TL-DR (Too Long - Didn't Read)

Yes.

 

Another reason people don't continue to read your lengthly posts or argue with you for months on end is you usually resort to personal attacks.

And the business about Rat, seems to me you make the same arguments McCain made about Obama being an Arab.

 

Lets be fair.
There are many reasons that we ALL ignore peoples posts...
Perhaps this has become too personal!
But to be personal:
I sometimes ignore your posts because it seems like you have mental issues...no offence, but it is true.

 

Oh no he didn't!

 

ROFLMAO!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Don't we ALL have mental issues?!?!?

 

The truth is, no we don't.

 

R yes I did...

 

I'm with gardener on this one, which is a pretty rare event.

People are bored of your lecturing Balbus, but you just turn around and blame the audience.

I mean read your original post - it is another one of your 'musings' about what is wrong with everyone here. A long editorial on how the fact that you bore people to death only proves how smart you are and how we just don't measure up. Introspection is not your strong suit.

You invite people to respond but when gardener does you snap at him with personal insults. Well so much for being open to criticism.

All we got was another boring lecture about how we need to pay attention to your boring lectures.

I hope you will take this as constructive criticism. It should be pretty clear to you by now that you are not successfully getting your message across. You can continue to assume that the problem is everybody but you, or you can maybe listen to what people are telling you in this thread.

 

I have to say this is my favourite part of Balbus' OP.

I remember here when any criticism of Bush’s policies were answered with the accusation of ‘anti-Americanism’, and it was obvious many of them hadn’t read the ‘offending’ posts (quite a few told me to get out of the US even when I clearly said I was in the UK) the same thing carried on when the Iraq invasion came up and anyone opposed to it was ‘aiding the terrorists’.

Many of these didn’t seem to have their own opinion and in lieu of one depended on the slogans and sound bites of others to fill the gap and many didn’t even read any alternative view.

In my view that was the attitude that led directly to the Iraq invasion and the fuck up afterwards.


Am I reading Balbus wrong, is he blaming posters on the Hip Forums for the Iraq War.

Balbus, I actually attempted to ignore the personal introspection...
I can appreciate why Hiptastic and others might find that annoying, but persoanly I'll cut you some slack...for now, you have not been too condescending to me...yet.

 

You could take a basic writing course and learn to get your ideas across.

As you can see from all the lucid responses you got, your presentation makes it hard to receive. The long winded lecturing is most definitely not effective.

Don't take it personally, just fix it. Every time you write five paragraphs, go back and trim it down to 20% of original size. make 2 words out of 10. Skimming your posts, that is about what I would expect if I were paid to edit one. 5:1

or you could just drop it and carry on like the rest of us. jesus, i know i can use some work on my communication skills. but a hippie forum is no place to learn about politics and persuasive writing.

 

i'm going to butt in here, because the direction that this thread has taken is beoming more and more personal.

When i first joined HipForums, i noticed Balbus' long-winded posts ~ heck, i even jumped into one thread to tease him about it!

Anyway, at first, i didn't know what to make of Balbus ~ i could tell he was well educated, but thought maybe he spoke English as a second language. Now, come to find out, he's dyslexic. (Understanding THAT, bear in mind, when you go back to read his posts? the amount of effort he must be putting into them...)

Folks? Not all of us speak the same English; that being the case, we need to realize that what we're reading could very well have more than one meaning.

Also, i think we tend to forget that there is an actual PERSON behind that post, with feelings, and issues, reaching out to have some human contact.

And the funny thing is?

That other poster?

S/He's a LOT like US! :rofl:

 

Hipstatic

I asked Gardner to back up his comments (he hasn’t) and pointed out an error in his post.

In what way was that a personal attack? The only personal touch was the ‘oh bitchy’ at the beginning and the ‘meow’ at the end which were just jokey additions that I can’t see anyone of any mental maturity taking seriously.

And what is your criticism – that I’m boring, not exactly a political criticism more a literary one. And frankly some of those explanations of the Fed you’ve given have been rather…long …and…but anyway, I’m sure someone found them interesting (just joshing mate, I actually did find them interesting although sometimes repetitive).

And I’m not criticising ‘everyone’ in fact most people here seem to be against slogan and sound bite politics.

 

My point was not about me, I was just using something said to me to try and explain that political discussion doesn’t (and shouldn’t) always have to be about slogans or sound bites, because not every thought can be expressed in a single sentence or pithy paragraph.

Politics is not always simple it’s not always ‘them and us’ one way or its opposite, it can have shades and angles that cannot always be expressed in a simple way without it becoming simplistic. Especially if the ideas being expressed are half formed or developing.

Of course some have used the opportunity to attack the style of my writing, and my posts have been described as long winded, presumptuous, boring, convoluted, tedious and too difficult and wordy to read.

These are personal opinions and people are entitled to them and I’ll try and take them on board (although it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks).

But there is a point here also about politics, because although it can be exciting it can also be tedious, anyone that has done any grass roots political work knows that not every committee meeting is electrifying and door to door leafleting can be boring if on one comes to the door.

To me these forums are a resource like meetings, books, TV, websites, blogs, newspapers, debates down the pub, etc, sometimes they are informative and interesting and sometimes not.

**

Anyway, the thing is no one seems to be coming out in support of slogan or sound bite politics (although Maryjohn thinks that “a hippie forum is no place to learn about politics” even if the forum is about discussing politics which honestly makes me wonder why he’s here at all)

In fact others like Odon seems to be saying that they’d like to write longer posts and give longer explanations but don’t see the point when they will more than likely just get ‘cookie cutter’ responses with seemingly little or no thought behind them.
Maybe that should be the thing we should be looking at; a way of cutting down on the number of pat and thoughtless posts and replies?
Any ideas?

 

I think he meant it as both political and literary criticism. As in your ideas are boring.

 

I think a hippie forum is a terrific place for political debate. There is no agenda on this site, unlike many other political forums. I have been to very few forums where the diversity in political thought is as diverse and widespread as it is here.

 

If someone has a problem with a long answer they shouldn't ask the question to begin with.

They also shouldn't breed.

 

Long replies proves to me that the individual didn't take the time required to properly reply to the other person. A lot can be said in very little; I have seen very long winded replies just to make a simple point. You can easily summarize a wall of text into a paragraph. And by not taking the time to do so, shows to me that other person is either too busy, or just a bit too pompous and full of themselves (this isn't directed towards anyone in particular) to give a direct to the point answer. In other words, it can seem that person has a less than down to earth view of themselves.


But that's just me - I'm guilty of it too.

I don't know who said it, but I'll paraphrase: "I am sorry for writing a long reply, but I didn't have the time to write something smaller".

 

I didn't say it was bad, and I just meant it is not a place to get a basic education or get up to speed on current political trends. Obviously I enjoy reading and posting here, but it's on the lighter side of political discourse.

 

Hey, i'm with you, Ari! These forums are fabulous, and everyone is given the chance to speak up, regardless of which side they're on.

Something that i've noticed, that i think is super cool, is that even if i disagree with someone about something, i can get into the next thread, or onto another of the boards, and completely agree with them! :rofl:

And you know what? You'd think folks would just kick back, knowing that we're ALL here to become better informed. i try to read the stuff that is long and sort of boring, just so i'll have some earthly idea of the Big Picture, as it were. (It's amazing how many of these things tie together with other goings-on...) If i truly don't understand it, i'll watch the replies for hints. If the thread doesn't get wrapped around the axle about it's length or lack of sparkle , they can be quite educational.

Perhaps a new forum, "Too Long ~ Don't (Bother To) Read?"

Or maybe this: If it's too boring or long, don't read it and don't try to reply to it. That seems simple enough.

 

Like Hiptastic brought up a time or two, if you would learn how to quote someone "like most of us do " it would make your posts look/seem smaller. The red font didn't help at all.