McCain debate tactics and beyond

Even if no one posts to this, I still commend you for trying anyway-- what a bunch of self-absorbed people on this website.

What do you mean, Cliff?

As you noted, this thread is unfortunately a little redundant. In addition to the thread you found there are two others about the presidential debates (I started one of them and didn't pout when people went to others or started their own).

I think that perhaps you haven't learned how to find things on this site yet -- which is of course fine (it takes a while) and I'm happy to help you figure that out.

A start would be to do a tag search for "debate" to find threads you want. (On the home page, there is a box under the words "Search Tags" on the left side of the screen.)

What I mean is-- people are very self-absorbed on this site. I did do a tag search under debates and it brought nothing up-- even though a little voice in my head told me my results were incorrect.

Pout, I may. I try to respond to the lesser responded discussions because I know what it's like to not get responded to (this is not a call for violins this is more a frustration, I'm a big boy, I can take it)-- a lot of those discussions get ignored because what's predominant on this site-- to me anyway-- is it's much like high school-- with certain cliques.

I would like to see you explain to me how people are otherwise on this site.

Can you do the search again now? Try "debate" and see what happens.

If you get nothing, something's wrong, and I can maybe try to help you figure that out.

I think you're avoiding my claim.

What is unclear in the tag search is you have to go to the home page first. Not a very clear part of navigating the site-- seems inefficient. This is not an insult to the designers-- it's an observation, I could not design this site and that's precisely the person the designers ought to consider when making this site.

I know they want to move us along and change is good, but I am not sure what was broken about the old site.

I'm trying to focus the many different things you're saying here so I can perhaps help... if the tag search didn't work for you, I think it's likely that you're doing something wrong.

If you tried again and it worked, cool.

CH, Not to worry; that tactic lost him the Independent voters every time he said those words. It just goes to show that McCain doesn't understand "tactic" by its very definition. People want to hear solutions, not bombast and trying to downplay the other candidate. As a matter of fact, I hope he doesn't remove that from his vocabulary until November 4.

CI, Are you saying the undecided were put off by this? Or were the non-McCain supporters put off by this?

I think you are avoiding answering the question-- you raised the issue I was pouting, now I would have a favorable impression of you if you stood your ground instead of shrinking from addressing this.

CH, The independents were put off by this; this was reflected in how they were "voting" as McCain repeated his negatives against Obama during the debate.

McCain: "What Obama doesn't seem to understand....blah, blah, blah..." was condescending and irritable even to me.

Stood my ground? What ground?

Evidently you now find what you want by searching for "debate." Cool. I'm glad. (And was genuinely willing to help if you were having problems.)


As for debates about "cliques" et al, sorry, just not very interested. I joined Abuzz (another discussion forum where many A2K'ers first met) about eight years ago. At the time I was annoyed that nobody paid any attention to me. I stuck around. I kept participating. I became better known and got more responses. This took a while.

And I've seen about 20 zillion discussions about cliques since then. Sometimes it's utterly ridiculous. Sometimes I really have seen a clique mentality at work, and I don't like that when I see it, and I say so.

Speaking for myself, I try to respond to people who say interesting things no matter who that person may be. And to take other people to task if I feel they're being unfairly exclusionary. And to offer help to whomever may need it.

In this particular instance, I don't think the initial lack of response has anything to do with cliques. I think it has to do with the fact that it was something like the fourth thread on the same topic (making a point that had already been made on a few other threads).

By the way, the eye contact thing has also been pretty thoroughly discussed (you have a new separate thread on that issue).

Note -- you're free to start new threads on whatever you want, of course. My point is merely that if nobody responds, it may well be that they have already discussed that issue a few times and have nothing further to add.

Which is why I've focused on helping you find out whether something has been discussed already or not -- since you seem to find it annoying when you don't get a response.

I would rather be self absorbed than a bore who starts threads about the obvious. Since I have yet to find the originator of this thread engaged in rhetorical debate against the foes of progressivism I do not believe his pissy-pants attitude towards those of us who do so everyday is worth a gob of spit.

i find it interesting that you have no problem responding when you want to be hostile.

CH, Don't be too harsh on kuvasz; he always gets out of bed on the wrong side, and he lives on a farm isolated from society.

I looked for the subject of eye contact and did not find it. Clearly, this is a search problem for me. I do not have a problem declaring I am having difficulty finding things on this site. In addition-- I have even returned to the blog looking for insight into managing this site and what I found once-- how to post youtube as an image-- I could not find again.

CH, Check out this thread about eye contact: http://able2know.org/topic/123220-1#post-3419018

?

erm, this was my posted discussion.