Yes, yes, and yes. One of the challenges for me when talking with people is that so many of them recite a series of talking points.
There are some that seem to have a series of templates they paste their text from.
If we are discussing the price of tobacco - outside of the forum (frankly it would happen here without mods) the responses degenerate quickly into partisan political talking points.
While ignoring all the other myriad of factors that contribute to the price of tobacco. In unmoderated forums I've had people turn so many discussion into something like that for no good reason and then get very upset if they're not given the conversations they want to have.
It’s so lazy. All too often on a forum you get the contrarian response- which I referred to or the popular view point that shows they are in the know….
Sometimes it seems quite genuine and others it seems particularly reactionary by intent.
Are even more mind numbing, you get the response clearly designed to humiliate by giving a response designed to clearly differentiate the responder from the one that asked the question.
I have to say I hate when people get mad at newbies for their questions. Or gatekeep. I've had experience with some horrible gatekeep on other forums. Things like constantly telling people they're not real fans if they like Va or don't like latakia. Or something similar in other forums.
But as you said, we are all guilty of it and this is a forum after all. Now, I’ll smoke a bit more of my Hal o the Wind and listen to the birds.
I think it heavily depends on intent. Strong opinions are fine, feeling that your strong opinion on something that doesn't really matter doesn't make anyone better or worse.
