The very first comment I made in this discussion made no mention of either posts or comments.
Sorry, but this is unambiguously false. Indeed, I quoted you, in the comment to which you are responding:
But it’s actually even weirder than that—in your initial comment, you also wrote:
If people who never write top-level posts proceed to engage in snark and smugness towards people who do, that’s a problem
… which is indeed talking about “posts”, not just “top-level contributions” which may or may not be posts.
Anyhow:
If you agree, then it’s not clear to me what your initial point even was. Remember, all of this is in the context of a reply to a post which contained the following text:
But that text was itself written in the context of prior history between Duncan Sabien and another member. You know this, because you *are *that other member. Zack was critiquing Duncan’s viewpoint, and I was defending it. Both I and Zack were referencing Duncan’s viewpoint when we referred to top-level contributions. I grant that Duncan did also refer explicitly to posts
So the OP was about posts vs. comments, and it was written in the context of something else which was also about posts vs. comments, and your own initial comment mentioned posts…
… and yet it’s weird and somehow blameworthy for me to think that we’re talking about posts vs. comments?
My position is …
… and what does any of that have to do with the OP?
So the OP was about posts vs. comments, and it was written in the context of something else which was also about posts vs. comments, and your own initial comment mentioned posts…
No, that was literally never the salient point. Duncan Sabien’s post was literally called “Killing Socrates” and was drawing analogies to the sophists vs the Socratics. That should be enough to show you that the post vs. comment distinction is not the salient issue.
Yes, Duncan Sabien did map it to posts versus comments, but that is because that distinction — far from being an arbitrary feature of this kind of forum — is intended precisely to accommodate two different modes of engagement. The correlation between the mode of engagement and the medium (posts vs comments) may not be perfect, or even all that strong, but if so, by the same principle, Duncan’s mapping of the two modes of engagement to posts versus comments also isn’t all that strong. The salient point was always about the modes of engagement, hence why it is even possible to draw an analogy to Socrates. It was always about contributors versus disparagers.
And it is not like this is some subtle argument that is difficult to follow, so yes, your repeated failure to grasp what is being talked about is blameworthy.
… and what does any of that have to do with the OP?
You are a subversive and Duncan Sabien was a decent contributor who should never have had to put up with you. That’s what.
Sorry, but this is unambiguously false. Indeed, I quoted you, in the comment to which you are responding:
Anyhow:
So the OP was about posts vs. comments, and it was written in the context of something else which was also about posts vs. comments, and your own initial comment mentioned posts…
… and yet it’s weird and somehow blameworthy for me to think that we’re talking about posts vs. comments?
… and what does any of that have to do with the OP?
No, that was literally never the salient point. Duncan Sabien’s post was literally called “Killing Socrates” and was drawing analogies to the sophists vs the Socratics. That should be enough to show you that the post vs. comment distinction is not the salient issue.
Yes, Duncan Sabien did map it to posts versus comments, but that is because that distinction — far from being an arbitrary feature of this kind of forum — is intended precisely to accommodate two different modes of engagement. The correlation between the mode of engagement and the medium (posts vs comments) may not be perfect, or even all that strong, but if so, by the same principle, Duncan’s mapping of the two modes of engagement to posts versus comments also isn’t all that strong. The salient point was always about the modes of engagement, hence why it is even possible to draw an analogy to Socrates. It was always about contributors versus disparagers.
And it is not like this is some subtle argument that is difficult to follow, so yes, your repeated failure to grasp what is being talked about is blameworthy.
You are a subversive and Duncan Sabien was a decent contributor who should never have had to put up with you. That’s what.