Very cool, if true

My definitions of flaming clearly disagree with you, and there's no point getting into an argument about that, but I am specifically not accusing anyone of being a troll.

Oh, sorry -- not accusing you of that at all. Like I said (or should have said better) that was a side-rant because I've seen the word 'flame' used so much lately by so many people who are not using it correctly. Yours is slightly better than most, but I still find it highly problematic. It's a holdover from usnet wars and I find that wars there vs wars on LJ to be entirely different things. To apply the term 'flame' here, I think tries to skew what's actually going on to a neat box people understand, regardless that the issue no longer fits inside.

But that had nothing to do with you or anything you said. Just me bubbling over in annoyance.

But I reserve the right to whine, in my journal, about the unfairness of life. It's (in-between the linkspam) what my journal is _for_.

I would never, ever disagree with that. It's what I use my journal for, completely.

The issue is that you didn't set this up as a whine. You set this up as an I believe type of entry, which logically leads to people like me coming in here and going "but". I've learned to do things like lock my whining or make sure I'm really clear I am whining and that I know I'm being unfair to lots of parties involved to make sure I don't have people misconstruing what I'm doing.

Your methodologies will vary *shrug*

I stand by the second sentence. In my experience, this is what happens. Not every time, but _more_ than anything else.

I don't disagree with that statement (well, no, I do, but for right now I'll leave it go) because I'll try to explain again that's not the point. You're assuming that everyone involved wants to provide constructive dialogue and edumacation. That's simply not true.

Some people are trying to educate. Some people are just angry and don't give a damn anymore. Some people are furious that they have to edumacate yet one more time and hope that maybe this time, more than two or three people actually figure it out. Some people are just disappointed.

You cannot look at this huge, wide-reaching, complex thing and distill it down to "well, this is how I want to learn from it". Your learning, while valued, is not actually the point. The point is that people are tired and angry and have been poked by some fairly specific sticks, as well as some unspecific, and are reacting to it. Their reactions vary wildly.

To tacitly imply (and I do think it's tacitly) that their reactions must therefore be for your benefit, somehow, makes you part of what they're reacting against.

It makes me part of it, too. I'm basically using a bunch of people's pain. I've had mine used in other situations. It's one of those sucky parts of human nature.

and I'd like to make it clear that I'm not saying he was right (it sounds, to be honest, like he was horribly defensive and handled it awfully and offensively).

I didn't think you were, but as you brought it up as an example of where the conversation went too far in a direction you didn't like, that meant it was fair game for me to pick apart as to why it went off in that direction. Your example was not actually relevant to your point, basically. In fact, it mostly proves mine: he acted in bad faith. The fact that he thought he was being 'nice' was irrelevant. He wasn't and when called on it acted like a defensive asshat of the worst caliber. There was nothing nice or constructive about that conversation because it started out neither nice or constructive.