I think a better analogy would be to use that walking stick with care, instead of like a baseball bat against an incoming ball. A lack of context in the message usually causes a subjective bias, meaning that the reader projects himself on what is being read. Reality call: nobody is out there to get to you, at least not on this forum, since, you know, you are not a target... just another text in the internet. So, try this: before attacking, refusing, or dismissing what others write (specially to you), think on it (you are not on a timetable after all, answering in a forum is not urgent) and try to think 3 positive things for each negative one that text provokes in you. You can control yourself and you acts, not those of others. You are responsible for your words and actions, not those from others. So yes, others don't need to do a thing when they communicate to you, because for them it is not relevant to make an effort. For you, it should be, since you want people to understand what you mean... else you wouldn't be so insistent in how much effort is for you to communicate and how little effort others make to understand what you say. Bottom line... you can feel miserable all the time and cry on all your posts, and that will lead to you being ignored by all, or you can take control of yourself and not flare a disability of any kind as a "get out of jail" free card, since that jail is mostly of your own making.
Problem here is that this creates an environment which no one else can discuss the topic without having to deal with the conversational equivalent of baseball bat fencing - i.e. they, too, become part of the problem. Yes, there are people on these forums who are out to get people who don't drink the cool aid or who are easy to antagonise. Most, though, are just bad at handling heated situations, just like you seem to be. One of the biggest difficulties when in a verbal conflict is to realize how and when you need to hold out an olive branch so that the other person can back down while saving face or when an olive branch is held out for you. I will give you that I don't see people holding out those branches too often on these forums, typically people will allow the other person to back down only by admitting defeat and losing face and that's very difficult for anyone to accept - neurotypical or otherwise. I don't envy your position, but this is something that you have to deal with mainly from your end if you are not neurotypical, you can't expect everyone outside your safe spaces to get specialist training. From what I can tell, mainly focus on conflict de-escalation instead of trying to conform to some expected mindset. Now, that's easier to write than to do, trust me, I'm working on that myself. To bring back to the example given, the blind man with the walking stick can't expect access ramps and even pavements when hiking in the wilderness and the landscape of human conversation is largely an under-explored wilderness with urban centres far and few between. Oh, and don't burn it all down to make walking easier. Kind of defeats the point of taking a walk in the forest.
Or we can ask everyone to behave - and start enforcing it as a community - and not put the main effort of deescalating a situation on the person who was the target of escalation in the first place. And yeah, I agree that there's a lot of blame to justifiably spread around, but first people to deal with should be those who enjoy poking others with a sharp stick.
Surprisingly enough, I do. But yeah, dismissing anything that involves effort and change on your part will surely make you happier. It has worked wonders until now, after all...
The main problem I see on the internet is people thinking their opinion matters, or is fact. We're here discussing a game, hopefully intelligently, hopefully enjoying the discussion, but you don't have to prove you're right. You don't need to convince anyone of anything. Give a good faith effort to communicate, then move on if not working. I agree with your olive branch, but one of the other difficulties is just letting it go and realizing you're digging a hole in mud and never going to get anywhere, but it's fine because you don't need that hole anyway, so stop digging and move on. It does go counter to human nature at times though. Also, assigning labels (not you here, but them earlier) such as neurotypical to dismiss people is a big red flag that someone is not trying to bridge a gap. No one knows what conditions another poster have, there is no way to know if any of the people replying might diverge from the norm in any way, or if they might be quite familiar with such things themselves even if they don't suffer from it. The example I was thinking of would be a blind man walking along with his stick, whacking everybody in the head. When someone says "hey, if you use the stick at ankle level, you won't be whacking people in the head", the blind man responds by attacking the person and telling them they're not blind and will never understand the struggle. Of course they don't know if the other person is blind, or if the other person works at the local center teaching blind people how to use their sticks, or had a blind cousin or has some other issue besides just not wanting to be hit in his head. (In this example, the troll posters are deaf people that just keep yelling at the blind guy without being able to hear what is being said or care.) But it's a pointless conversation if the blind man doesn't want to move through the crowd, but rather yell at the crowd for not moving out of his way. The fact that there's some deaf guys also screaming doesn't please the crowd either, but telling them to stop yelling is pretty fruitless.
@psychoticstorm could this thread please please be locked? These people need forum.nuada.com to talk about their favourite subject.
For the vast majority of people who visit this forum to check out the latest news and rumours, these constant rehashing of the same arguments get really tiring. A simple rule to be followed when reading or posting anything on here is to try to look at it in the most positive light possible. Respond based on that assumption and most people will respond in kind. There is a big difference between 'This pose is shit, why would anyone design it like that CB need new sculptors!' and 'I can see what they were going for but the leg position lets down the pose, I will give it a miss or repose the leg.' Sarcasm and nuanced conversation is lost in written text so there is always the temptation to read everything in a negative light. If you re-read a post before submitting it and you hesitate to post it then that's a pretty good sign it needs a rewrite. Practically you can look up examples of emotive language, do a quick scan for these terms in your draft, and remove/replace them. I work with autistic people as a profession and one strategy that everyone should use is to simply classify everything as a big problem vs little problem (can also use a continuum). You should then moderate your reaction based on where the issue lies on that continuum. So when it comes to miniatures I hope we can all agree that in the grand scheme of things even the longest delay in a product isn't a BIG problem and the reaction should be proportionate. I have to use this strategy all the time both at work and personally (bad paint session/dying in a video game/traffic) when I am over reacting negatively to a 'small' problem. A related strategy is the 10 minutes, 10 hours,10 days, 10 years way of thinking. IF there is a problem or something making you feel upset analyse will it matter in each of the time frames. If it wont matter to you in 10 hours or 10 days then it's probably not worth ruining your day over. Whereas if something will still bother you in 10 years (Such as GWs treatment of the Eldar range) then feel free to burn the world down.
