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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5078440" data-attributes="member: 59082">I agree with the original poster, although as an academic he should be well familiar with the semantic minefield of the postmodern era ;-). A lot of it has to do with phrasing; as one poster said, people get upset when they feel that you are confusing your own subjective opinion with objective truth. This leads to the ridiculous need to disclaim everything with "IMHO" and other stool softeners, and leads to a kind doublespeak, bogging down meaningful conversation (IMHO, of course!).The other aspect of this that is hugely problematic (imo) is the common knee-jerk assumption of trolling. I mean, I'm honestly surprised that no one has accused you of trolling (yet), even though you obviously are not. If someone expresses a negative or critical opinion on something, or even just brings up a controversial topic, they are immediately assumed to be trolling and attacked for it. Actually, EN World is relatively tame in this regard. RPGNet, a site I otherwise like, is much worse; I have witnessed numerous cases where someone voices an unpopular opinion and gets piled on with ad hominems and moderation stands by and does nothing, except maybe to chastise the OP for voicing said unpopular opinion.On the other hand, I can also understand and appreciate why moderators put out sparks before they fan into fires. My own personal approach would be much more liberal, however, because I think we lose a lot of interesting conversation in the name of keeping the peace (and status quo), but I can also see how feelings get hurt and the community fabric begins to unravel if things get too out of hand. But then it becomes a matter of treading softly and knowing how to play the semantic game. In general, I have found EN World moderators to be a reasonable bunch and pretty adept at discerning nuances; I have seen many instances where someone posted something similar to the OP and got attacked, and a moderator (rightly) stepped in and warned the attacker, not the OP.But yeah, let's talk about the merits and demerits of different editions. We just have to do it skillfully.</blockquote>

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