I’ll offer up the edit “It feels like CYA when you don’t care about [the particular delineations of] truth [involved].” (Sort of an “everyone faster than you on the highway is reckless, everyone slower is holding up traffic” claim; truth you don’t care about but feel obligated to account for.)
Look. Inasmuch as you can claim that my CYA line was a direct attack on your character (it wasn’t intended as such and I think you’re stretching to make it so, especially since the comment went on to elaborate), you had already launched a similarly direct attack on mine, taking the discourse that I was arguing is crucial and important and calling it, variously, CYA loophole-closing, over-explaining, and in-service-of-self-protection rather than aiding the reader.
And this is sort of generally the point: you think I was the first one to break norms, whereas I was genuinely just trying to mirror you back to yourself. Your comment had a lot of implications about why people want nuance that were uncharitable and not universal; the discussion felt unfriendly to me from the moment of your comment being dismissive.
(You were also explicitly agreeing with someone who, a comment earlier, had said that nuance is poison.)
You would like, I think, for me to care about how you felt unfriendlied-toward. Do you care about how I did?
(I note that I was slightly more cavalier than I would ordinarily be, because we’re under a post titled “Fucking goddamn basics;” I think this is not an unreasonable call to have made. I think that calling the previous comment an ad hominem attack is a bit of a motte-and-bailey; it is certainly nowhere near a median-bad instance of the class, even if we label it a member.)
you had already launched a similarly direct attack on mine, taking the discourse that I was arguing is crucial and important and calling it, variously, CYA loophole-closing, over-explaining, and in-service-of-self-protection rather than aiding the reader.
I agree that this is a natural way you could, and I see did, respond to my original comment. I apologize for that.
My intention was different. I’ll explain what it was in the hopes that it will decrease the tension.
I don’t think the bit I quoted from your original post was all that unusually (by my lights “overly”) nuanced by LW standards, and I tried to gesture in that direction by prefacing with “not to complain about a good post.” But obviously that did not correct for the unfriendly tone that I managed to project anyway.
The only reason I picked it out was because the topic of the commend thread was comparing the style of this post with the style of yours. When I said that the writing had a CYA feel, I meant that empathetically, strange as that may sound. I perceive that LW writers write anxious, and I experience this myself.
That may be me typical-minding, but I have also heard other writers talk about feeling defensive about the comments they’ll get, so I don’t think it’s just me. Amping up the nuance for the purpose of avoiding attacks in the comments leads to too much of the wrong kind of nuance, even if a lot of nuance is a good thing. When I call this “covering your ass,” I meant “because you’re legit afraid that you really need to do so because the internet can be really damned mean,” not “stop being a pansy and drop the nuance.” Obviously this is a case where more nuance, among other things, would have been helpful!
Having a sample of your writing quoted, criticized, and labeled with terms like “overexplaining” and “CYA” just doesn’t feel good. I should have known better. I can also see why, despite it having been meant as a reference to the writing style only, it came across as a criticism of you as a person, and why your own response to me felt like “mirroring” rather than like “escalating.”
When you made your first response to me, I had not seen myself as being critical toward you as a person, even though I do see why you perceived it that way now. When I read your first reply to me, it seemed to me like a big escalation. I now understand better where you were coming from and how you felt when you responded that way.
Personally, I am ready to let the personal side of things drop if you are, but we can also continue the discussion. I think your response above was helpful and constructive.
I also apologize for the (strong) (reasonable for you to object to or feel defensive about) implication that I thought you specifically don’t care about truth generally. There is definitely no call for someone in my position to make a judgment like that. Sorry for the clumsy wording.
I’ll offer up the edit “It feels like CYA when you don’t care about [the particular delineations of] truth [involved].” (Sort of an “everyone faster than you on the highway is reckless, everyone slower is holding up traffic” claim; truth you don’t care about but feel obligated to account for.)
Look. Inasmuch as you can claim that my CYA line was a direct attack on your character (it wasn’t intended as such and I think you’re stretching to make it so, especially since the comment went on to elaborate), you had already launched a similarly direct attack on mine, taking the discourse that I was arguing is crucial and important and calling it, variously, CYA loophole-closing, over-explaining, and in-service-of-self-protection rather than aiding the reader.
And this is sort of generally the point: you think I was the first one to break norms, whereas I was genuinely just trying to mirror you back to yourself. Your comment had a lot of implications about why people want nuance that were uncharitable and not universal; the discussion felt unfriendly to me from the moment of your comment being dismissive.
(You were also explicitly agreeing with someone who, a comment earlier, had said that nuance is poison.)
You would like, I think, for me to care about how you felt unfriendlied-toward. Do you care about how I did?
(I note that I was slightly more cavalier than I would ordinarily be, because we’re under a post titled “Fucking goddamn basics;” I think this is not an unreasonable call to have made. I think that calling the previous comment an ad hominem attack is a bit of a motte-and-bailey; it is certainly nowhere near a median-bad instance of the class, even if we label it a member.)
I agree that this is a natural way you could, and I see did, respond to my original comment. I apologize for that.
My intention was different. I’ll explain what it was in the hopes that it will decrease the tension.
I don’t think the bit I quoted from your original post was all that unusually (by my lights “overly”) nuanced by LW standards, and I tried to gesture in that direction by prefacing with “not to complain about a good post.” But obviously that did not correct for the unfriendly tone that I managed to project anyway.
The only reason I picked it out was because the topic of the commend thread was comparing the style of this post with the style of yours. When I said that the writing had a CYA feel, I meant that empathetically, strange as that may sound. I perceive that LW writers write anxious, and I experience this myself.
That may be me typical-minding, but I have also heard other writers talk about feeling defensive about the comments they’ll get, so I don’t think it’s just me. Amping up the nuance for the purpose of avoiding attacks in the comments leads to too much of the wrong kind of nuance, even if a lot of nuance is a good thing. When I call this “covering your ass,” I meant “because you’re legit afraid that you really need to do so because the internet can be really damned mean,” not “stop being a pansy and drop the nuance.” Obviously this is a case where more nuance, among other things, would have been helpful!
Having a sample of your writing quoted, criticized, and labeled with terms like “overexplaining” and “CYA” just doesn’t feel good. I should have known better. I can also see why, despite it having been meant as a reference to the writing style only, it came across as a criticism of you as a person, and why your own response to me felt like “mirroring” rather than like “escalating.”
When you made your first response to me, I had not seen myself as being critical toward you as a person, even though I do see why you perceived it that way now. When I read your first reply to me, it seemed to me like a big escalation. I now understand better where you were coming from and how you felt when you responded that way.
Personally, I am ready to let the personal side of things drop if you are, but we can also continue the discussion. I think your response above was helpful and constructive.
I think the last note we need is:
I also apologize for the (strong) (reasonable for you to object to or feel defensive about) implication that I thought you specifically don’t care about truth generally. There is definitely no call for someone in my position to make a judgment like that. Sorry for the clumsy wording.