TaleraRis wrote:Lisabethy wrote: Because at times, it's the answering of a question posed that ends up divulging the information. If someone on Flames thought to question something and did so there because that is where they are comfortable, why not pose the question there? And why not answer there? While a majority of posters at Flames are hard-core raiders, they aren't all hard-core raiders. I've seen posts by some of the casual players that simply question more or want to understand the mechanics of the game as a whole better than what they've found on these forums. Sometimes, a question is posed on Flames that is answered in full by the players. Sometimes, a dev merely wants to clarify something or in fact, question something themselves in order to figure out where further clarifying is needed. There is an openness on Flames that doesn't exist on these forums for the simple fact that you can ask or answer a question without wondering if you posed it in the most politically correct way possible in order to not offend those with "lighter" sensibilities.
But all that is possible here. Have you ever been to the tradeskill forums here? We can get rather vehement with each other, and none of us are afraid to seek out more answers. The only caveat is that we're respectful, and I think that's less to do with being politically correct and more general politeness. If you respect someone's opinion, regardless if you agree or not, then they're more likely to respect yours and more constructive comments can be made. It's long been a standing that we try to uphold on the ranger forums (or did at least when I posted there more often) and no one there was afraid to post even an unpopular opinion, either, or if they were, it wasn't due to the atmosphere of the boards. And those are both official SoE boards. I'm not arguing against the devs posting elsewhere. I just worry that these sort of conversations aren't even attempted here also, where there are highly skilled and knowledgeable players as well.
Not all opinions are created equally. When one opinion is well founded and facts and sound reason, when it can be objectively evaluated to be
more correct than another, other opinions that are not as well founded or as soundly reasoned should be called for what they are: wrong. There's no reason to respect a poorly formed opinion. It is a form of political correctness to feel it necessary to give equal weight to all opinions and views on a subject. This is why we have things in real life like the creation vs evolution debate. There is no question that one side is well supported by objective fact and reason while the other is not. The two positions are not equal, but political correctness forces us to respect the incorrect views even though those views deserve no respect. Each side of the argument has their own perspective that leads them to form their views. Neither perspective is better than the other, of course, it is just a different foundation. Unfortunately, two people discussing a topic from completely different foundations (either casual vs hardcore or in real life religious vs scientific) can rarely come to any kind of consensus because the entire process of thought, analysis and argumentation is different between them. Even language has different meanings for different people (for example, the scientific meaning of Theory differs considerably from the lay meaning of the word). People as individuals deserve respect by default, unless and until they prove otherwise. Opinions though are neutral, deserving neither respect nor disrespect, and must earn respect by being well founded and soundly reasoned. This does not mean that two differing opinions can not have the same weight, but both would have to be able to survive the same amount of scrutiny equally well. Opinions that can be dismissed logically or factually should be no matter whose feelings get hurt by doing so.