I said what I meant in the statement and in the reply. Be my guest to read more into it though. Sorry I caused the misnderstanding but that happens when writing on the fly.
I have to be honest. You have an incredible reputation--one of the most unanimous reputations I have ever seen on GAF--of being disingenuous. You've got a negative tag over your reputation from some admin (I have no idea who, long before my time I'd assume). People have stated it in this thread, in response to nothing--you literally have posters spontaneously announcing that you're not worth talking to because of your reputation. marrec is making this claim about you right now, just a few posts above. Clearly your reputation distracts from conversation in the thread.
The perception is that you enter a thread, you make a claim (often of the form "[[some] liberals/atheists] are incorrect in <x> way."), and when called on your claim, you rejigger your claim and say "That's not what I meant, this is what I meant" or do not reply at all--effectively, being slippery or coy or evasive or disingenuous.
I'm not saying it's true. I'm not saying it's fair. I go out of my way as a moderator to more harshly crack down on people who post stuff about peoples reputations than I do on the people who have the reputations, because I believe that everyone deserves a chance. I don't want posters to feel like their reputation prevents them from getting a fair shake when they post. Everyone deserves to be heard.
Now, imagine that after hearing of your reputation, someone enters this thread.
What they see is:
- You make a claim of the form "some atheists are incorrect in <x> way"
- I respond to it asking you something to substantiate it.
- You reply that I have misinterpreted your claim and restate it in a different way
- I apologize for reading your claim incorrectly, do my best to assess it again, and I ask if I have read your claim correctly this time. I go out of my way to make sure I am reading your claim correctly BEFORE I actually discuss whether or not I agree with it.
- You reply saying "I said what I meant" and "Be my guest to read more into it thought", essentially making it impossible for me to discuss your claim with you because you won't confirm whether or not I understand the claim to begin with.
Imagine yourself as this third party reader who has never seen you post, but knows you by reputation. And they enter this thread. Do you think they'd be likely to agree with the description I posted above of your reputation, or disagree with it, based on how you've presented yourself?
I assume you do not intend to come off as disingenuous or coy or evasive or trolling. So it's obviously a case where people aren't fairly perceiving the real you. That's OK, it happens to me sometimes, and it can be really frustrating. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here--why do you think people feel you are like this? How do you think people should read your posts differently to come to a different conclusion about you? What kind of tone and what kind of words should people use when they're responding with you to get what they consider is a more satisfying discussion out of things?
You don't have to respond to this if you don't want to. I just feel like I'm doing my best to give you the benefit of the doubt and you're really not helping me and I have no idea what else I can possibly do at this point to try to empathize with your perspective in conversations or when trying to moderate a thread.
