Now personally, I care even less than you about a Press Your Luck episode guide. But things were progressing pretty smoothly until the hornet's nest was kicked. And this time, Vahan didn't do the kicking.
But he still chose to engage in his own way. Since when has "he hit me first" ever worked? Bring it up Behind the Scenes, report the post, maybe even a polite remark about how it was for his pet project instead of roping me into his excuse-making; any of those would have been an improvement.
That goes both ways, though. When people found the topic of conversation unacceptable, did they take it out back, or did they keep it in a public forum? Vahan was called out in public, so he defended himself in public. It's not really fair to expect one set of behaviors by one poster versus another, regardless of psychological makeup, track record, or even whether we like them or not. And we really are expecting this, since Vahan was the only one called out for this behavior in all of this.
And every time we say "You could move the needle a bit by doing (whatever)," all we get back is static. How long are we supposed to endure the silliness without saying anything?
That's an excellent question. But again,
where did we say something, and
how did we say something? In public, and a way that was not tone-neutral. Again, it's a set of double standards. We're reaching judgement not on the post, but on the poster. And even though most of people who have been "permanently separated" from our walled garden are pretty much broken, when they complain in other circles about unequal treatment, there's a grain of truth to that. We can be better than this.
Everyone is entitled to their own paradigm of what is distasteful and what isn't, and to comment and debate about it. They don't have the right to enforce their own position, but it is also up to us to put forth an effort to be considerate to most of the people most of the time.
Makes sense to me.
