Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[billd91]

Oompa Loompa Doompity Doo
I've got another warning for you...

 

[CleverNickName]

I've been trying to be careful about using "IMO" and "To me, this is such and such" type statements because inevitably someone gets really grumpy.

It is me, I am someone.

I blow a fuse whenever I read something like "this is a fact and everyone knows its true and absolutely nobody can argue with it," followed by "hey that was just my opinion" when they get called out.

 

[el-remmen]

I have definitely found more than one Wikipedia infinite loop when researching a topic. You know, the wiki page cites a source that cites the wiki page and on and on. And when you can only find other sources that only cite the wiki page you cannot cite it (unless its in a footnote to explain there is no reliable source for the claim - something I did at least once in my dissertation).

The other example I find personally annoying involves an essay I wrote a while back putting Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” in conversation with The Talking Heads’ “Nothing But Flowers.” In the essay I said that the latter reads like a response to the former. I did not write that it is meant to be a response. Nor did I claim that David Byrne wrote it as such, but ever since I published that essay, I have seen my interpretive claim as a literal one (sans citation) in countless places.

 

[Ryujin]

It is me, I am someone.

I blow a fuse whenever I read something like "this is a fact and everyone knows its true and absolutely nobody can argue with it," followed by "hey that was just my opinion" when they get called out.

Could be that's more you reading into their comments, than it is what they are saying. You would be far from the first

 

[TiQuinn]

It is me, I am someone.

I blow a fuse whenever I read something like "this is a fact and everyone knows its true and absolutely nobody can argue with it," followed by "hey that was just my opinion" when they get called out.

I guess I don’t make those kind of “this is a fact” type statements particularly when it comes to games because 99% of it has some exception, rule zero scenario and honestly, facts in this area are just not even worthwhile to begin with.

 

[payn]

Could be that's more you reading into their comments, than it is what they are saying. You would be far from the first

Oh, it happens plenty.

 

[Ryujin]

Oh, it happens plenty.

Perhaps, but I'd wager that it's not more than it is.*

*That's an opinion

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, there's somebody who doesn't understand the rules of the road as it were.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Something I created has its own Wikipedia page and when that page was being created years ago, quotes from me (under my own name, obviously), explaining the thing's origins, weren't deemed to be credible.

Sometimes folks are weaponizing the system, but other times, I think they're just painfully officious.

Most likely (though these can be indistinguishable from one another) just overcautious.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I just love when I post what is obviously an opinion, not meant to be taken as fact, and someone just has to call me out with, "Well that's not a fact. It's just your opinion." Yes, indeed. It's my opinion. Why would I be posting the opinion of someone else?

It would be helpful if people didn't regularly blur the two together in how they argue things. There's also the problem of what I call "I was there when it happened" which is that people will sometimes deny personal experience (not to be confused with denying the utility of the personal experience, such as how representative it is, which is at least valid in principal) and it can be pretty hard to prove that. Admittedly, people using screen names complicates that, but in some cases if they were posting under their real names I still think people would not want to believe them.