# I'm not interesting in going further with this...



## FrogReaver (Aug 23, 2020)

The following quote was made by a mod.  My purpose is not to discuss the particular incident, but rather whether the community can count on this statement being applied generally and broadly.  I'm just wanting to establish that if anyone tells another poster they don't want to continue and then that poster continues that their post will be moderated similarly (assuming it is reported)?



> You seem to have missed the part with, "I'm not interested in going further with this." That means stop.
> 
> So, it is time for you to stop. Meaning, do not continue. Let it go. Drop it.
> 
> I hope that makes it clear. Respect for other posters means that you don't keep going when they say they want to stop. Basic consent, you know?


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## Umbran (Aug 23, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> I'm just wanting to establish that if anyone tells another poster they don't want to continue and then that poster continues that their post will be moderated similarly (assuming it is reported)?




Within reason.  Context matters.  This isn't new, it is just uncommon - most folk have enough sense to back off when people say they are exiting the conversation.  It is really just a variation on a request to be left alone, which we already try to honor.

If someone tries to weaponize it or abuse it, that's a problem.  

To be clear, such is a request is, "I am not going to talk about this further, please leave me out of it."  Failure to honor this makes you a sea lion:


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## BookTenTiger (Aug 23, 2020)

I have participated in threads before where someone says they are done with the conversation... and then returns later and keeps posting!

My solution is to honor their original post and just ignore them, unless they specifically reply to one of my posts. Can't say it's emotionally satisfying, but what in life is?


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## Umbran (Aug 23, 2020)

BookTenTiger said:


> I have participated in threads before where someone says they are done with the conversation... and then returns later and keeps posting!




This is part of why I say context matters.  There are a lot of nuanced situations.


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## BookTenTiger (Aug 23, 2020)

Umbran said:


> This is part of why I say context matters.  There are a lot of nuanced situations.




This is why we should end all posts with "over" or "over and out." It's the only real solution.

Over.


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## FrogReaver (Aug 23, 2020)

Umbran said:


> This is part of why I say context matters.  There are a lot of nuanced situations.




Context always matters but it helps to have some general expectation on how things will be handled. 

One particular context I can foresee is when a poster is continuing further and in the very same post that they end by saying they won’t be continuing further. In essence they are attempting to use this protection to get the last word in.  

Can we expect that continuing in response to such a post has a high potential of being moderated?  Or would this be an example of a situation where the context causes the act of responding to a post with the “I’m not continuing phrase” to not be moderated?


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## Morrus (Aug 23, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> Context always matters but it helps to have some general expectation on how things will be handled.
> 
> One particular context I can foresee is when a poster is continuing further and in the very same post that they end by saying they won’t be continuing further. In essence they are attempting to use this protection to get the last word in.
> 
> Can we expect that continuing in response to such a post has a high potential of being moderated?  Or would this be an example of a situation where the context causes the act of responding to a post with the “I’m not continuing phrase” to not be moderated?



It sounds like you _want_ to continue engaging people after they've asked you not to, and are scoping out the boundaries. My question is this: _why _do you want to engage with people who don't want to engage with you? (It's a rhetorical question).


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## FrogReaver (Aug 23, 2020)

Morrus said:


> It sounds like you _want_ to continue engaging people after they've asked you not to, and are scoping out the boundaries. My question is this: _why _do you want to engage with people who don't want to engage with you? (It's a rhetorical question).




Apologies if it sounds that way.  It’s not my intent. It’s only that I have a bit of a fear the principle being used is establishing a “I get the last word button”. 

I’m trying to figure out what appropriate response members of our community have when someone tries to use that phrase for a last word button.  I guess the question is really “what is your expectation for our behavior in that instance”?

Some options I can think of:
Do you want people to report it?
Do you want people to accept that means the other had the last word?
Do you want people to ignore the statement when it comes as part of a last word button and respond to it anyways?


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## Asisreo (Aug 23, 2020)

BookTenTiger said:


> This is why we should end all posts with "over" or "over and out." It's the only real solution.
> 
> Over.



Roger that, over and out.


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## Morrus (Aug 23, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> Apologies if it sounds that way.  It’s not my intent. It’s only that I have a bit of a fear the principle being used is establishing a “I get the last word button”.



Just let them have the last word then. Does it matter?


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## FrogReaver (Aug 23, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Just let them have the last word then. Does it matter?




I guess time will tell.


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## BookTenTiger (Aug 23, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> I guess time will tell.




Here are some more phrases to use to feel like you got the last word:

And that's all that can be said about that.

And that's all she wrote.

And that's... the rest of the story.

Good night, and good luck.

...and then I woke up.

That's all, folks!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to... stop posting.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Hasta la vista, baby.


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## Maxperson (Aug 23, 2020)

What if it's not clear?  What if they make it an "if X, then I don't want to continue" statement and the "if" doesn't apply?


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## Morrus (Aug 23, 2020)

Maxperson said:


> What if it's not clear?  What if they make it an "if X, then I don't want to continue" statement and the "if" doesn't apply?



I'm not sure we're here to teach English!


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## BookTenTiger (Aug 23, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> Apologies if it sounds that way.  It’s not my intent. It’s only that I have a bit of a fear the principle being used is establishing a “I get the last word button”.
> 
> I’m trying to figure out what appropriate response members of our community have when someone tries to use that phrase for a last word button.  I guess the question is really “what is your expectation for our behavior in that instance”?
> 
> ...






Maxperson said:


> What if it's not clear?  What if they make it an "if X, then I don't want to continue" statement and the "if" doesn't apply?




So despite my light teasing above, I honestly commend you two for bringing this up. It's an interaction that can feel annoying and doesn't have an obvious, emotionally-satisfying solution. And since @MikalC called me Miss Manners in another thread, I'm going to go ahead and give this my best shot. Feel free to ignore my advice!

When my students are struggling with the rules of social situations, I often teach them the very difficult skill of *assuming positive intent.*

That is, when someone acts in a way you do not understand, assume they are acting through _good_ intentions instead of ill.

This can be very, very difficult, *especially on the internet* where we don't have facial features, gestures, or body language to communicate context!

The situation you two are proposing is an emotionally tough one. In an argument or a debate, often the person with the "final word" gets something of a victory, even if it's just an emotional victory. They get to say "I rest my case," wipe their hands slowly and dramatically, and walk away into the sunset. If you've just spent eight pages trying to convince them to change their opinion, it's a really frustrating way to end a conversation.

So in this case, I would say *assume positive intent.*

I can imagine a lot of reasons someone might say "I'm done with this conversation." They might be feeling frustrated, persecuted, uncomfortable, tired... or they might feel like they want the final word! Or they might want to silence my side of the conversation! The truth is I _can't know_ because I am looking at their words on a screen in another corner of the world and I can't cast _Detect Thoughts_ at such a range. (Oh _Detect Thoughts_, how many awkward situations in real life would you have rescued me from???)

So if I cannot 100% know the intent behind someone saying they're done with a conversation, then I have to _assume positive intent_. I have to assume they have a good, positive reason for ending the conversation, rather than a negative one. And if I assume their intent is positive, then I have to honor that request.

And that's been a message from Miss Manners.

Over.


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## Maxperson (Aug 23, 2020)

BookTenTiger said:


> So despite my light teasing above, I honestly commend you two for bringing this up. It's an interaction that can feel annoying and doesn't have an obvious, emotionally-satisfying solution. And since @MikalC called me Miss Manners in another thread, I'm going to go ahead and give this my best shot. Feel free to ignore my advice!
> 
> When my students are struggling with the rules of social situations, I often teach them the very difficult skill of *assuming positive intent.*
> 
> ...



I agree with this, but it's not the situation at hand.  The situation at hand that spawned this thread was that I was in a discussion with someone who said, "If you believe X, I don't want to continue to engage with you."  Since I not only don't believe X, but wasn't even discussing X at all, the "then" portion didn't apply to me and I responded.  Then I got moderated for responding.  That moderation was seen by @FrogReaver who wanted clarity on continuing to discuss with people who say they don't want to continue on, so he started this thread.


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## Dave Goff (Aug 23, 2020)

BookTenTiger said:


> So despite my light teasing above, I honestly commend you two for bringing this up. It's an interaction that can feel annoying and doesn't have an obvious, emotionally-satisfying solution. And since @MikalC called me Miss Manners in another thread, I'm going to go ahead and give this my best shot. Feel free to ignore my advice!
> 
> When my students are struggling with the rules of social situations, I often teach them the very difficult skill of *assuming positive intent.*
> 
> ...



I love this and want to repost it on other media, if that's okay.


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## BookTenTiger (Aug 23, 2020)

Dave Goff said:


> I love this and want to repost it on other media, if that's okay.




Of course! Good teachers steal, so I'm sure I stole it from somewhere else along the line.


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## Umbran (Aug 23, 2020)

Maxperson said:


> What if it's not clear?  What if they make it an "if X, then I don't want to continue" statement and the "if" doesn't apply?




Err on the side of caution.  Remember, the thing that happens if you leave someone alone is... you leave them alone.  No harm is done if you walk away from a conversation early.


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## Gradine (Aug 23, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Err on the side of caution.  Remember, the thing that happens if you leave someone alone is... you leave them alone.  No harm is done if you walk away from a conversation early.


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## Lanefan (Aug 24, 2020)

Morrus said:


> It sounds like you _want_ to continue engaging people after they've asked you not to, and are scoping out the boundaries. My question is this: _why _do you want to engage with people who don't want to engage with you? (It's a rhetorical question).



A non-rhetorical answer: because the one person who asks someone to stop is very often not the only person one is engaging with, within a given thread.

The first 20 posts in this thread, for example, were made by 8 different posters - and thus with this post my assumption is that I'm posting to all of them, even though I've only quoted one poster's words.

A hypothetical example (and I'll pick on FrogReaver as such an interaction has never in fact occured between us), if @FrogReaver and I get into a discussion that others chime in on as well but which eventually leads to FrogReaver asking me to stop, that could put an early end to a conversation that other people were closely following.  And if other people then chime in again, what am I allowed to do?

It's like sitting around having beers with a bunch of people in the pub (remember those days?) - sure someone else at the table can tell me I'm full of bull and that I should shut up, but I'm under no obligation to listen and in theory should be free to continue that conversation with the rest of the table.


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## Morrus (Aug 24, 2020)

Lanefan said:


> A non-rhetorical answer: because the one person who asks someone to stop is very often not the only person one is engaging with, within a given thread.
> 
> The first 20 posts in this thread, for example, were made by 8 different posters - and thus with this post my assumption is that I'm posting to all of them, even though I've only quoted one poster's words.
> 
> ...



Either you’ve completely misunderstood the topic at hand or I have. It’s not about being asked to stop talking full stop, it’s about being asked to stop quote/responding to a specific person.


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## Umbran (Aug 24, 2020)

Morrus said:


> It’s not about being asked to stop talking full stop, it’s about being asked to stop quote/responding to a specific person.




This.

If someone is recusing themselves from discussion of a particular point, you stop replying to them.  You can still continue on the general subject yourself.  Just stop referring to that one person.  Since they will be recusing themselves from that point, there won't be further posts from them on the subject to reply to.  It really isn't all that difficult.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Aug 24, 2020)

Gradine said:


> View attachment 124995



The panel that changed my life.


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## Bagpuss (Aug 26, 2020)

> Either you’ve completely misunderstood the topic at hand or I have. It’s not about being asked to stop talking full stop, it’s about being asked to stop quote/responding to a specific person.




But sometimes when you are quoting someone it is as much because they have raise an important point that you want to respond to, to the group, not just that individual.

If you remove the poster ID bit after the QUOTE= is that okay?

(has a test with this message)


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## Umbran (Aug 26, 2020)

Bagpuss said:


> But sometimes when you are quoting someone it is as much because they have raise an important point that you want to respond to, to the group, not just that individual.




So, what's more important to you?

1) Showing basic respect to your fellow posters when they make a simple request, or

2) Responding to the thing you want to respond to.

Answer that question, and what you should do ought to be pretty clear.


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## Bagpuss (Aug 26, 2020)

You are right of course Umbran, one persons preference shouldn't be used to stifle the debate of several others. It's better to upset one rather than several miss out.

Especially when they are perfectly capable of not responding to the thread if that's what they want, no one can force anyone to read or engage if they don't want to.

I am curious though if you remove the name do they even get an alert? Would that be a balanced solution.


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## Umbran (Aug 26, 2020)

Bagpuss said:


> You are right of course Umbran, one persons preference shouldn't be used to stifle the debate of several others. It's better to upset one rather than several miss out.




Ah, yes, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one."  Like most platitudes, it is not entirely true.  Taken strictly, this is tyranny of the majority over the minority, which doesn't fly.  Sorry.



> Especially when they are perfectly capable of not responding to the thread if that's what they want, no one can force anyone to read or engage if they don't want to.




The point is to actually be sensitive and respectful, _not_ to be disrespectful of others wishes, and then blame them for the results.


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## Bagpuss (Aug 26, 2020)

I think you can have a little victim blaming if they continue to deliberately subject themselves to the source of what upsets them when it is easily avoided. "I hate the taste of Marmite why do they keep making it?" "Why do you keep eating it if you hate it so much?" "Stop blaming me."

Now if the person follows them to another thread and tries to continue the discussion then fair enough, they are then to blame.

But places like this are an open forum for discussion involving several people, often beyond those that are even commenting. If you don't like the discussion you can easily leave the thread, or if one individual bothers you mute them. I think it is very self-centred to think others should stop talking about a subject they are engaged in because you don't want to engage with them any longer.


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## FrogReaver (Aug 26, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Ah, yes, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one."  Like most platitudes, it is not entirely true.  Taken strictly, this is tyranny of the majority over the minority, which doesn't fly.  Sorry.
> 
> 
> 
> The point is to actually be sensitive and respectful, _not_ to be disrespectful of others wishes, and then blame them for the results.




I was going to let this go but there is continued interest on this topic I think it’s appropriate to bring up:

a few days ago I asked someone to not continue further on this with me.  They did. No mod action was taken.  I’m trying to reconcile that with what I’m being told in this thread. Can you elaborate any there?


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## FrogReaver (Aug 27, 2020)

Morrus said:


> Either you’ve completely misunderstood the topic at hand or I have. It’s not about being asked to stop talking full stop, it’s about being asked to stop quote/responding to a specific person.




Interesting, I thought that was the topic at hand as well.  I even thought we had pretty well established that it's appropriate to ask another poster to stop quoting/responding to you on a specific topic in a specific thread.  Imagine my surprise when I was moderated for making that very request of another poster.



> *Mod Note:*
> 
> In the incident you are trying to model this after, the situation was, "I will myself not engage in this part of the discussion, so please leave me out of it going forward".  If you want to use that model, you must move on to another topic yourself.




So in the event anyone else reads this thread and has misunderstood as badly as us, I just want to point out that asking someone to stop responding to you is apparently only acceptable when you are going to recuse yourself fully from a specific discussion/thread.

Just wanted to share for the benefit of everyone else.


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## Umbran (Aug 27, 2020)

FrogReaver said:


> So in the event anyone else reads this thread and has misunderstood as badly as us, I just want to point out that asking someone to stop responding to you is apparently only acceptable when you are going to recuse yourself fully from a specific discussion/thread.




Yes.  Note:  In the original example that spawned this, the poster said "... I'm not interested in going further with this."  Not just, "stop responding to me". 

If you want to be an active part of a discussion, you don't get to pick and choose exactly who responds to you all the time.  If you want to walk away, and not take a bunch of parting shots, or you want to drop a line of discussion, it is a more reasonable request, _so long as you are clear what the topic you want to drop is_.

The other half of this that you dropped is that you may also ask someone to not respond to you in general, everywhere.  But then, again, you need to disengage yourself - we strongly recommend you use the Ignore function in such a case, to help you do that.  

In general, if you want to put a wall up between you and someone else, you have to respect that wall yourself.


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