It's circling the drain...
Hi Steve,
I have to congratulate you on what can only be described as supernatural foresight and ask you if your original post Aimed at a company known as wickedlasers *spits* as they have gone and made a 1watt 445nm laser pointer available to all for pocket money prices.
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QUOTE: mixedgas
please think twice before you sell blue kits at 200$ or less to some one who lacks maturity. Your shortchanging your own rights in the long run.
You even seemed to get the cheap protective eye ware bit right too.
I am seriously worried for a hobby/passion that i have only recently had the means and time to begin exploring being outlawed or having it's nuts regulated off, Maybe i am just being a little melodramatic, but it's only going to take one publicised incident to grab peoples attention and one more to seal the deal...
Matt
A plea for temperance, in the thread about a plea for safety...
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Originally Posted by
ElektroFreak
My issue is that he tried to make me out to be another "prodjallen" (by name) because I didn't clarify a statement I made to his liking, without ever having said squat to me prior to that.
Ok - fair enough. You felt insulted by that. I think most people can accept that.
However, how you respond to an insult like that can make the difference between a simple misunderstanding and a long-standing flame war. Because the fact that you felt insulted doesn't mean that the other guy meant it to be insulting. (Or at least, not to the degree that you interpreted it to be.)
Sometimes you have to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, shrug it off, and come back with a kind reply that explains 1) how you interpreted the other guy's post, 2) how it made you feel, and 3) why you think the post was in error.
Most of the time, a response like that will defuse any flame war. It's really not that hard to do. And you'd be amazed at how often it works. Even if the other guy really was completely out of line, when confronted with a polite but rational explanation and/or a request for further explanation, most people will admit that they let their temper get the best of them.
Remember: many flame wars are started over a simple misunderstanding, or even a case of mistaken identity. Example: Party A says something, but Party B takes it a whole different way than it was intended. Party B fires back with a passionate reply, and now Party A feels attacked, and we're off to the races!
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I've spent a considerable amount of time and effort here posting about safety. I consider it to be the most important topic here.
This is a healthy attitude, and you should be commended for it. And honestly, Jon feels the same way, and is also big on safety. So really, the two of your should be on the same side. But it seems that a small misunderstanding has created this huge rift between the two of you, despite the fact that you probably agree with each other on the majority of issues.
Because of that rift (and the vitriol it's causing), there isn't enough bandwidth left to explore the nuances between your two positions. It's just satire and insults, mixed with a lot of testosterone. Such communication polarizes the community, and it feeds on itself.:(
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No one is going to talk that kind of shit to me and about me, making me out to be some kind of retard with no regard for safety, and walk away like that's the end of it.
It's not like this is your global character evaluation here. What someone says about you in an Internet forum isn't the final word on who you are. (Also, not everyone is saying the same thing.)
Just because someone calls you an asshole doesn't mean you are one. It might mean the other guy is having a shitty day and needed to vent, and you were the unfortunate target. It might mean that the other guy is a just horrible judge of character. It might mean that the other guy read a few of your posts (but not all of them), and is taking something you said out of context. Or maybe you really are an asshole. :eek::D
But before you jump back at the other guy with guns blazing, try looking for a simpler solution. This almost always results in better discussions, and it also limits the collateral damage you were talking about.
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he still rode my ass to the point where I was so frazzled and frustrated I had to get away from here for a few days.
When I get that pissed off at someone, I usually send a PM to a few other people on the forum for a reality check. If they agree that the other party is a hateful son of a bitch, then OK, I might let loose with a good flame. But most of the time, other people have at least something good to say about the guy I'm pissed at. And that's enough to make me think that there is a way to reach an accord. I look for some common ground to start from, and I try to start over.
The laser hobbyist community is small enough that we really need to work at keeping it together. And while I work hard to do that, I'm not perfect either. I've had to be told to back off plenty of times before. :o But the point is that we all need each other a lot more than we let on. Without the cooperation of the folks here, many of us would still be fooling around with spinning mirrors and dreaming of the day we could own a set of scanners.
And Jon, lest you feel left out of this whole thing, I think you are just as guilty of ratcheting up the rhetoric in this thread as Electrofreak is. Both of you have been feeding off one another, and you definitely know which buttons to push on the other one. So let's take a 5 minute break, huh? Accept that the two of you are closer to the same side of this issue than you'd be comfortable admitting in public, and let's continue talking about general safety.
Adam
PS: Can I get a group hug here?
