Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[dragoner]

I got a rule of no more than three break ups of a single poster. No more than two quotes from two posters.

I try to use a regular letter format, partially due to work, such as when one has to provide documentation for communication.

Well when people put many separate points into a post, it makes sense to reply to them individually.

With that said, the chance that I will actually read a post is inversely proportional to its length.

I know in the old days, it sometimes was considered a way of trolling, it is difficult to reply to, and often winds up confusing. Also yeah, the longer a post, the less sense it will likely make.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah. If you're actually replying to different points, or at least replying differently to different things, it's probably fine. If you're carefully and precisely destroying all context to pick something apart, it's probably not.

It's definitely easier to read a short post, innit?

Some friends once brought me into a forum, as a "hired gun", to help them out. One of the problematic posters had an annoying habit of going down to the level of picking apart posts, even to the point of using sentence fragments, in order to create points that weren't actually in the original post. I started reassembling the responses in order to point out the fact. He didn't last long after that

 

[dragoner]

Sort of the "defeat in detail" instead of trying to tackle the main point.

 

[Ryujin]

Sort of the "defeat in detail" instead of trying to tackle the main point.

Actually cutting sentences in half in order to argue two points, when the sentence was a single point. It was... strange.

 

[Mad_Jack]

It was... strange.

Well, first of all, the phrase "It was..." is vague and misleading - Which 'it" are you referring to, and why are you bringing up past events that are clearly no longer relevant to the current discussion?
And secondly, I object to the inherent prejudice present in your attempt to diminish the ubiquity of the issue by trying to marginalize it by labeling it "strange".

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm not reading all that! The other annoying habit are replies that break up posts.

My preference is just to quote one part of a post but inevitably someone gripes that I don’t quote their entire post, even if I didn’t think the rest wasn’t relevant to what I wanted to focus on.

 

[Velderan]

CleverNickName's Step-By-Step Guide to Buying A House
Step 1: Contact a lender.
Step 2: Pull out a single $100 bill, and set it on fire. Repeat until it no longer bothers you.
Step 3: Fill out the loan application. Pay the application fee.
Step 4: Consent to the background check, credit check, etc. Pay the fee.
Step 5: Be told your credit score is too low, pay $5523 to consolidate and close two lines of credit.
Step 6: Empty the contents of your wallet into the toilet, flush.
Step 7: Wait 2d6+6 months, then fill out another loan application. Pay the application fee. Don't ask why it costs more this time; nobody knows.
Step 8: Consent to another background check and credit check. Pay the fee again. Marvel at how checking your credit score too often is somehow bad for your credit score.
Step 9: Be told your credit score is just high enough to get a terrible interest rate, but if you attend their "how to let us manage your money" workshop, they'll lower it.
Step 10: Attend the workshop, pay special attention to the section on "Refinancing."
Step 11: Search for a house to buy. Oooo, how about that one?
Steps 12-2234: No, not that house. Try again.
Step 2235: Make an offer on the house. Ignore the laughter from the seller's agent.
Step 2236: Congratulations! Your offer was accepted! Pay $3000 earnest money to escrow.
Step 2237: Pay $400 to the seller's home inspector if you're the trusting sort. Or pay $1000 to a home inspector of your choice if you're not.
Step 2238: Pay $125 for a sewer scope of the house you want to buy.
Step 2239: Pay $100 for a radon test on the house you want to buy.
Step 2240: Pay $825 to the appraiser, to appraise the house you want to buy.
Step 2241: Marvel at how you have now spent thousands of dollars over the course of a week and still, somehow, you don't have a contract.
Step 2242: Wait for the inspector's report.
Step 2243: Put together a list of concessions.
Step 2244: Gather your down payment.
Step 2245: Wait, what do you mean you don't already have 20% of the entire cost of a house sitting in your savings account? Guess you'd better make a withdrawal from your 401(k). Or sell a couple of kidneys, your choice.
Step 2246: Fill out the paperwork for a 401(k) withdrawal.
Step 2247: In this month of April, in the year of our Lord two-thousand and twenty five, at the height of the Internet age, you will need to take those forms to a printer, print them out, sign them with a pen, and then fax or mail them to your 401(k) holder. I am not kidding. If you don't have a fax machine, you can use one of those phone apps that will scan all of this super-personal data and bank account information, upload it to Somewhere, and will then "fax" it to "the bank" for you. Nothing to worry about there. They promise not to steal it.
Step 2248: Pay for a fax service, or for overnight airmail, for the stack of paper that you just sent.
Step 2249: Pay 10% in taxes and fees on your 401(k) withdrawal.
Step 2250: Wait 3-5 days for them to review the application.
Step 2251: Once reviewed, wait 7-10 days for the application to be approved.
Step 2252: Once approved, wait 3 business days for the down payment to be delivered to you.
Step 2253: Congratulations! You can now make your six-figure down payment! You have a mortgage that is four times that amount!
Step 2254: Realize you still haven't closed on the loan.
Step 2255: Ask your realtor about the closing date, wait for him to stop laughing.
To be continued...

When we sold our house in Maryland, we accepted an offer from a couple who paid to have an inspection. The inspector found some sand in the utility room and signs of water damage, so they asked what we knew. We explained the pipe into the house was leaking at one point and we had it replaced, but had no idea where the sand came from. We had only owned the house 3 years and had bought it from the estate of the previous owner so there were a lot of unanswered questions. We couldn't really tell them much about the history of the house beyond what was public record and what happened during our time living there. The buyers demanded a site survey on that side of the house and wanted to dig up the yard to check the drainage, all while continuing to spend money on things you've outlined above. They eventually ended up walking away when we refused to meet their demand and put the house back on the market. They probably spent a few thousand dollars and walked away with nothing, while we ended up finding easier to deal with buyers 2 weeks after it went back on the market.

 

[dragoner]

My preference is just to quote one part of a post but inevitably someone gripes that I don’t quote their entire post, even if I didn’t think the rest wasn’t relevant to what I wanted to focus on.

I just quote the whole thing a lot of time, though with the way the quote feature truncates posts, sometimes only what I think will show in the window so it is easier for people to see what I am replying to. It is a given that it is all meaningless, just a way to pass time, most don't read anything, or it is quickly forgotten.

 

[overgeeked]

Sort of the "defeat in detail" instead of trying to tackle the main point.

A lot of people try to mask the simplicity of their main point with walls of text or gussy it up with ten-dollar words. The vast majority of posts come down to “I like it” or “I don’t like it” but people seem compelled to make giant posts with dozens of arguments and sub-arguments. It leads pretty quickly to nitpicking sentence-by-sentence replies.

 

[payn]

When we sold our house in Maryland, we accepted an offer from a couple who paid to have an inspection. The inspector found some sand in the utility room and signs of water damage, so they asked what we knew. We explained the pipe into the house was leaking at one point and we had it replaced, but had no idea where the sand came from. We had only owned the house 3 years and had bought it from the estate of the previous owner so there were a lot of unanswered questions. We couldn't really tell them much about the history of the house beyond what was public record and what happened during our time living there. The buyers demanded a site survey on that side of the house and wanted to dig up the yard to check the drainage, all while continuing to spend money on things you've outlined above. They eventually ended up walking away when we refused to meet their demand and put the house back on the market. They probably spent a few thousand dollars and walked away with nothing, while we ended up finding easier to deal with buyers 2 weeks after it went back on the market.

That was a good move becasue if you had dug it up, and now you know about a bunch of bad stuff, you would be on the hook for it regardless of buyer.