For the love of all that is effing holy - quit arguing!

I so agree. I’ve started to limit my time here because I think people are really stressed out, tired of Covid, and we all know that there’s issues in every states not just Florida.

I find I am spending way less time here. I would like the politics to have their own group. Those threads are not friendly or educational. It’s all bashing especially if you have your own thoughts and try to share them. Travel advice should be just that. Stay to the topic or create your own thread!

NO!   

Here's the thing, we've had an extended period of time here where a small group has been allowed - either by ignoring, or silently agreeing - to being abusive and rude at the drop of a hat.  The tone here has greatly diminished as we allow certain posters to call others crude and disgusting names - all in the fight to be right.  And by right, I mean "democrat".  There's no room for debate or discussion, and that is certainly proven by the fact that an innocent request for TRAVEL INFORMATION for god's sake bring two of the most heinous offenders into the fray within a couple of posts to demean the OP for her request.  

Yeah. We're not arguing more, we're being baited more.  Its borderline abusive, if you think about it.  

Make a separate politics board, I guess that would help.  Or perhaps not.  

This is what I have been trying to do lately. However, non-political threads have been getting less. I see a thread about Clearwater recommendations and since I love Clearwater beach and Clearwater aquarium I open it. Few posts in and it turned political.

Normally I roll my eyes at these posters but last night apparently was my tipping point. Earlier in the evening dh and I were watching the news. We watch CNN and then we switch to Fox News or vice versa because I want to get both sides of the news and then somewhere in the middle is the truth. So we heard comments from both Democrat and Republican senators and BOTH sides were pointing fingers, etc. I said to dh there is a serious crisis in Ukraine right now and they can’t even just focus on that situation and fixing it. Now is not the time for arguing it is a time to be united and to find solutions to help Ukraine. I then come here and an innocent vacation thread had turned political.

Thanks for the recommendation, I just put a hold on it at the library.

And these type of arguments have chased a lot of long-term peas off the board.
There's a lot fewer people here now.
Right now you can still be on page one with comments from 13 hours ago.
Remember when it would move so fast?
Cannot believe how the travel post turned so bad
(I did comment on it just answering the question/giving my opinion on Clearwater).

Yeah, I backed out of that thread fast.

I have no plans on traveling to Fl anytime soon. ( possibly for reasons similar to those peas stances ) But I’ve been in the past and there’s nice stuff to do. It was a travel advice thread, it was not the place for a political smack down. If I want to talk about Fl recent bullshit policies I’ll start a political thread not rudely jam my opinion into another thread where it has no place.

My Clearwater travel advice is 30 years old so I just left the thread since I had nothing positive to offer.

Yeah, I’m the only person on this board who has ever called someone a name. You are just as big of an offender of “abusive” behavior but yours is supposedly in the name of justice.

You’ve tried rallying the troops to your side and it hasn’t worked. Maybe it’s time you sit down.

I see the irony of commenting on this thread when I lost my ever loving shit last week and derailed a few threads. In my defense, I was extremely ill and hopped up on some really fine drugs - I do try and be more measured in my responses typically and know when to let things go when clearly the discussion has become a big hot mess. There is some truth to kibblesandbits post, but disagree that papercrafteradvocate is one of the offenders for abusiveness. There's give and take there, really the hardest part for me as a reader of her posting style is coming back to a contentious thread after some time away and quoting like 10 things in a row. I get wanting to respond, but if you're not there for the back and forth, just read and respond in one post or two posts with a summary of your thoughts and responses (hey we're venting and it irritates me, I fully know you can do whatever you want). There are a couple much worse offenders who just fly into guns blazing and really the sad part is right now they can't even listen when they're posting inaccurate information as they're too busy being right and schooling someone. pinklady just relishes being the 2peas bitch and coming in cursing, so if you don't like that posting style, block her.

The point of this thread is "arguing", yet here you are.  I wonder what it would look like if you were to view your comments in the other thread from everyone else's viewpoint?  Why is it that everyone else read your post in a completely different way than you meant it? That's where we're going with this thread.  

I'm not interesting in arguing with you on a thread about arguing, lol.  Clearly we will disagree. 

Thanks for that! I just bought it for .24 cents because I had a credit left over from something I'd returned.   I'd much rather read this type of book on my Kindle because usually they don't come in large-print format for a regular book and often the font is too small. On the Kindle I can enlarge it.   sigh...the perils of getting older. 

Weird - it’s $3.99 for me too. Just bought it.

Hopefully with the weather getting warmer more people can go outside, touch grass, and look at clouds. Because some people really need to take a breather.

I do think it is funny that someone (NOT THE OP) who is extremely rude and bombastic in their own way is calling others out for the exact same behavior they dish out in the guide of standing up for what is right.

That being said, there are maybe 4 or 5 posters out of all the people here who derail threads and just argue amongst themselves. I personally find the ignore feature plenty useful and just utilize that and have found my time here much more pleasant. I understand that the ignore feature does not work if you peruse the board via the app or such, but I just use it regularly via my browser because the ignore feature is that important to me.

Regarding standing up to bullies and such, being a bully back isn't terribly effective and seems to only increase tension and lead to more endless arguments. There are plenty of peas who call out nastiness and stand up for people without ever turning nasty themselves and that usually ends up with a mea culpa from the pea who was being a bitch. Of course, some just double down and then triple down, but that is when the ignore or just scroll by comes in handy.

Honestly, I get tired of these threads turning into a "All the peas are so nasty and mean, what happened to this place" nonsense. I am sure if the people saying that actually sat down and wrote themselves a private list of the peas that are arguing and turning everything political the number would be under 10 for sure, and I bet it is closer to 5. (And two of them primarily only post in political threads)