Threads Slamming Shut

Or is it more like the same few threads are being repeatedly shut and reopened? If you look at the Monitoring Biden thread it's easy to see that the toxins almost always arise from the same source. It's interesting — some of the worst offenders have either left the site or have been suspended but we still have a couple of fractious members working overtime to derail the thread at every chance.

I know what you mean about the game/humor threads. Pretty much everyone gets along.

I think you're right, it's dizzying.

And of course, there is always the mad thumber who weighs in for reasons I'll never understand. Maybe they think they will win something, or it's an achievement that should be mentioned in a resume??

Not sure the criteria for locking a thread, but it looks like when two people just start hurling insults, a cooling off period is invoked. If everyone just refused to get into those screaming matches, I doubt the threads would be frozen. It feels like Mayberry here. We're just a small town of characters and every now and then Sherriff Andy has to come around and have a little talk with some people, maybe put them in the cell overnight to sleep it off.

If you see able2know as good guys versus bad guys there is still a problem with this model. I don't know exactly which group of people you are referring to as "toxins".

Every time I have seen a thread be shut down it is involved a "good guy" (that is someone with acceptable views on the liberal side). I have never seen conservatives (or whoever else you find offensive) shut down a thread by themselves.

If you don't want a thread to be shut down then simply stop squabbling. I have been a part of a few stupid interactions that have resulted in threads being shut down. Generally I find myself in agreement with the moderators when this happens. More than once I have actually felt bad for getting sucked into the emotion and acting in a way that I regreted.

Hopefully I'm not the only one who feels this way. And hopefully we all can learn to do better. I think threads being shut down when things get emotional is a good thing.

Progressives are the toxins. They are just all-around bad people.

That's funny Oralloy

(I aint gonna bite)

All I did was tell the truth. There is nothing to bite.

You said much the same thing when you noted that it is always progressives who cause the trouble. You were wrong to refer to progressives as liberals, and wrong to call them "good guys" (despite it being somewhat tongue in cheek), but you as well correctly identified the source of all the problems. Conservatives certainly don't cause this sort of trouble.

I just went back and checked. I said nothing of the sort.

I probably actually agree with them that conservatives behave worse in these threads. The people saying truly offensive things with no reason behind them tend to be from the right. The left wing tends to be self-righteous. The right wing can be truly obnoxious.

My point (addressed to the liberals) is that they should simply ignore, and not take the bait. That is the way to keep these endless squabbles that escalate from happening. The overblown responses to perceived misdeeds are just a responsible for getting a thread shut down as the original offense (which could have been simply ignored).

Yes, if anyone points out that I often do exactly this and that I should follow my own advice... I will heartily agree.

You said this:
"Every time I have seen a thread be shut down it is involved a "good guy" (that is someone with acceptable views on the liberal side)."

So you did wrongly use the term liberal to refer to progressives, and you did wrongly refer to them as good guys (albeit tongue in cheek).

I get that you were using the term "good guy" to refer to what progressives would call each other. But we all know (even if some of us will never admit it) that there is nothing good about progressivism.



Why, because conservatives believe in facts and logic?

Maybe progressives should stop being offended by reality.

Ok I will now demonstrate how to not respond when someone is posting idiocy...

I am learning.

There is an interesting trend... I have just been thinking about how often it gets me. I try to disengage from a thread that is escalating without any real discussion... and the people involved come after me. "You can't leave", they say "You haven't answered my inflamatory questions!".

For some reason, this type of taunting gets me. It is the same as in elementary school "What are you, afraid?". It is an emotional challenge that gets an emotion reaction from me.

What I should do is just ignore it and refuse to reengage anyway. Leaving a discussion on able2know is like leaving a bad relationship: there is always the urge to go back one last time, but I really need to remember why I left in the first place.

I've been disengaging from all the personal attacks from deranged progressives too.

Amazingly, progressives still post huge volumes of personal attacks against me even when I don't bother to respond to them.

The thread shutdown that the OP of this thread was referring to was caused by progressives spouting a bunch of personal attacks against me even though I was not even engaging and responding to those attacks.

I get why they do it. Progressives are trying to fill the void left by their inability to make intelligent arguments. But it sure would be nice if people who have nothing intelligent to say would just keep quiet and let the smart people talk.

Facts and reality are hardly idiocy.

Had there been any actual idiocy, the best way to respond would be to point out how the idiocy was either factually or logically incorrect.