Comment by grzm
10 years ago
You make some great points from personal experience which some might take as anecdotal but I'm grateful for you sharing something I haven't dealt with personally.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
This statement unnecessarily weakens your comment as it comes across as an attack and uncivil, regardless of the context. Your comment is very strong—and makes this very point—without it.
Thanks again for sharing your personal experience here. I trust you'll continue to do so!
Thank you for the feedback. I have deleted that piece -- not intended as shenanigans -- and ... maybe I need more opening lines or something. It certainly wasn't intended as a personal attack. We all have areas of ignorance -- aka simply not knowing.
I think I'd just remove it. An alternative would be to elicit in a charitable way what they're basing their comment on, or what their experience with homelessness is. That can be a tough to do (speaking from my own personal experience in online discussions). If I can't figure out a way to do that, I just leave it out.
For me the goal is reaching greater understanding. If someone were to tell me "You have no idea what you're talking about" I know my knee-jerk reaction would be to get defensive, and that wouldn't put me in a good place for continuing the discussion constructively. Granted, it's not a perfect reaction, but it's a very human one.
In any discussion I choose to participate in, I've tried my best to determine if I'm adding something purely factual/informational or trying to reach understanding of where the other person is coming from (not necessarily agreement), or sharing my own understanding. That sharing word is important to me right now. Some might choose teach or show or correct (which is where I hear "You have no idea where you're talking about" coming from), but I think words like these put up a barrier (or at least a speed bump) to understanding.
Like I said, that's where I'm at right now. Still trying to figure this stuff out.
No, I totally agree. I probably have some bad habits leftover from toxic school environments and from ...initial experiences on HN, which were a bit rough, with being openly female here.
It can be hard to see the beam in our own eye while we nitpick the mote in another's.
Have a great evening (or whatever time span it is where you are).