Add new comment

you're reading way too much into what I've said, which wasn't much...

"If your only interaction with someone is here in the comment section HOW is it that you can have real hurt feelings?"

Well I can feel angry or irate at trolls for -mostly our of misinformation or being reactionary pissant- their bitching at tendencies or projects I've been supportive of, irl, for instance. Attacking values that drives us is always irritating no matter if on or offline. Then you also get to have some edgy fool who shows up just to poo on your "rug".

But there's also the lesser personal and more collective issue of lowering the level in quality of discourse, something trolls are always good at.

I enjoy the level of moderation on this site for the most part. Of course there's been a few long-standing issues of lenience toward certain behavior (I'm looking at the Emile troll back in the days, or the LeWay annoyance) that gave the place a bad name, tho that was eventually settled. There's a liberty of discussion that you clearly don't get on other anarcho media, and the absence of up/downvote makes it that you also have a liberty of judgement from group influence.

The site sometimes succeeds to make it for an intellectually-stimulating experience, even if it doesn't reach the ideal model of having discussions directly based and dependent on reading of the articles (where I admit also having the bad tendency of going straight to the comments).

On the irl dealings... Like I said, sometimes there's no other way than a place like here for sending echoes out of your echo chamber to another; or where it can be counter-productive irl, this can perhaps produce some discussion online that wouldn't be happening irl due the burden of politics. I'm living for instance in a town where in the leftoid milieu things are never, ever communicated openly but rather through hush-hush and behind-the-curtain convos at a distance. There's this culture of cowardice, typical of the "radical" petty bourgeoisie that predominates what can be referred to as the "anarchist" milieu.