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So uncivil

3 7
07.08.2025


There are some topics I go to time and time again (not just words) because they cause me great concern. This week I'm diving back into civility, which too few seem to practice nowadays.

I've made no secret of my animus toward anonymous commenters, especially those who spend the bulk of their time trolling others and making online comment boards an unpleasant place to be. And because those people are always insisting that I believe a troll is anyone who disagrees with me (seriously?), here again is the definition, agreed upon by multiple dictionaries (which, again, record how words are used at a specific point in time), as I wrote in September 2023: "someone who aims to antagonize others online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. That may be someone cutting and pasting articles from elsewhere in the comments on something that is at best only tangentially related, or someone who just alights on the boards to intentionally misinterpret what someone has written and/or redefine terms to suit their argument because they want to get the best of the 'progs' or the 'Rethuglicans.' It's not to advance discussion; it's to stop it by pointing a laser pointer at the wall."

While that laser pointer might be fun to........

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