Things I'm thinking about and a question

[feuervogel]

Pursuant to a discussion I was told I'm not allowed to have in comments on someone else's facebook post because I'm "imposing my opinions in [their] space" and I "must" pursue it in my own space (see question below), I'm thinking about writing a post about the gross assumptions of economic and able-bodied privilege in the slow food movement. And, yes, for fuck's sake, I want fucking comments on it; it's not a fucking imposition to discuss something.

Also thinking about organizing all my ho-shit and planning stuff for Operation: Move to Berlin in a single post for future reference, rather than having a bunch of random shit bookmarked (or not bookmarked at all, leaving me to try to remember which terms I put in google to get the link I'm looking for).

Question: Is it "imposing your opinions in someone else's space" to comment disagreeing with an article they linked to, or a post they wrote? Is one obligated to comment on one's own facebook or LJ, rather than use the fucking convenient "comment here" button?

I have always believed that it is passive-aggressive sniping to, for example, write a post for the sole purpose of disagreeing with someone, even if you don't say "Person X says blah." You can twist their words, especially if you don't link back (because that person's journal is f-locked, or because 95% of your friends aren't friends with them on facebook, or whatever). If you sit back and don't engage someone directly, but passive-aggressively snipe them through posts similar to my first paragraph*, that's just not cool.

Aside from that, it results in a very disjointed "conversation," which some of the people who read LJ A but not LJ B (and both are locked) cannot participate in.

*which I did on purpose

Comments

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

I would be fascinated by such a post, I have friends with similar movements and they always felt a little off to me.

[feuervogel]

I think it's a great idea and a great ideaL, but it's not practical or achievable for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons. Making it achievable for everyone would require a large-scale restructuring of American society, starting with getting rid of the subsidies that allow factory farming to happen and shifting them to small-scale farmers. And also making the minimum wage a living wage.

Yeah, I have Thoughts on the matter.

[ranyart]

I think some of it might just come down to what people want to use their Facebook (or another space) for. I know plenty of bloggers have a "my space, my rules" comment policy, where they have no problems deleting comments that don't follow their rules or, in their opinion, contribute to the conversation at hand. (Captain Awkward is a good example of that moderation style.)

I don't think of Facebook in that way, but I suspect some people do. I could understand not wanting to have a debate about something in one's own Facebook wall, so even if I do think it shuts down the discussion, I guess it's within someone's rights to request that? I'd probably find it frustrating, but if someone is using that space for "share things I like" and isn't interested in "debate issues I feel passionately about," I suppose they're allowed to? Sure, I'd be frustrated by that, but I tend not to debate on Facebook anyway because I never know who someone might be friends with and what direction the debate might go in (and I don't check it enough to keep up with a really intense debate).

I'm always up for privilege in slow/organic/etc. food discussions, though.

[feuervogel]

I don't have an issue with bloggers saying "hey, you can disagree, but if you're an asshole about it, you're done."

This person apparently feels so strongly that commenting to discuss a post is "imposing their beliefs" that she won't even comment on someone else's post, even if that post was spawned by a conversation I had with her. It's really frustrating.

Also frustrating that I can't give further context, because I don't believe in putting email up on blogs.

I'm also considering writing a post about how much pseudoscience and misinformation there is in the raw/slow/etc food movement, because god damn.

[ranyart]

I showed you the link to the brunch place with gemstone-tonic-infused drinks, right? (http://www.source-sf.com/) Goddamn those stuffed pancakes were good, but the menu copy and signage around the restaurant was ridiculous. Also... doesn't every restaurant provide multiple dimensions of dining? I couldn't eat a two-dimensional dinner.

[feuervogel]

Oh god, yes. You probably remember my live-tweeting of reading the "about" section at Triangle Raw Foods. Oh god the bullshit, it burns.

[picklish]

To answer your question, I think it's contextual. In general, if somebody posts something and you post a few comments disagreeing, then that would seem totally reasonable to me. That's what comments are for, yeah?

...but, I can imagine specific situations where maybe disagreeing comments aren't wanted by the poster. Sometimes it can be awkward to have two other people having a really heated argument in your comment thread where you as the original poster feel you have to moderate it. Sometimes it can be frustrating to have somebody repeatedly disagree with you if you post on the same topic multiple times. Sometimes folks just want to rant about a particular topic and aren't really interested in hearing out disagreements (for the nth time).

[feuervogel]

That's what I've always understood comment boxes to be for, personally, yeah.

If people are having a heated argument, I think the owner is well within their rights to say, "hey, take it elsewhere."

I got an email scolding me for posting a couple comments disagreeing with what was said in an article shared on facebook, because it's mean and rude and imposing and horrible, and why can't you just keep your opinions to yourself?

[krait]

As regards passive-aggressive sniping and impositions:

I generally regard a commentable post to be an invitation to discussion, because options exist to close that. However, if an impasse is reached or the postmaker changes their mind, and politely asks someone to desist from discussing, I would heed that.

If they clearly said I "must" pursue it in my own space, I'd take that as blanket dismissal, and as long as my post was about the issue and not the person, I'd feel free to go on at length and possibly even mention in the postmaker's comments that discussion was now going on in my space for any interested parties. It's disjointed a little, as you note, but if the postmaker's serious about not discussing it then people should either give up or migrate, depending on how much they want to talk about it.

Without their clear dismissal... I think it comes down to approach, still. One can say "I saw an interesting post yesterday but the writer wasn't interested in discussion, so here's my take on it" with perfect politeness. I think passive aggression only starts when names are named, or the discussion becomes about the actions of the person you disgree with, rather than the topic. (Are you proving how you think about topic X, or are you proving Person A was wrong about topic X? One's a real discussion, the other's a passive-aggressive attack.)

Not that a bit of passive-aggressive sniping is the worst crime the Internet has ever faced. :D

Edited because I forgot to continue: I know very little about Facebook, so how much the commonly-held rules of journal/blogspace apply there in the userbase hivemind, I really don't know. Ultimately, in other words, I am very little help. (Avoiding Facebook like I would a rabid dog is the policy that's worked for me so far and thus the advice I'm inclined to give; but I know many people can't.) Short of polling a half-million Facebook users to see what the prevailing attitudes are toward reply-policing, I can only go on what I see/feel/acquire from LJ; but I can see there are big differences in the assumptions about interpersonal relationships between the sites.

[feuervogel]

I just really don't like posts that are, like, "I was talking about X somewhere else, but Person A didn't want to talk about it," because Person A is reading it and knows you're talking about them but not specifically saying so. It's ... icky. It reminds me of middle school.

[krait]

I don't blame you. I guess my circle of friends is widely dispersed enough that I'm used to having to clarify "there was this post over somewhere else, and I want to talk about it here (too)"?

Would leaving it a "I was talking about X somewhere else, here are my thoughts", no mention of the other person at all, work for you? Or even shearing the suggestion of conversation out of it at all: "I was reading about X somewhere else, here are my thoughts"?

[smarriveurr]

I tend to avoid having discussions with people on Facebook posts, but mainly because Facebook is a horrible medium for holding discussions. The lack of threaded comments alone is problematic, but the way that it limits posts to a paragraph out of the box makes holding intellectual discussions more unlikely still.

I think everyone has a right to a "safe space" in their blagoblogs, of whatever sort. It's sort of like free speech; you have to defend the free speech you don't like, or find icky, because speech people dislike or find icky is the only kind that needs protecting. Likewise, if I want friends to be able to shut down discussions that make them uncomfortable, I need to acknowledge that others can shut down discussions that might educate them. That's part of how I see it, anyway...

[feuervogel]

shift-enter lets you make paragraphs in nu-fb comments.

The idea of expanding the definition of safe space to include "making my blog a nice echo chamber where I don't have to hear anyone challenge my beliefs" makes my skin crawl. Then again, if you're the type of person who sees everything in black and white, all or nothing terms, a discussion of the nuances within the topic isn't going to be well-received.

There's always a few people who take a good idea to a completely illogical extreme.

[smarriveurr]

Oh, I know how to do multiple line FB comments. In the average FB post, though, I seem to be the only one who does. In most posts about issues of politics, privilege, etc, etc, I also seem to be the only one familiar with the shift key and the various fascinating dots and dashes we call "punctuation." My point isn't that it's not POSSIBLE to write a long post in FB, but rather that that's not at all what it's designed for. FB is designed to tell folks stuff. Really, it's designed to make folks AWARE of stuff. Not really to discuss it, or understand it. It's there primarily for "LOL YUO GAIZ CHECK THIS OUT". LJ and DW have a robust system for discussing a topic. FB is a way to update people about shit. Trying to use it for more than that is about as painful as trying to repurpose any other tool.

Likewise with safe spaces... if I acknowledge that no one should have to defend their reasonable conclusions in "their space", then I have to accept that people are going to demand not to have to defend unreasonable conclusions in "their space".

Ultimately, though, I've just come to accept that arguing anything that matters on Facebook is pigeon chess. I'll stay in my echo chamber, and they can stay in theirs. I may debate with posts by friends, but mostly I ignore any comments I disagree with. I know my friends are mostly reasonable people with whom I can discuss things I care about; this is not necessarily commutative to the people who fit their definition of "friend" for FB purposes.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

I've seen people arguing on facebook about politics a lot; it seems that politics gets people's dander up, so to speak. Most of what I see are straight white men arguing that things aren't so bad, there's no war on women, and that people trying to call out issues in the world are idealistic/socialist/fascist/insult of the moment. I know that when I see these people posting, there's a bit of me that wants to tell them to sit down and shut up, but... I don't.

I can't tell if I don't because I think silencing dissent is bad or if it's because I don't want the confrontation. When and where I can, I'll argue the facts or defend an opinion...

I think telling someone to keep their opinions to themselves is, well, it's their right to be an asshole, and it's their right to not listen to dissent; I think doing so limits one's understanding of the world, creates an echo box and insulates ignorance and misunderstanding against the possibility of change. So in general, I'm against that.

I think so long as everyone involved in the discussion can be civil, and avoid personal attacks, then discussion is good, and telling people to be quiet and go away is just rude and bad manners, as well as perpetuating ignorance.

[feuervogel]

Heh; in my response to the email in which I was scolded for having opinions, I said that not allowing discussion or dissenting opinions leads to an echo chamber, which is a bad thing. (Even though both this person and I agree, on the larger scale, that modern industrial farming practices are horrible and need to change.)

I mostly roll my eyes at the ultra-conservative stuff that rolls across my facebook feed (though there isn't much of that, thankfully). The anti-gay stuff is more annoying, but mostly I ignore it, because I don't have time to argue on facebook with people I went to high school with.

If you already have a very sheltered view of the world, and your only source of information on topic X is from one side (and good lord there's a lot of misinformation and pseudoscience and anti-science garbage in the anti-industrial-farming, slow foods, etc movement), living in your sheltered echo bubble is akin to being a Fox News viewer.

[matt_doyle]

I think it depends -- but if someone doesn't want to discuss the matter on their facebook wall, I think it's their call. I'm usually pretty open to debate on mine -- I've only ever deleted three comments -- but there are plenty of times where I have seen someone say "this is not the place for that discussion" and agreed.