Not sure if this fits one of the reasons on your list, but I maintain a (short) mental list of LWers I never reply to, regardless of what they write, because a number of prior conversations with them were invariably futile for one or more of the reasons you describe, and my estimate of any future conversation going any better is very low.
I am guessing that other people might have similar lists, and if so, I am probably on one or more of those. I conjecture that this is the case from the downvoting pattern on some of my instrumentalism-related comments.
I have on occasion explicitly mentioned when I add a person to such a list, but this is usually detrimental, so I stopped doing so. This is not to say that I always downvote their comments, often it is quite the opposite, I just don’t ever engage them.
Oh, and once or twice I noticed an extreme change in attitude from a regular and started replying to them again.
Not sure if this fits one of the reasons on your list, but I maintain a (short) mental list of LWers I never reply to, regardless of what they write, because a number of prior conversations with them were invariably futile for one or more of the reasons you describe, and my estimate of any future conversation going any better is very low.
I have vague memories of you adding me to such a list, I think it was in an anti-Eliezer thread of some kind. I don’t recall you replying to me since, I know I’m likely to have remembered any particularly negative exchanges and given the difference of opinion we have on the issues you most notably focus on it is likely that negative exchanges would have occurred were I not still on the list (therefore I probably am).
Anyway, working on the assumption that I am one of the few users you never reply to I’d just like to say that I think you are making a wise decision from the perspective of your own premises and best interests and I encourage others to learn from your example (of course substituting which users are on the list according to their own experiences). Such a policy is usually going to be beneficial to both parties and quite possibly to onlookers as well. Remembering to not respond in such cases and restraining the temptation to fix someone wrong on the internet is often challenging. That being the case and with the aforementioned assumption thankyou shminux, you have done us all a service.
(I am coming from a perspective here where I expect shminux and I would have different reasons for why interaction-minimisation is beneficial for us but can comfortably accept that obviously the other would disagree—no additional disrespect beyond that intrinsic to disagreement is involved. This means my reply is meant purely as complementary support with no snide undertones whatsoever. The great thing is—even if I have grossly misread both the situation and shminux and he does take some degree of offense at what does technically amount to being told “thankyou for not speaking to me because we both know such conversations would suck” then shminux still will not reply to express outrage. No drama will ensue either way!)
Just wanted to add that at some point I thought of making my ignore list public, together with the reasons and examples of why I add someone to it, in case someone would like to clear the possible misunderstanding, but then realized that such an action is virtually guaranteed to backfire. It would probably be misunderstood as inappropriate status signaling and piss off not only those on the list, but many others as well, and defeat the purpose completely. So I took the middle road of disclosing the existence of my ignore list in an appropriate thread.
That said, if anyone cares enough, I will certainly reply to a PM from anyone, regardless of whether I reply to them in public.
Not sure if this fits one of the reasons on your list, but I maintain a (short) mental list of LWers I never reply to, regardless of what they write, because a number of prior conversations with them were invariably futile for one or more of the reasons you describe, and my estimate of any future conversation going any better is very low.
I am guessing that other people might have similar lists, and if so, I am probably on one or more of those. I conjecture that this is the case from the downvoting pattern on some of my instrumentalism-related comments.
I have on occasion explicitly mentioned when I add a person to such a list, but this is usually detrimental, so I stopped doing so. This is not to say that I always downvote their comments, often it is quite the opposite, I just don’t ever engage them.
Oh, and once or twice I noticed an extreme change in attitude from a regular and started replying to them again.
I have vague memories of you adding me to such a list, I think it was in an anti-Eliezer thread of some kind. I don’t recall you replying to me since, I know I’m likely to have remembered any particularly negative exchanges and given the difference of opinion we have on the issues you most notably focus on it is likely that negative exchanges would have occurred were I not still on the list (therefore I probably am).
Anyway, working on the assumption that I am one of the few users you never reply to I’d just like to say that I think you are making a wise decision from the perspective of your own premises and best interests and I encourage others to learn from your example (of course substituting which users are on the list according to their own experiences). Such a policy is usually going to be beneficial to both parties and quite possibly to onlookers as well. Remembering to not respond in such cases and restraining the temptation to fix someone wrong on the internet is often challenging. That being the case and with the aforementioned assumption thankyou shminux, you have done us all a service.
(I am coming from a perspective here where I expect shminux and I would have different reasons for why interaction-minimisation is beneficial for us but can comfortably accept that obviously the other would disagree—no additional disrespect beyond that intrinsic to disagreement is involved. This means my reply is meant purely as complementary support with no snide undertones whatsoever. The great thing is—even if I have grossly misread both the situation and shminux and he does take some degree of offense at what does technically amount to being told “thankyou for not speaking to me because we both know such conversations would suck” then shminux still will not reply to express outrage. No drama will ensue either way!)
Just wanted to add that at some point I thought of making my ignore list public, together with the reasons and examples of why I add someone to it, in case someone would like to clear the possible misunderstanding, but then realized that such an action is virtually guaranteed to backfire. It would probably be misunderstood as inappropriate status signaling and piss off not only those on the list, but many others as well, and defeat the purpose completely. So I took the middle road of disclosing the existence of my ignore list in an appropriate thread.
That said, if anyone cares enough, I will certainly reply to a PM from anyone, regardless of whether I reply to them in public.