alias_sqbr

Which is an interesting point in itself - I generally can't make any sort of argument or generalisation without a little voice in my head going 'yes, but ...' and my only hope of avoiding tl;dr is to go back at the end and edit very heavily, removing most of the counterexamples, digressions, expansions and general miscellany. But presumably not everyone is like this? Which leads to the thought, I don't see anything necessarily hostile about raising 'yes, but' type points, because that's how I always respond to any sort of argument, including ones I make myself; indeed, having forced myself to suppress any number of 'yes, buts' for the sake of clarity, I am pleased if someone brings one of them up and I have a chance to discuss it. So I think of raising that sort of point as a positive interaction, suggestive of a desire to engage in friendly discussion. But if that isn't at all how you think yourself, I wonder if you are inclined to see it as much more hostile, as something obviously intended as an attack? After all, you might think, why would someone who isn't hostile be disagreeing with you?

That might explain something that's been bothering me for a while. I'll read someone complaining about some awful, trollish comment they've seen, and if there's a link, I'll generally go look. Well, plenty of times it is an awful, trollish comment, just as expected. But there are a surprising number of times when it's looked just fine to me: the original post mentions various issues and looks like an invitation for further discussion, the comment seems to raise a valid point relevant to some aspect of the discussion, and yet someone (often not the OP), takes it as indicative not of a desire to discuss one area in more depth, but of some sort of attack on the entire original post.

I imagine my assumption that everyone means to debate reasonably unless there is unequivocal evidence of trollishness does mean there are times I give actual trolls the benefit of the doubt; doubtless either prejudice at times leads one astray. I still prefer my approach though (there's a surprise), on the grounds that it's better to risk wasting time on the occasional troll than rejecting people who genuinely want a discussion.