As I said earlier, I've seen plenty of what you're talking about. Found that responding to that sort of thing usually feeds it.
I had to learn scroll & ignore after being on an unmoderated site for a number of years. A lot of the time, you could tell when a flame war had fired up on one or between a couple of the boards there, cuz the server got slower. Some people there sent emails to employers & a lot of people had personal info about them posted (names, addresses, phone numbers, financial info, info about spouses, info about any court records, stuff posted years earlier at different sites). The posts of personal info were usually done by sock puppets, so it was impossible to tell "friend" from "foe".
I think the wisest move is to stay out of all factions, including the ones that would normally be attractive, cuz people in it are closer to our own POV. Agreeing with a faction doesn't make one a member of it. It takes off board activity (like gossiping in FReepmail) to become a member. You can never really know who you're dealing with on the net.
I can control the behaviour of exactly one person, me. Any time I find myself tempted to try to tell someone else to control their behaviour to my liking, it's time for me to reel myself in. It works every single time it's tried! I'll express my reaction to things people have written, once, but what they do with it is up to them. If they continue the behaviour, scroll & ignore works better than trying to argue.
Hope you won’t mind toooooo much.
Not at all!
THANKS
for your wise exhortations.
Maybe I’ll grow up enough to take more of it to heart and action by the time I’m 80?
God have mercy! LOL.
From another thread here on FR
So, he worked on a YWAM trip, one of the girls killed at the church recently returned from a mission trip. My thoughts are being confirmed. The motive is going to get pedestrian in a hurry. Which will do nothing to diminish the horror of the event. It will slow down the media.