread a couple of days ago, and it really struck me because i find this issue really important, everywhere, in general. it took me a while to have the spoons to really respond with anything here, though, because it's super taxing just thinking about this.

i'm not sure how much my perspective aligns with leet's (in terms of how we experience reading things on the internet i mean, not in terms of how much we agree), but tone is really hard for me on the internet because i tend to read too much into tone. i'm also super sensitive to teasing and insults for personal reasons, so i tend to get really uncomfortable with people who won't talk directly with me. in my mind, it's easier to be frank and genuine about things than it is to be facetious or sarcastic, because the latter ends up feeling like you're dancing around sentiments instead of giving any certain indication of what you feel.

i've noticed, when people want to say to me "i can't fathom why you think this is important", most of them will instead opt to have a laugh at me and try to make my position look absurd instead of just saying "i don't care about this and i don't think you should either." at least with something like that, i know where the person speaking with me stands, and i can question it. but when my position is mocked, it feels like they're trying to drive me out of the conversation, because there's very little i can say without feeling like i'm escalating things. it's super uncomfortable, and i've had a few separate instances on these forums of people doing that with me. and i just... don't get why they have to act that way

i appreciate you making this post, leet, and i hope people look at it and think.
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