would I be right in guessing that it’s you who have been downvoting all my comments in this thread
I did not downvote all your comments in this thread—a fact that should already have been known to you before you wrote this one, if you had examined the vote counts. (I downvoted only two of them in an effort to end discussion of a topic I find offensive and upsetting, but that effort proved pointless by the time of your third reply, so I gave up.)
you did imply that there was no reasonable way to interpret you as having said X
I did not imply that, you inferred it (incorrectly). I stated the obvious-to-me fact that I did not know how you’d come to misunderstand me (the truth at that time), and the fact that I didn’t want to know (although I later found out, as much as I would have preferred not to).
and you did make it clear that you would be displeased if I explained what I interpreted you as having said X
I would be, and am displeased. I’m displeased the entire conversation has taken place and wish I’d never said anything in the first place, so if that was your aim, you can consider your efforts successful.
I think your original choice of words makes it pretty clear what your intentions were at the time when you wrote them.
At this point it’s pretty clear that you are not going to change your incorrect belief about my intentions, so there isn’t any point to me extending this conversation further. Similarly, it’s a practical impossibility for you to convince me I’m mistaken about my intentions, since I’m the only person who actually knows what I was thinking at the time.
I have considered trying to explain in more detail, to resolve the rather obvious (to me, now) point of confusion you have that leads to your incorrect conclusion, but that would require me to explicitly discuss a subject I vehemently do not wish to discuss, and based on your conduct thus far, I can only guess that it would encourage you to further discuss it.
If I were the sort of person to lightly throw accusations around, or attribute motives to people, there are plenty of things you have done in this thread that I could have made accusations about, or attributed motives to.
Instead, I’ve bent way over backwards trying to be polite in the face of what is, from my POV unwarranted belaboring of a subject that I’ve virtually begged you to stop replying to me about, because I find it distasteful at best and traumatic at worst.
(Which is how I know with 100% certainty that I never intentionally brought it up in the first place—I’m literally using “Word B” as a double-indirection to avoid mentioning the actual subject, and even the word referred to by “Word B” isn’t a word I’ve used myself in this thread, ever, even before my edits—you’re the only person who’s actually used word B. That’s how much I don’t want to talk about it.)
But it appears I can’t resolve your confusion around that without discussing the very things I don’t want to discuss, and you don’t appear willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. (Notice how that previous sentence at least says you don’t appear willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. That’s an example of me still giving you some benefit of the doubt, by saying what appears to me to be the case, rather than me asserting I know what’s going on in your head.)
So, I’m done with this conversation, other than to note that perhaps, in future, rather than making accusations and attributing motives to other people when you see a problem with their communication, you could instead simply suggest alternative wordings to avoid confusion.
For example, if you thought that my edited comment still gave the wrong impression, you could have just said so, rather than insisting you know what must be happening in my head. (For that matter, you could’ve avoided attacking altogether and simply phrased your original comment as a helpful suggestion to avoid confusion.)
Anyway, I’m done with this thread, and am unsubscribing from notifications for it, since neither my polite requests nor my downvotes have worked to stop the replies from coming.
I am, in fact, considering whether I should request the site moderators delete this entire comment thread, though I don’t know if that’s possible for me to do without having to talk about the subject I find upsetting. But if you were to report the thread yourself (and cite this consent from me to remove it), I would certainly not object, and would consider it strong evidence against the hypothesis that you’re now intentionally setting out to harass me by waving a sensitive subject in my face after repeated statements that I would prefer you stop doing so, beginning with literally my first reply to you, and repeated in my every reply since.
Also very willing to end this disagreeable conversation here.
I am not in the least “intentionally setting out to harass” you or anyone else.
I do not intend to report the discussion to the moderators and request that the thread be removed. (I think that is a thing that should only be done when what’s there is improper rather than merely disagreeable.)
[EDITED to add:] I should also say explicitly: I do consider it possible that I may be mistaken, even though it looks unlikely to me (as alas it usually does to mistaken people) and—though given your comments above you probably aren’t reading this—I should say for whatever obviously-slight value it has that, conditional on my in fact being mistaken, I apologize deeply for any distress this thread has caused you. (Conditional on my not being mistaken, I still regret any such distress but don’t think apologizing is the right response.)
I did not downvote all your comments in this thread—a fact that should already have been known to you before you wrote this one, if you had examined the vote counts. (I downvoted only two of them in an effort to end discussion of a topic I find offensive and upsetting, but that effort proved pointless by the time of your third reply, so I gave up.)
I did not imply that, you inferred it (incorrectly). I stated the obvious-to-me fact that I did not know how you’d come to misunderstand me (the truth at that time), and the fact that I didn’t want to know (although I later found out, as much as I would have preferred not to).
I would be, and am displeased. I’m displeased the entire conversation has taken place and wish I’d never said anything in the first place, so if that was your aim, you can consider your efforts successful.
At this point it’s pretty clear that you are not going to change your incorrect belief about my intentions, so there isn’t any point to me extending this conversation further. Similarly, it’s a practical impossibility for you to convince me I’m mistaken about my intentions, since I’m the only person who actually knows what I was thinking at the time.
I have considered trying to explain in more detail, to resolve the rather obvious (to me, now) point of confusion you have that leads to your incorrect conclusion, but that would require me to explicitly discuss a subject I vehemently do not wish to discuss, and based on your conduct thus far, I can only guess that it would encourage you to further discuss it.
If I were the sort of person to lightly throw accusations around, or attribute motives to people, there are plenty of things you have done in this thread that I could have made accusations about, or attributed motives to.
Instead, I’ve bent way over backwards trying to be polite in the face of what is, from my POV unwarranted belaboring of a subject that I’ve virtually begged you to stop replying to me about, because I find it distasteful at best and traumatic at worst.
(Which is how I know with 100% certainty that I never intentionally brought it up in the first place—I’m literally using “Word B” as a double-indirection to avoid mentioning the actual subject, and even the word referred to by “Word B” isn’t a word I’ve used myself in this thread, ever, even before my edits—you’re the only person who’s actually used word B. That’s how much I don’t want to talk about it.)
But it appears I can’t resolve your confusion around that without discussing the very things I don’t want to discuss, and you don’t appear willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. (Notice how that previous sentence at least says you don’t appear willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. That’s an example of me still giving you some benefit of the doubt, by saying what appears to me to be the case, rather than me asserting I know what’s going on in your head.)
So, I’m done with this conversation, other than to note that perhaps, in future, rather than making accusations and attributing motives to other people when you see a problem with their communication, you could instead simply suggest alternative wordings to avoid confusion.
For example, if you thought that my edited comment still gave the wrong impression, you could have just said so, rather than insisting you know what must be happening in my head. (For that matter, you could’ve avoided attacking altogether and simply phrased your original comment as a helpful suggestion to avoid confusion.)
Anyway, I’m done with this thread, and am unsubscribing from notifications for it, since neither my polite requests nor my downvotes have worked to stop the replies from coming.
I am, in fact, considering whether I should request the site moderators delete this entire comment thread, though I don’t know if that’s possible for me to do without having to talk about the subject I find upsetting. But if you were to report the thread yourself (and cite this consent from me to remove it), I would certainly not object, and would consider it strong evidence against the hypothesis that you’re now intentionally setting out to harass me by waving a sensitive subject in my face after repeated statements that I would prefer you stop doing so, beginning with literally my first reply to you, and repeated in my every reply since.
Also very willing to end this disagreeable conversation here.
I am not in the least “intentionally setting out to harass” you or anyone else.
I do not intend to report the discussion to the moderators and request that the thread be removed. (I think that is a thing that should only be done when what’s there is improper rather than merely disagreeable.)
[EDITED to add:] I should also say explicitly: I do consider it possible that I may be mistaken, even though it looks unlikely to me (as alas it usually does to mistaken people) and—though given your comments above you probably aren’t reading this—I should say for whatever obviously-slight value it has that, conditional on my in fact being mistaken, I apologize deeply for any distress this thread has caused you. (Conditional on my not being mistaken, I still regret any such distress but don’t think apologizing is the right response.)