The Awkward Silence

12:09 AM

Really knocked it out of the park folks. Hope you're proud of yourselves.

@apaul Not sure what you're trying to accomplish here. Assuming this is about what I think it is, it should be obvious from my answer to the "be nice" question on meta that I'm frustrated with the situation as well, but I don't think that coming here to say that to everyone all at once is going to do a lot.

apaul

@Cascabel I'm trying to solidify the point that our community failed pretty spectacularly. If you feel you didn't have anything to do with that failure, congrats, but an awful lot of people did, and all of us could have done more.

HDE 226868

I've been keeping out of things so far so I can be a neutral third party to clean up all of the crap that people have been slinging, but I'm going to say something here that's been on my mind for the past two days:

Chris Sunami

@apaul I sympathize with the original poster, since I've experienced the same situation myself, and I recognize the irony of him facing the same situation he complained about here. With that said, cross cultural communication is tough, and he reached out to open the conversation this time, not the other way around

HDE 226868

Y'all gotta stop treating the site - and meta, really - like a war zone.

Cascabel

12:23 AM

@apaul Then talk about the result and what could've been done. Slinging mud doesn't leave anyone cleaner.

HDE 226868

That's what's been frustrating me about that meta question. There was maybe a golden opportunity there to solve a really, really tough problem. But it got sidelined because people were so intent on starting arguments and winning them.

Chris Sunami

I thought it was a great question, and the work I did on it, I did to help it be read more clearly and understood, not to shut him down

HDE 226868

This meta question has generated 80 moderator flags so far. That includes flags on comments and answers. There are 124 comments deleted there for various reasons.

That's where I think the community failed: In an attempt to make this thing productive.

Meta is great if you're willing to listen. It's not great if you're trying to start a fight.

And I'm not calling anyone out in particular, nor am I making this a blanket statement. A lot of people wrote some good stuff.

But on the whole, it feels like people were more concerned with winning than improving the question. Just my two cents.

Chris Sunami

It speaks to how tough it is to communicate around the subject of race. Which, ironically was the topic of the original question.

HDE 226868

It is, yeah. It's really hard to figure out, both for those who have and haven't experienced racism directly.

Magisch

12:51 AM

@HDE226868 This happens when you have questions that are this controversial

Also, in my 2 cents, people have stopped assuming good faith alltogether and now it's just a contest of buzzwords and oneupmanship in an attempt to expose or blame other people

That thread is really tiring to read or partake in

@apaul Mind you, your answer is responsible for like half of all the drama this generated :P

apaul

@Magisch When it comes down to a decision between being a good human being, and being a "nice" Stack Exchange user, I'll choose to be a good human being.

JonathanReez

2:03 AM

Am I the only one who think that if you need the Internet for advice about your relationship, the only real advice that can be given is "break up"?

its like if you say "do X or I will divorce you", the bird is out of the cage and now nothing can repair that marriage

Cascabel

2:23 AM

I'm sure that's sometimes true, but I don't think it's really fair to generalize. Lots of people can end up feeling lost about what to do in a relationship while it's not in serious peril, or at least is still quite salvageable, and some of them will turn to the internet.

Clay07g

2:49 AM

@ChrisSunami May I say that you were one of the most helpful. It's frustrating to be in a position in which you cannot express yourself clearly. You made up for some of that inability on my part. I regret the lack of productivity, and hope any edits made to the original IPS question were not made out of appeasement, to me or any other close voters.

Clay07g

3:10 AM

@ChrisSunami I did not even get the chance to see your edits to the question before it was locked. I really liked your title, but I really wish you wouldn't have edited the body.

Extroverted Main Man

4:20 AM

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Q: How to avoid sitting with friends during an exam

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Extroverted Main Man

4:38 AM

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Q: How can I help my elderly, toxic mother?

I'm in my late twenties and my mother is over seventy. She became pregnant unexpectedly in her mid-forties and decided to raise me alone. I was very unhappy under her care and moved out at eighteen years old. I now live about four hours from her by train. Background information Her health has b...

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Rainbacon

@JonathanReez Needing help from the internet does not necessarily spell doom for a relationship. Some people have great difficulty with interpersonal interactions. Take this question that I wrote back in February for example. I am on the autism spectrum. Because of that fact, I have difficulty interacting with other people. I had just started seeing someone and was struggling to figure out how to approach the topic of my autism with her.

I brought my question to IPS and received some wonderful answers. Using the help here I was able to bring up the topic. She's been my girlfriend for a few months now and we are extremely happy together. The fact that I needed help from the internet did not in any way signal that our relationship was doomed to fail.

JonathanReez

5:16 AM

@Rainbacon that's a bit different... you didn't have a problem in your relationship, you just wanted advice on a tricky situation

If I ask "how do I get my girlfriend to go to soccer games with me", I want to improve a healthy relationship

If I ask "my girlfriend made out with a guy during a soccer game" its a whole different can of worms

Rainbacon

@JonathanReez I agree that those are very different scenarios, but your initial post only specified "if you need the Internet for advice about your relationship". That phrasing opens it up to questions of either of the types you mentioned.

A J

5:31 AM

@Mithrandir24601 Congratulations!!

→ 30 messages moved to Trash

Extroverted Main Man

6:03 AM

0

Q: How do I tell my best friend that her brother sexually harassed me and that I don't want to hang out with her when he's around anymore?

Good day to you all. Just recently, my closest friend's brother knowingly sexually harassed me just about a year after he previously forced a kiss on me. It never was too difficult to hang out with my best friend when he was around, as long as he kept a manageable distance of course. But now, I c...

friends family sexual-harassment

JonathanReez

@Rainbacon the correct phrasing should be "if your relationship in trouble and you're asking the internet for help, you should probably just break up"

Jesse

7:13 AM

@ExtrovertedMainMan Anyone around to pitch in their thoughts on what to do with this question? I am kinda unsure of what to do with it

If OP wants to tell her friend that their brother sexually assaulted her then I think it would be important to know specifically what happened before giving advice on how to go about it

But that is clearly a touchy subject... not sure if its okay to ask

in general we just need more details

Age might make a difference in answers too but if they are a younger questioner then they might get defensive...

and we don't know anything about their actual relationship other than 'best friend for 4 years', which might sound like information but it is incredibly open to interpretation... no context of how the friend gets along with the brother... i just don't know

apaul

7:31 AM

@Jesse already flagged it. The writing style looks familiar if you understand what I'm saying.

Extroverted Main Man

8:30 AM

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Extroverted Main Man

9:05 AM

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Q: How to approach possibly rude comments online

A few months ago, I joined an online community of professional and enthusiast tree-growers, which has a large and active user base and is moderated by volunteers. [Note: certain details have been modified to be less specific.] I came across a comment which I found in bad taste, even though it d...

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