When I hope someone understands conversational energy flows, interpretating via a clean slate, listening to intent, purpose, & human need. For a moment this *thing* just IS? Whether true or not does not matter. Feels like gathering around a campfire.

Instead I'm challenged to prove claim's existence, via critical thinking, mental puzzle solving pathway. Proof before belief an effort is valid? Feels like drawing a sword ready for battle where winning is the focus.

We men very often fall into that puzzle solving pathway. To an outsider this is an extra step required from them, to suitably fit the conversation into *your* mental model.

Energetically demanding someone take that extra step to resolve the crisis in your brain, is not the outsider's duty.

Seen a lot of struggle with that over the last week. Completely unaware their attempt to outwardly resolve an internal crisis is perceived by the outsider as a provocation ⚔️

@david_ross
If you make a post that is hard to understand to anyone other than you, because you have weird definitions of some words, inconsistent with how most of other people understand those words, then don't be surprised that people either ask you to define those words, or assume a meaning that is different from what you intended.

If you don't care if people understand your post, why publish it?
If you do care, pls put some effort to help them understand.

@david_ross
(and by "you" I don't mean you specifically)

@david_ross @Wolf480pl I think writing to learn is a valid activity. As such, the audience is incidental. Keeping a diary online invites people to read it but does not automatically invite them to comment or ask questions even the medium affords just that. Public activities are not always invitations. Conversely, I’m happy to ignore or unfollow where my mental model does not fit what other people use the medium for.

@kensanata @david_ross
IOW,
1. wanting to publish one's thoughts,
2. and caring that people read it,
3. but not caring if they understand it,1
4. and explicitely not wanting them to reply,
is a valid usecase in your opinion?

Or should point 2 be:
2. not caring if people read it
?

@Wolf480pl @david_ross Both are valid use-cases. The important part is that nowhere does it say that others (us) need to read it. Anyway. I guess what I wanted to say is that it try not to jump into conversations with strangers because so often it doesn’t always go well. On the one hand that’s sad but on the other hand it’s understandable because of the expectation mismatch I described. So it can’t be helped.

@kensanata @david_ross
I think it could be helped.
First of all, post followers-only if you don't want strangers jumping in.
The main case of strangers jumping in, from my perspective, is after a boost.

Furthermore, we could have some checkbox on whether a post is meant to invite discussion, or if the person just expects confirmation.

@kensanata @david_ross

Finally, if a person is doing advocacy, i.e. trying to spread their opinions and convince others to share their ideas, then we should discuss that person's opinions, even if that person explicitely doesn't want discussion.

A position of "hey everyone listen to me, you must agree with me, if you don't agree with me you musn't reply or I'll call it harassment" is IMO unacceptable.
Ofc it's exaggerated, I haven't seen it happen like this.

@Wolf480pl @david_ross True, but they can still say they don’t want to hear it (“don’t @ me”). I think we should just accept this and move on. What’s the point in fighting this attitude? Just unfollow (or block if necessary). Yes, I dislike the attitude. But I’m not going to change their mind. Some likes an aspect of Marxism and I reply that Marx was wrong here and there – was this the conversation they wanted to have? Probably not. 1/2

@Wolf480pl @david_ross So write about Marx in a separate post, don’t reply to their post, and probably don’t mention them, either, and your freedom to discuss ideas does not infringe on their freedom to be left alone, nor on their freedom to say whatever they want.
Unless somebody is wrong on the Internet, of course. 😜

@kensanata @david_ross
IMO people seeing their post should also see the counterarguments.

So a reply w/o mentioning the OP would be a good middle ground IMO.

Also, if you write a separate post, people reading it won't see the context of what you're replying to.
Also, maybe in this case the OP wanted to be part of that discussion?

@kensanata

IMO, an advisory "venting/shouting at clouds/no comments please" flag, and an enforced "don't at me/disable notifications from this post" checkbox (like "mute conversation", but before posting, next to the "CW" button) would be a good solution.

@kensanata
To sum up, I think that:
- People should make posts followers-only if they don't want comments from strangers, or don't want comments at all.
- There should be a way to mark post as "venting/no comments please" and this indication should be clearly visible to everyone responding.
- There should be a way to mute a conversation before it starts, i.e. have a toggle below the input box for "don't send me any notifications relating to the post I'm about to make"

@saper
I'd rather suggest writing straight to /dev/null, and this idea has bounced a few times around the fediverse,
but @kensanata says wanting people to read your posts but not caring if they understand is a valid usecase.
IMO it's a bit of an exhibitionism, but I don't have any arguments why it wouldn't be a valid usecase, and adding the flags I suggested doesn't seem like much work (unless your code is a mess), so why not support that usecase too?